Sustainability
Consulting
Global Management Consultancy specializing in delivering strategic and operational excellence across diverse industries.
Sustainability consulting
With growing regulatory pressures and an increasingly eco-conscious consumer base, sustainability is becoming a top priority for business leaders. Industries with a strong emphasis on reputation, such as luxury goods, are making sustainability their number one concern.
Although awareness is rising, there remain notable gaps in understanding. Some businesses focus narrowly on their carbon footprint while neglecting other key environmental aspects like the sourcing of raw materials. Others may only address ‘direct’ impacts and fail to consider ‘indirect’ factors, limiting the scope of their sustainability efforts.
First steps to sustainability
The first critical step is to gain comprehensive, end-to-end visibility of a business’s environmental impact, covering key indicators such as CO2 emissions, pollution, and water usage. This should span the entire lifecycle of a product, from raw material extraction to the final sale, to pinpoint areas that require attention.
Robust modeling capability and a thorough understanding of source data empower companies to perform Life Cycle Assessments (LCA). This process helps businesses identify and prioritize key improvement areas such as eco-design, supplier selection, production impact reduction, transportation optimization, and financial reporting, among others.
Sustainability transformation
Once areas for improvement are identified, the next step is to transform business operations to mitigate environmental impact by activating these levers — cost, inventory, and service.
As with any complex transformation, this requires deep technical knowledge and business acumen to implement and sustain the changes, while continually optimizing performance.
Helping with sustainability challenges
Our team of sustainability experts dives deep into identifying and resolving complex sustainability issues, delivering concrete, measurable results. The navigation menu on this page outlines specific sustainability challenges we regularly tackle.
Combining technical expertise with operational experience and business insight, we help our clients understand and address their sustainability impacts. By embedding real change, we deliver long-lasting outcomes. Our collaborative, flexible approach, coupled with appropriate challenges where needed, ensures buy-in at all levels of an organization and leads to successful outcomes. Learn more about our approach here.
Learn more about our Sustainability services
Green operations strategy
Design for sustainability
Sustainable distribution
Environmental impact & maturity analysis
Sustainable sourcing strategy
Sustainable finance
Sustainable operations transformation
Sustainable manufacturing
Green operation strategy
Introduction and challenges
After years of lenient environmental regulations, sustainability has now become a major focus for many business leaders. In sectors like luxury goods, where reputation is paramount, it has emerged as the top priority.
Environmental impacts are divided into four main categories: climate, biodiversity, resource consumption, and health. Measuring these impacts throughout the entire value chain, from raw material procurement to product recycling, and identifying methods to minimize negative effects, is now critical for businesses.
However, addressing these issues presents a range of challenges:
- The ability to measure multiple environmental impacts beyond just CO2 emissions, and the need to establish suitable KPIs for each category.
- Taking a holistic approach to environmental costs rather than addressing them in isolation. For example, while reducing batch sizes may lower the risk of overstocking, it may also lead to increased waste.
- Potential conflicts with other business objectives, such as the use of air transport in the luxury sector, which offers agility and helps reduce stock levels.
The traditional operations triangle of cost, stock, and service must evolve into a square, incorporating environmental considerations as the fourth critical factor.
How we can help
Alongside integrating environmental considerations into our broader business transformation projects, we offer support with both initial environmental impact assessments and subsequent implementation efforts.
The entire value chain offers levers for improvement, including:
- Product offer adaptation: adjusting the speed of renewal and improving product sustainability.
- Upstream operations: selecting eco-friendly raw materials, ensuring CSR compliance, sourcing locally, and optimizing packaging.
- Production processes: reducing waste, conserving resources like energy and water, and shifting towards less polluting industrial methods.
- Supply chain: adjusting batch sizes, refining forecasting, optimizing stock placement, transportation modes, and last-mile delivery.
- Retail: optimizing store allocations, limiting physical inventory, and reducing plastic packaging.
- Second-life initiatives: facilitating recycling and upcycling.
ATW also provides comprehensive support during the implementation stages, including:
- Defining KPIs such as carbon footprint reduction, product recyclability rates, supplier sustainability indices, mileage, water consumption, and energy efficiency.
- Empowering the organization to drive change.
- Managing the transformation program effectively.
- Offering specialized expertise where necessary.
- Supporting the management of human factors throughout the transformation.
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Environmental impact and maturity analysis
Introduction and challenges
Companies often lack comprehensive visibility of the environmental impacts of their operations across the entire value chain. This lack of insight hampers the creation and execution of a robust environmental excellence strategy that aims to reduce environmental impact while meeting commercial objectives such as cost, inventory, and service.
Most reporting only covers direct impacts, typically scope 1 and 2 emissions under the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol. While this is important, it excludes supplier-related emissions, which often make up a huge portion of total emissions. Furthermore, many analyses focus solely on carbon footprints, neglecting other critical aspects such as biodiversity and pollution, which are essential for safeguarding human health.
