We Won Gold…! It’s Been a Journey & There’s More Work To Do.
BIC Services has been on a sustainability journey and in late 2022 it paid off. We were awarded a Gold EcoVadis Sustainability Rating for 2023.
“Achieving a Gold Rating for our sustainability efforts has been a strong endorsement,” Mark Gerdovic said on hearing about the award. “We are delighted, but we also know there’s ongoing work to do. It’s all part of our commitment to being a leader and maintaining our competitive advantage in the cleaning industry in Australia.”
The EcoVadis award was for efforts undertaken in 2022 and now BIC has moved up from an overall Bronze Rating in 2022 to a Gold Rating in 2023. Under the EcoVadis global sustainability ratings assessment methodology, the focus has been on four key areas of sustainability:
- Impact on the environment
- Labour practices and human rights
- Company ethics
- Sustainable procurement practices.
BIC scored 72 overall points out of a hundred, with excellent performances in both Environment (90 points) and in Labour and Human Rights (80 points).
Why EcoVadis?
EcoVadis is a trusted, global leader in assessing and awarding sustainability ratings to businesses and organisations both large and small. It’s also very contextual. As they say: “We make sustainability real, helping our clients with assessment methodologies tailored to industry, sector, country and the actual size of the business.”
Corrective Action Plans
Included in the annual EcoVadis assessment is a Corrective Action Plan for each of the four key sustainability areas. The four Corrective Action Plans help BIC to see where we sit in relation to our industry and sector; what we’re doing well, and where we need to focus our efforts and frankly, do better.
“I think the main benefit for BIC has been understanding where we sit in relation to other cleaning industry players in Australia …and where we need to focus our attention to be even better in the future,” said Mark Gerdovic, who is General Manager, Commercial Excellence.
Shining a light on all our ESG practices
The EcoVadis assessment is very comprehensive and has definitely shone a light on areas where BIC can innovate, lead and achieve real and actionable sustainability goals. For example, we are pretty good at people management, with our fair and transparent grievances practices and awareness and communication around modern slavery risks in our workforce.
We are also showing the way in waste reduction across the cleaning industry and BIC is advanced in our carbon management processes, with a comprehensive Greenhouse Gases (GHG) management system that comes from using more bio-degradable cleaning alternatives and employing the latest recycling technologies.
However, what the EcoVadis assessment has also done is to highlight areas where we can do better, and where we need to measure and report better. So, while we know many of our initiatives are making a difference, we need to measure and communicate the results better so we can provide verifiable evidence in future EcoVadis assessments.
Our Gold Rating has been a great reward for genuine improvements in all areas of sustainability at BIC Services. We will be studying the report in detail and looking carefully at each of the Corrective Action plans. These are really helpful. They allow us to share information about our initiatives and ongoing improvements, get feedback and they continue to help us benchmark sustainability at BIC Services.
“Well done everyone… the EcoVadis exercise and assessment has allowed us, as a growing and innovative company to demonstrate and measure our commitment to sustainability and good ESG practices,” CEO, Tony Gorgovski commented. “It’s been great, and we’ll be back for another assessment later this year.”
For more information about sustainability at BIC Services visit:
