How Our Small Business Mapped Our Impact
Applying the Sustainable Development Goals
As a small business committed to sustainability, we understand the importance of aligning with global reporting standards to ensure transparency and accountability.
We are aware of the key governing bodies in sustainability reporting, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). For now, this report aims to identify the Sustainable Development Goals relevant to our business and generally understand our impact.
Anim8 Collective Founder, Sarah O’Sell, has taken courses including:
Yale School of Management Certificate in Sustainable Finance & Investment
University of California, Berkeley — School of Law Certificate in Sustainable Capitalism & ESG Law
University of Exeter Certificate for the Circular Economy Masterclass
Cradle to Cradle product design and engineering certification
A first step to understanding the impact of a business is clearly identifying what the business does. Anim8 Collective operates in the following areas: growth & business development for companies impacting sustainability, we specifically focus on growing the $5.6T circular economy market opportunity from 2030–2050, we are building a Collective expert and platform referral network to ensure resiliency for our clients, and we know that understanding direct operations impact will be critical for regulated Scope 1 and 2 emissions assessment down the line.
We identified that Anim8 Collective is impactful to:
This report marks the beginning of our journey and over time, we hope to develop an information architecture that tracks our environmental and social impact. We highly encourage the small to mid-size clients we work with to get started on their sustainability assessments, hopefully this article can be helpful to you too. Keep reading for our impact map!
Growth & Business Development for Companies Impacting Sustainability
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
According to the United Nations, global manufacturing growth has slowed. A robust and technologically advanced local industrial sector is important not only for GDP, but for supply security and access, controlling inflation and affordability, as well as enablement of critical equipment and product lifetime services such as repair, remanufacture, and recycling in the circular economy.
Many of these companies are founded by scientists and engineers who struggle with tight budgets and limited access to sales enablement support. They often fail to scale their solutions past the applied research phase. This is why we are building our Growth Lab and are excited to empower these companies with accessible tools, templates, and business development processes.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
As of 2022, the United Nations found that 1 in 4 young people are not in education, employment, or training. A skills gap persists even in developed nations. Growing the local industrial sector enables workforce mobility with diverse opportunities in research and development, engineering, design, operations, information technology, logistics and supply chain, as well as administration. We encourage all clients to become stewards for workforce upskilling.
This does not need to mean building out a full program for each company, though these assets are helpful for fostering ongoing positive relationships with the brand. Teams can get started by identifying key regulatory agencies for their industry and serving on workforce development boards, participating and contributing material to inform third-party industry groups which tend to be funded by larger corporate partner initiatives to level-up their sector, as well as licensing material to career education platforms and universities.
Growing The $5.6T Circular Economy Opportunity
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
Bioeconomy: In 2022, ReFED estimated that 38% of the food supply in the USA went unsold or uneaten, representing $473.5B in wasted value. Yet there is hunger. Food systems surplus and agricultural field waste can be diverted to alternative cycles with value-minded systems thinking.
Circular Economy: The 2021 “Trash in America” report by Frontier Group estimates that 65% of waste that ends up in landfills consists of packaging (28%), nondurable goods (17.3%), and durable goods (19.5%). These goods are made of technical materials that could be repaired, repurposed, or recycled. This report also found that the United States waste stream makes up 12% of the planet’s trash. We estimate that the Circular Economy will present a $5.6T market growth opportunity from 2030–2050.
SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
With water stress rising globally, we believe everyone has a responsibility to address waste. While we are not an engineering firm and we do not directly address water use efficiency or manage hazardous chemicals and materials, we may make recommendations for challenge areas when we see them and can refer clients to experts in this area.
Building a Collective Expert and Platform Referral Network
SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Growing the estimated $5.6T Circular Economy global market opportunity is going to require bold innovation and investment to back it. With major downstream development needed, partnerships are essential to moving fast in distributed local markets. Studies show that the strength of our networks determines our success. Business and product models for the Circular Economy and Bioeconomy may be new, so collaborating with expert technology and industry advisors is key to accelerate go-to-market and ensure long-term business resiliency.
Direct Operations Impact
Anim8 Collective is a digital and remote-first team that prioritizes operations efficiency in resource use and digital footprint.
We strive to follow principles of inclusive design and practice user-engagement optimization to eliminate the technical debt and infrastructure waste of unnecessary assets, data, and content. Other tactics include data load optimization for digital assets.
The main environmental risks for Anim8 operations arise from the data centers powering our operational tools. These centers, hosting our data and online presence, pose risks in energy and water use, noise emissions, and e-waste as equipment ages. Mitigating these impacts is crucial for responsible operation.
Anim8 Collective prioritizes fair treatment and engagement with overburdened communities by communicating with technology providers about their impact.
We leverage our network’s influence to actively listen to communities and advocate for impactful regulations. Mitigation strategies we promote include renewable energy use, energy conservation with IoT systems, database cleansing, computation load balancing, and conducting calculations during non-peak hours. To address water concerns, we advocate on-site “micro-water” systems, minimizing consumption and waste. Liquid cooling technology mitigates noise emissions, and our commitment to circular economy principles promotes responsible E-Waste management.
Technology Provider Assessment In Progress
Example email to providers coming soon! We aim to provide this resource to our community as an example advocacy letter and tactic to use across the technology industry.
