UTS Innovation Masterclass: ESG Strategies for Success

Join this SME@UTS Masterclass to discover how environmental and social governance (ESG) strategies can add value to your business and govern your success!

63% of SMEs think sustainability is important but only 25% have taken any action. One reason could be that no-one has really provided a mechanism to make it easy and low cost to get the ball rolling.

As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and no-one expects SMEs to get to zero carbon emissions in a flash. This masterclass will help you accelerate towards ESG success at your own pace, in your own time and get a lead start in the race.

Easy to implement practices can bring competitive advantage and productivity gains. Businesses that have made sustainability a core focus have benefited from efficiency improvements, while also pursuing prosperity for people and the planet.

By reframing the challenge of compliance and risk associated with environmental and social governance (ESG), we’ll show you how to respond quickly, to make short term operational adjustments that will improve your customer and employee experience, for retention and acquisition of talent and revenue.

Businesses are under increasing pressure to become more sustainable and report on their ESG related data. Customers, investors and staff all ask for that and more. But business leaders have no time or spare resources for anything that doesn’t generate revenue and improve profits.

Let us help you set your mind for success and thrive in a sustainable world!

This masterclass is designed to:

1. Demystify all the confusing language around ESG, climate change, decarbonisation, circular economy, materials ecology and sustainability so you can focus on what makes sense for your business.
2. Introduce you to frameworks, models, tools and platforms that will make it easier for you to develop a sustainable plan for success.
3. Inspire ideas you can easily implement that set you on the right ESG improvement pathway for your business, employees, customers and local community.

About the presenters

Melissa Edwards is a Director of the Executive MBA at UTS Business School and an award-winning sustainability educator and researcher. She researches and teaches about sustainability, sustainable enterprise and responsible management, complexity theory, and social impact. Her work draws across disciplines with an overarching aim to understand how people organize, learn and adapt to enable sustainable transitions.

She is a co-author on a pioneering Corporate Sustainability text outlining an array of effective sustainable enterprise models, strategies and change management approaches. Her recent work focuses on managing proactive responses to emerging trends such as stakeholder capitalism, the circular economy, ESG reporting, restorative business, and sustainable investment.

She has extensive experience in innovative curriculum design that incorporates action learning and draws on transdisciplinary research. She is passionate about upskilling changemakers to lead through purpose and inclusion to initiate and generate effective transformational organisational strategies. She regularly publishes in a variety of professional and academic outlets (see Google Scholar) and has led large research contracts for SLSA, the Wayside Chapel, the Office of Learning and Teaching and DEEWR.

Serena Stewart is Head of Strategic Partnerships (BUS, LAW) in the Dean's Unit at UTS Business School and throughout her career successful in developing multi-year strategies that have resulted in continuous growth in revenue.

Serena leads the development of the UTS decarbonisation strategy engaging with senior leaders from large corporations, SMEs, NPOs, government and education institutions, intermediaries, networks, and alliances to collectively look at addressing the very prominent issue of SME decarbonisation.

With a focus on how to empower SMEs to develop and implement decarbonisation strategies, Serena’s insights will help us see under the hood to better understand the various machinations, and how to navigate to transform complexity into simplicity for a return on innovation.

Guido Toepfer is an internationally experienced entrepreneur, CEO, advisor and investor focused on empowering business to actively drive the sustainability transformation.

Throughout his career he has successfully led various companies (small and large) through transformational change, and experienced first-hand that a sustainability mindset made his businesses grow faster, be more efficient, incur less risks and make more profit. Most people would agree: "Business can be a force for good", based on experience, Guido adds: "Doing right is actually good for business!" And so, embracing sustainability and ESG really should be a no-brainer. 

To make this knowledge and experience accessible to SMEs, Guido has teamed up with three co-founders to build Brownee.io, a gamified ecosystem that empowers businesses of all sizes to become more successful by becoming more sustainable.

About SME@UTS

SME@UTS is designed to help SMEs confidently invest in innovation and digital technologies. This integrated program provides SMEs with a progressive and customised pathway towards technology adoption and innovation. This concierge style service helps SMEs gain access to innovation expertise, research capabilities and world class technology facilities that will allow them to underpin their business growth. This masterclass is one of many that will be delivered at no cost to attend as part of the SME@UTS program which is supported with funding contribution from the Commonwealth Department of Education.

SME@UTS was recently introduced to Brownee and is assisting to connect the leadership team to resources for technology innovation and business growth. This is a concierge style service available to NSW based SMEs that are utilising Industry 4.0 to scale Australian Manufacturing by connecting them to talent, capital, expertise, R&D facilities, education, knowledge and SME networks.

NSW Small Business Month

Take the opportunity to work on and strengthen your small business this October with NSW Small Business Month. There are hundreds of workshops, training programs, and seminars to choose from. Search for virtual and face to face events at www.smallbusinessmonth.nsw.gov... #NSWSmallBizMonth.S

Spark Festival

Spark is a Not For Profit, grassroots festival whose mission is to drive prosperity for all Australians via the growth of thriving new economy businesses. Our community is large and strong: startups, investors, SMEs, big corporates and innovators at every stage are all invited. Whether you are getting started or going global, you'll find your spark at Spark. Spark Festival 2023 Program » Spark Festival | Innovation, Tech and Ideas for Australians