In addition to understanding quantitative environmental impacts, businesses must recognize that distinct functions—such as product development, procurement, production, finance, and logistics—may be at varying levels of maturity in terms of processes and organizational readiness. Assessing this maturity against best practices is crucial for identifying actionable steps to make operations more
How we can help
ATW assists businesses in measuring and minimizing environmental impacts while supporting commercial goals by:
Mapping the entire value chain, from raw material sourcing through production and distribution to the end of a product’s life cycle
Conducting environmental impact analysis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, covering metrics like CO2 emissions, water consumption, pollution, and waste, while addressing broader environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, and human health
Identifying and evaluating opportunities to reduce environmental impact and drive business success, exploring new business models
Assessing sustainability maturity using our proprietary scprime® methodology and developing action plans for improvement
Leading transformation programs that integrate environmental responsibility with operational excellence, fostering business growth while balancing environmental and commercial objectives
Sustainable operations transformation
Introduction and challenges
Creating genuinely sustainable operations requires comprehensive changes across all business functions. This transformation includes eco-conscious product development, responsible supplier selection, sustainable production techniques, location decisions for manufacturing, environmentally friendly logistics, and fostering circular economy initiatives in after-sales services.
Achieving these objectives requires deep technical expertise and business acumen to navigate specific functional challenges, make informed trade-offs, and gain stakeholder buy-in. Furthermore, transforming to sustainable operations is not just about operational changes; it necessitates a fundamental shift in organizational mindsets and behaviors, aligning with new operational standards for excellence.
This transformation provides a significant opportunity because it taps into a broader sense of purpose, helping to create consensus around a shared eco-responsible vision. It also addresses the growing need for employees to find meaning in their work, which can serve as a catalyst for lasting organizational change.
How we can help
ATW combines its deep knowledge of operations, environmental issues, and transformation programs to help businesses transition towards sustainable operations:
- Applying an operational excellence approach across all functions, such as new product development, purchasing, and logistics, using our scprime® methodology
- Managing complex transformation programs with multiple interdependent workstreams and functional areas
- Developing and implementing relevant KPIs and accountability structures
- Providing subject matter expertise in operational excellence and environmental standards where needed
- Supporting the human aspects of transformation, including organizational evolution and innovative employee engagement strategies
Design for sustainability
Introduction and challenges
Around 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined during the design phase, making sustainable design initiatives critical for businesses aiming to fulfill their environmental commitments. Traditionally, product design focused primarily on financial costs. However, as awareness of sustainability grows, environmental considerations have become increasingly important.
Maximizing customer value while minimizing costs is no longer the sole focus. Environmental impact must now be a dominant factor in decision-making from the outset. With consumers increasingly valuing eco-conscious brands and with tightening environmental regulations, incorporating sustainability into product design is no longer optional.
Eco-design offers a pathway for businesses to balance customer needs and values while minimizing environmental harm throughout the product’s lifecycle. Furthermore, it can reduce operational costs, simplify supply chain processes, and mitigate risks, making it a key lever for delivering both environmental and broader business goals.
How we can help
ATW supports companies in implementing sustainable design approaches by:
- Establishing a framework for sustainable design at both the product and portfolio levels, identifying priority areas for action
- Defining key environmental impact indicators for each product component, such as carbon footprint and resource consumption
- Conducting Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to evaluate environmental impacts across the value chain
- Identifying areas of greatest exposure to environmental challenges and where processes are misaligned with sustainability goals
- Facilitating multifunctional working groups to explore opportunities to reduce environmental impacts
- Collaborating with suppliers to enhance eco-design and reduce environmental impact
- Identifying levers for reducing carbon footprint, aligning teams, and assessing technical and financial risk appetites
- Standardizing eco-design processes and developing decision-making tools to ensure long-term sustainability
- Utilizing digital prototypes and samples to reduce the environmental impact of product development
- Assessing new product development maturity using our scprime® methodology and creating action plans for improvement
Sustainable sourcing strategy
Introduction and challenges
Sustainable sourcing is now a priority for procurement departments, moving beyond being a niche concern or a risk management tactic. Procurement activities can significantly impact financial performance and sustainability efforts, influencing asset utilization, transportation distances, and stock levels within the supply chain.
Sourcing decisions reflect a company’s commitment to sustainability, often accounting for most emissions (Scope 3 under the GHG Protocol). Suppliers are also highly visible to external stakeholders, making sustainable sourcing a key factor in managing corporate reputation. Sustainable sourcing is thus a critical performance lever for procurement strategies and an opportunity to add value to the business.
How we can help
ATW provides comprehensive support in sustainable sourcing strategies:
- Developing ‘Make or Buy’ strategies that factor in environmental and social impacts along with life cycle cost evaluations
- Creating new procurement strategies, such as sourcing recycled materials or rethinking traditional ownership-based models
- Collaborating with suppliers to assess and improve their environmental performance
- Minimizing waste in the supply chain by adjusting minimum order quantities and lead times
- Structuring alternative sourcing channels to secure access to raw materials and improve competitiveness
- Partnering with suppliers to optimize product design for environmental impact, considering raw material consumption, packaging, and recyclability
- Evaluating sustainable sourcing maturity using our scprime® methodology and creating action plans for improvement
- Adapting processes, organization, governance, and tools to align with best practices and ISO 20400 standards for sustainable sourcing
Sustainable manufacturing
Introduction and challenges
Manufacturing operations offer significant opportunities for reducing environmental impacts through resource conservation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction. However, aligning sustainability with traditional manufacturing models poses challenges due to resource constraints, energy cost variability, and the need for large-scale investments to modernize facilities.
