Kim's Diary:

Akkodis Lead the Charge - the Sustainability Report

In February I joined the team as a Sustainability and Environmental Data Consultant, thanks to Akkodis and their Lead the Charge programme.

After becoming the successful Lead the Charge candidate, I moved from Australia to set up in Brackley and jumped right in. From data processing for our carbon footprint calculations to working on a range of projects to achieve our sustainability targets, it has been an intense and rewarding first half of my year with the team.

Thanks to the help of the other members of the sustainability team I have had the chance to see sustainability in action throughout all the team's activities. There has not been a single day where I did not go home having learned something I didn't know that morning, and I know there is a lot more to come.

A key project for our sustainability team is the annual Sustainability Report. Each year, in line with our commitment to transparency and accountability, we report on our progress against our sustainability targets and plans for future projects. Metrics and data points are a key part in communicating our progress, but obtaining these metrics would not be possible without the people across the team who drive our projects.

The report is our platform to share our commitment to sustainable high performance in everything we do at the factory and track, with our fans, partners and everyone else. As the Akkodis Lead the Charge candidate, I am mostly involved with the Environmental section of the report. However, Akkodis is also deeply committed to driving social impact and it was great to see the links within the Social and Governance pillars throughout the different projects we worked on.

Through my work on the report, I even had the chance to get involved with one of our Stemettes events, which focused on informing and supporting young girls and non-binary people in the STEAM fields.

In the sustainability team, our role is to further the sustainability conversation while also reporting our data in the most robust manner possible. When it comes to reporting and promoting the topic of sustainability, many people may not realise the amount of thought and effort that goes into turning complex data into clear and relatable content.

As a Formula 1 team, all our decisions are data-driven and backed up by rigorous work and research. This is not just for work relating to the car, but in everything we do as a team, and we pride ourselves on our precise and transparent work ethic.

Figuring out how to communicate in this way was a new exercise for me and turned out to be an exciting new skill to learn.

How do you decide which data points are most relevant? How do you clearly, but concisely, explain what the numbers mean? And how do you package all of that in a document that is still easy to read and understand? All questions I asked myself then, and still do for the projects I am currently working on.

The Sustainability Report kept us very busy, and one of my key responsibilities for it was collecting accurate and relevant data, analysing it and verifying our metrics. Doing this made me realise the importance of this work to ensure the team put forward credible claims. Our team puts a lot of time and effort towards the quality assurance of these metrics, and I am very grateful to have learnt from these processes.

Finding out that all calculations are checked and double-checked through a thorough approval process made me realise how much work goes on behind the scenes to ensure credible results are published. This means I spent a lot of time verifying waste volume numbers, commuting statistics, HVO emissions reductions and much more!

For our HVO-fuelled European season, for example, we had lots of data points available. Kilometres travelled, freight amount transported, fuel consumption, emissions reduction, to name a few of the most obvious factors, But which ones will help others best understand what we did? Putting myself in the shoes of someone who has not been in the detail of the project helped me look for statistics that would make the most sense. For example, calculating the HVO savings in terms of reducing kilometres travelled, which would resonate with any driver!

This year's Sustainability Report was a great learning experience and is a great illustration of how important it is to communicate sustainability stories in an impactful way. I found it so rewarding to help bring all our sustainability stories over the last year to life. Contributing to it was a great opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and what I have helped deliver whilst also pushing us to the next set of challenges.

With the audience that the team has and the spotlight that is on the sport, it is crucial for us to use our platform to transparently show how our sport can become more sustainable. Not only does it help us showcase our ever-growing commitment to sustainability, it also helps inspire others to work towards similar goals.

There is still a long way to go but I am so proud to be a part of a team, as the Akkodis Lead the Charge candidate, that takes this challenge to heart and can't wait to see what we achieve next to make incredible happen!