Crowdsourcing Sustainability Innovation from Within!

Posted: September 02 2020

Sustainability is an increasing priority for industries. Businesses and communities are also coming together to reimagine a prosperous future in our new world. 

Since we launched our new focus this year on sustainability, I’ve been impressed by how many employees, colleagues, customers and investors have reached out to me, keen to know what AVEVA’s sustainability agenda will be, as well as sharing their own thoughts and perspectives. It’s been an inspiration to engage with such a passionate group of people and to launch an important strategic initiative for our company and for the world.

Shaping our strategy – led by our team

Inspired by this engagement and passion, in August AVEVA embarked on our first all-employee Sustainability Jam. When we invited teams from around the world to share their sustainability ideas and help contribute to the development of our own action plan, we weren’t sure what kind of a response we would receive. Of course, in-house ideation is not new - our global R&D teams regularly conduct hackathons and we run the AVEVA Academic Competitions, but this was the first time we have invited all employees to participate.

The response exceeded our wildest expectations. More than 2000 employees from over 40 countries spontaneously shared experiences and ideas and contributed to the activity. Their suggestions range from new sustainability practices and product developments, from new coding additions, to some truly wild and innovative suggestions. The passion and innovation we have ignited in our people all over the world has been amazing to see.  Almost 400 ideas were entered in the Sustainability Jam and more than 2500 employees cast votes. I was also delighted to note that 70% of the finalist ideas were from female team members, 30% from our early career talent, with 15+ different nationalities represented in the final round of ideas. It was a true embodiment of our AVEVA values, a celebration of our diversity and broad range of talent.

AVEVA’s leaders also took an active role - 17 stepped up to be executive mentors volunteering their time to support the finalist teams as they fine-tuned their pitches. Elizabeth John one of our team members from Bangalore, India said “it was great fun being part of the Sustainability Jam, I particularly loved the opportunity to think outside the bounds of my normal function and collaborate with my mentor, who really helped me with the crafting of my pitch focused on a customer circularity dashboard.”

Following the final judging we’re already progressing our home-grown ideas. Some have incredible product potential and have gone into our R&D development process. We’ve also committed to initiatives including planting trees as part of our employee recognition system, increasing sustainability in our offices, and expanding our software solutions to support and enable renewable energy.

The foundations for success

I couldn’t have asked for a better start to our employee sustainability activation, that builds on our corporate and social responsibility activities. We’re at the start of our sustainability journey, and now foundations are certainly in place to accelerate AVEVA’s leadership in this important area. It is inspiring to know that our employees are behind us - and indeed ahead of us - every step of the way, as we formulate our plans and play our part to accelerate innovation towards a more sustainable future for all.

• Learn more about AVEVA’s Corporate & Social Responsibility activities
• Find out more about AVEVA’s Action for Good programme