Building a transformational approach to impact for Sappi

Sappi, with its long-standing commitment to sustainability, needed a coherent strategy to further scale business and societal value creation. An important consideration, as one of the country’s largest land owners, was its relationship with rural communities.

Working closely with its exco and local communities, we helped Sappi to understand that a truly shared-value company needed to consider six areas of impact: Purpose and values; product design; environmental impact; communities; people management; and stakeholder relations.

We created a coherent framework that guided the transition to a shared-value company through four phases: compliance-led, managerial, strategic and transformational.

Partnering the four phases with six areas of impact created a single framework for thinking about and communicating societal impact. We also helped with a new strategy for partnering with and empowering rural communities.