and the importance of having an ecosystem thinking and thinking.
Welcome, Amy. It's really nice to have you here.
My pleasure.
We just heard both Roger and Jacob pressing the importance of
having an ecosystem thinking when designing your business strategy.
I would love to hear how you navigated the balance of taking
the different stakeholders consideration into perspective
when you designed your business strategy at NovaZions.
Absolutely.
I think fundamentally it's about how do you build all of those
stakeholders into the very definition of the purpose of the company,
how you frame the strategic question.
questions and choices you want to
address and also how you measure success.
So if I take the NovaZions example,
our company purpose is to find biological solutions
to enable healthier planet and healthier people.
By definition,
we already start there to incorporate a broader stakeholder thinking.
When we embarked on our most recent strategy in 2021,
we gave ourselves the ambition of
doubling sales by 2030. But by doing so,
we targeted the big,
asking ourselves the question,
what are the big fundamental challenges society
is facing where we can bring biological solutions.
And we focused on three.
So reducing carbon dioxide emissions,
transforming food systems.
So helping food producers and farmers produce more
with less and fundamentally enabling healthier lives.
So all of the strategic choices that we made
in that strategy came back to those three.
And then I come back to say how you measure success.
It's deeply ingrained in NovaZions history.
For the past 20 years,
we've evaluated success on the triple bottom line.
So it's financial performance,
contribution to society,
and contribution to the environment and sustainability.
All three of those with clear metrics.
So it's not good enough
to deliver great financial results without realizing
the commitments and the metrics that we've set
for ourselves in terms of society and environment.
So really baking in all of those different
stakeholders into the very definition,
of what it is of what it is as a company we're aspiring to achieve.
And how do you see that being influenced by the current Poli crisis?
Is that rocking the boat or is it
just making you even more determined?
It's certainly changed where we invest,
but it doesn't rock the fundamentals.
I mean,
I think businesses and humans,
we're all human.
When crisis hits, we go back to our core.
And I think that's why it is so important that sustainability
is fundamentally integrated into the purpose of the company.
If it's a side thing.
If it's a side thing,
a few people in the organization do on the side,
it will get left by the wayside.
It's fundamental to our core purpose and strategy.
I give you an example.
In COVID, people stopped driving.
The demand for bioethanol dropped by two thirds overnight.
But we retargeted those production facilities
to target some of the areas that were growing.
People were baking more, cooking more at home.
Other parts of the business demand biological solutions.
So having that ability to come back to the core
and realizing that sustainability isn't an option.
It's what we do.
And I think that it ties also really well to a point that Roger
made in terms of making sure to really understand the customer
and also something around having the customer demand there.
But maybe that's not the full truth.
I would love to hear your perspective on the
customer demand and the role a company has.
to play in that whole city.
Yeah,
I mean,
I think at the end of the day,
customers need to pull.
But our whole industry,
our whole economy is built around fossil fuels.
Regulations,
subsidies,
everything that governs how we do
business is regulated in those spaces.
So customers can pull, but it's not enough.
It really has to be the full ecosystem thinking in terms of how
do we actually challenge ourselves to do things in new ways.
Customers don't have full visibility of how we manufacture.
We try to increase that visibility.
But sometimes I think that's where
the companies have a responsibility.
I think we look at it
maybe as even an obligation to challenge ourselves to say we need
to find better ways of providing the world with the products that
they need that don't necessarily kill the planet at the same time.
And that's really where I don't think it's
enough just to wait for customer pull.
Customers don't have enough visibility.
So we have to make sure that regulators,
we partner with governments,
regulators,
suppliers,
and our customers to find those solutions.
And what's the role that you see regulators playing here?
Is it the big hammer?
Is it the incentives part?
I think
it's really, to me, it's about enabling.
If I take a very simple example here in Europe,
biosolutions are regulated as chemicals.
So there is no regulatory pathway that says we can accelerate
implementation of greener solutions to replace fossil-based chemicals.
That needs to change in order to enable new solutions
to come to the world and come to the market.
And that's really where,
again,
we see it's our role to engage,
to make sure the world understands that those solutions exist.
Customers can't pull what they don't see.
So how do we actually make sure we can
educate on where the possibilities lie?
And then we do rely on regulators
to make sure that there is a pathway
to bring that to market.
How do you measure impact at NovoScipes?
Yeah,
we believe very strongly in the need to have very clearly
articulated and quantifiable targets to be able to track and measure.
We follow SBTI targets and we have sustainability targets for 2025,
for 2030,
and for 2050. We need to set that vision in order to be able to
put the actions in place that will help us to keep true to it.
I give an example.
We have the objective to have 100% renewable
energy sources for our manufacturers.
And we have the objective of manufacturing by
2025. And we're well along the way to get there.
But because we've been able to sit at the high level,
set those targets,
and then enable the organization on the ground to
find the projects of what that actually means in terms
of how do we implement and how do we drive change.
And how did you decide on what choices
to casket down in the organizations?
And can you also put a few words on the leadership
capabilities that needs to be in place to make it a reality?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean,
we launched our most recent strategy in
2021. So we're 18 months into the process.
And I think what we realized as we rolled it
out was that actually putting the strategic choices
on paper was really the tip of the iceberg.
That really to make it come to life and to drive change,
we needed to embed it into the organization.
So we actually defined six must win battles.
And we said,
these are the things that are non-negotiable that have
to happen if we want to bring this strategy to life.
And one of them was actually succeeding with the strategy.
So it was actually defining how do we engage with the organization?
How do we build capabilities?
How do we train?
And how do we communicate in a two-way dialogue with
our employees to understand when things are working,
when they're working?
So we're not working.
So we can adjust course.
And we don't just continue to push if it's not
resonating and if it's not gaining traction and impact.
So it really is,
I think you ask about leadership qualities.
Yes,
it's rolling out a strategy,
but doing so with humility,
with curiosity,
and with engagement with our employees,
with our customers,
with our suppliers,
to be able to adjust the course as we go and stay true to the vision.
And we also watched Jakob before and that incredible
journey that they're going to be on in Rio Tinto.
What would be your best advice to
Jakob making that journey successful?
I think to me, it's stay true to the vision.
Don't let it waver.
I mean, you have an ability to impact.
And one thing that he said really resonated with me is he said,
the higher you,
he set the bar on sustainability.
I think he said the more he saw the employee engagement at Rio Tinto.
And I would just say,
you know,
working with Novazymes,
we are a purpose-led organization.
And you see the power that that can unlock
when people bring true passion and their full
selves into work that I think it pays off.
And I do think having that larger purpose
is a real motivator to be able to drive change.
That's a really nice quote to end on.
So thank you,
Amy,
for being here with us and for helping us unfold how a
sustainable business strategy can live in an organization.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks.