Getting to Grips with Disclosure

Victoria Moorhouse, Global Climate and Nature Lead at Kingfisher plc, champions sustainability for the retail giant. Kingfisher, you say? It’s the international home improvement powerhouse spanning 8 European countries, 2000 stores, and e-commerce channels with iconic brands like B&Q, Castorama, and Screwfix. From home improvement to impact improvements, Kingfisher has committed to Science Based Targets (SBTi) with a goal to achieve net-zero operations by 2040. To date, they have made impressive progress, cutting emissions by 52.6%. How? Think 100% renewable energy, alternative delivery fuels, and smart energy efficiency investments.

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Whilst every sustainability professional wishes they spent their days cutting emissions and driving impact, the hard reality is that a significant amount of time is spent coordinating and completing disclosure and reporting. Sound familiar?

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We were lucky enough to sit down with Victoria, who gave us her 2 C’s on how to get to grips with disclosure and free up more time for action.

Victoria is part of Kingfisher’s core Responsible Business Team, tasked with ensuring that the climate transition planning is aligned and integrated across retail banners and markets. She ensures everyone is pulling towards Kingfisher’s near-term SBTs and net zero goals across Scopes 1,2 and 3. And it doesn’t stop there… She's also working to drive Kingfisher’s nature agenda to deliver on their ambitions to be Forest Positive by 2025.

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A big part of the role requires internal collaboration, across banners, markets, and business functions. Victoria’s top tip for hacking collaboration:
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• Align your approach with their priorities. Understand colleagues' priorities and translate your goals into actionable steps within their existing tasks. This fosters co-ownership and drives long-term commitment. Create regular touch points across business functions and banners, this rapport helps you navigate their existing responsibilities and timelines.
  

What does disclosure look like at Kingfisher?

Kingfisher's sustainability disclosure and reporting process is a testament to slick teamwork. Whilst TCFD and Kingfisher’s annual reports can be very demanding and time consuming, Victoria and the team have identified some key unlocks to expedite the process:

• Secure board level buy-in: This is key to leadership engagement, sponsorship, and ownership.
• Establish regular working groups: Set up working groups with one program of work that everyone is working towards. This enables the cross-functional sharing of knowledge across banners.
  Example: Kingfisher’s Climate Disclosure Steer Committee was set up to integrate climate reporting across group functions. The right representation is crucial to making this work. This working group in particular has Director representation from the Finance, Risk, Audit, and Responsible Business functions.
• Decentralise ownership: Encourage team leads to delegate the sustainability point of contact from within their team. This encourages the task to be absorbed into the POC’s day job vs an ad hoc task.
• Timebound planning: Treat disclosure like a project, book diaries in advance, and allocate sufficient runway time (it always takes longer than you think).
• Stay informed: Dedicate resources to tracking evolving regulations and best practices. Industry group discussions e.g. The British Retail Consortium’s Climate Roadmap Group and relevant events are great ways of keeping up to date.

Beyond disclosure, Victoria’s success mantras are:

• Patient impatience. Driving sustainability takes time, requiring stakeholder input and buy-in. Be an "agitator" for progress, but navigate processes strategically and sensitively. You have to bring people along with you. Hang in there.
• Big picture focus. Especially with disclosure, it’s easy to get bogged down in the finer details. Look for the big picture - this is where you can inspire stakeholder engagement.
• Collaborative ownership. Sustainability is not a solo effort (or even a solo team’s effort). Foster ownership across relevant departments, building capacity, and understanding priorities.
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Check out Kingfisher’s Responsible Business Report here.
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