Sustainable manufacturing practices, such as adopting circular economy principles, are crucial to maintaining competitiveness while transitioning to more sustainable models that ensure long-term profitability.
How we can help
ATW supports clients through four key areas:
- Eco-Manufacturing: Enhance the efficiency of manufacturing processes, production tools, and facilities through targeted investments, including our scprime® methodology and Stable Ops™ approach.
- Operational Excellence: Foster ecological best practices in production, maintenance, and waste management. Implement these improvements with advanced digital management solutions and an integrated management system (IDEX) to achieve further goals.
- Sustainable Footprint: Incorporate environmental and social impacts into your industrial model and strategy to define a competitive, economical, and sustainable approach.
- Industrial Ecology: Identify and execute synergies with the local professional and personal ecosystem to recover heat, waste, or co-products (reuse or recycle) under a circular economy framework.
Sustainable distribution
Introduction and challenges
Moving toward sustainable distribution is a critical component of achieving a company’s overall environmental strategy. While distribution efficiency and strong environmental practices often align—such as optimizing load fill to reduce trips, emissions, and costs—distribution activities face a significant ecological transformation influenced by government regulations and shifting consumer preferences.
Governments are imposing heavy taxes on fossil fuel usage and CO2 emissions, while introducing measures to improve local environments, such as parking restrictions, lorry bans, urban tolls, and air quality mandates. These factors add to the challenges posed by last-mile logistics. Environmentally conscious consumers are demanding locally sourced products, transported through clean energy methods, in recyclable or reusable packaging, and stored in low-impact warehouses.
As a result, many businesses are reconsidering their distribution strategies to enhance competitiveness. Balancing these environmental goals with customers’ growing service expectations, particularly around returns, remains a challenge.
To stay ahead, companies must innovate to cut costs, boost eco-credentials, and be viewed as environmentally proactive to retain satisfied customers and outpace competitors.
How we can help
ATW integrates sustainability into various logistics studies (service strategy, network design, logistics performance, transport) and assists businesses in reducing the environmental impact of their distribution:
- Challenge service offerings by integrating customer-perceived value, profitability, and environmental impact.
- Develop logistics plans that include environmental dimensions (CO2 footprint) alongside cost and service considerations.
- Implement a CO2 reduction strategy by thoroughly analyzing logistics and transport emissions, operational performance (real occupancy rates), building and machine footprint, and providing reduction recommendations, including modifications in transport modes.
- Conduct comparative analysis of environmentally friendly packaging solutions (including reusable options) with economic and environmental business cases and support in implementation (reverse supply chain).
- Build a business case for transitioning from air to less emissive modes of transport (such as sea or rail) by evaluating the impact on lead times, costs, inventory, and the environment.
- Implement “turnkey” container tracking systems using IoT technology to manage transport logistics and secure conditions (e.g., geolocation, temperature control, humidity levels) for maritime or rail shipping.
- Assess the maturity of sustainable distribution using our scprime® methodology and develop an action plan for improvement.
Sustainable Finance
Introduction and challenges
Sustainable development, once primarily the responsibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) officers, has increasingly gained prominence in the finance function.
Government regulations now require more extensive reporting on environmental impacts, and investors are demanding transparency on sustainability performance, backed by clear KPIs and evidence of tangible progress. Beyond meeting regulatory requirements, environmental transition has become a strategic priority for companies. It involves creating new value propositions to meet evolving customer expectations, transforming operations, and fulfilling the responsibilities of being a conscientious employer.
In this context, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) plays a pivotal role in aligning the sustainability agenda with overall business strategy and management, such as challenging business decisions during management discussions and integrating sustainability into investment decision processes. While environmental impact measurement tools should not directly influence financial reporting, which follows accounting standards, the CFO must provide the necessary frameworks, tools, and reporting to drive the company’s sustainability strategy and performance. The critical question is identifying the appropriate metrics and how they should be measured.
How we can help
ATW brings together experts from both operations and finance to assist clients in modernizing their management frameworks and investment processes, ensuring the integration and evaluation of environmental and social factors.
Integrate sustainability impacts into internal management dialogue
- Collaborating with operations to quantify and analyze environmental impacts across the company’s entire value chain to identify actionable improvement initiatives.
- Establishing relevant new KPIs, determining how they should be calculated, and aligning them with the company’s sustainability goals and action plans.
- Assisting in the integration of these KPIs into the CFO’s dashboard and the company’s overall management routines.
Adapt the investment decisions process
- Partnering with operations to identify and assess investment opportunities and risks based on a thorough analysis of environmental impacts.
- Incorporating sustainability criteria into investment decisions by modeling and estimating the environmental effects of potential capital expenditure (Capex) projects.
Support in design reporting for financial community
- Assisting in the development of extra-financial reporting for investors, banks, and other external stakeholders in response to their specific requests.