ENSO and GS1 Ireland announce partnership to drive ESG action and innovation for Irish businesses and supply chains

ENSO and GS1 Ireland have announced a collaboration agreement that will see the two organisations working together to empower Irish SMEs with the knowledge and tools they need to incorporate sustainability into their business operations, communications, and supply chains and to meet their ESG reporting obligations.

Commenting on the partnership agreement, Mike Byrne, Chief Executive Officer of GS1 Ireland and member of the GS1 Global Board of Directors said

“In today’s business landscape, the heightened focus on sustainability resonates more than ever across diverse sectors. Companies of all sizes are wholeheartedly embracing Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) principles, diligently exploring innovative avenues to enhance the transparency, flexibility, adaptability, and humane aspects of their supply chains. It is unequivocally clear that sustainability is an unattainable goal without the integral component of standards-based traceability. This collective commitment to GS1 standards underscores the transformative shift toward responsible and ethical business practices”.

Through GS1 Ireland’s Solution Provider Programme ENSO and GS1 Ireland will work together to assist Irish businesses to understand their ESG requirements, to define their sustainability goals, and crucially to communicate their ESG commitments and progress.

Donal Quinn, Founder of ENSO commented “Sustainability is a significant area for businesses to tackle. Not only are consumers making purchasing decisions based on it, but the ability to win new tenders, renew key contracts or attract investment may depend on ESG commitments and performance. This can be a challenge, but also an opportunity for those businesses who do it right.”

“ENSO specialises in simplifying sustainability for businesses. We provide a framework which streamlines strategy creation, and which adds structure so businesses can prioritise actions. The ENSO platform enables businesses to transparently communicate their sustainability commitments, impacts and progress to customers and other key stakeholders.”

Maria Svejdar, Head of Marketing and Customer Experience at GS1 commented, “As part of the partnership GS1 Ireland has subscribed to the ENSO platform to assess our business impacts both, environmentally and socially.  Using the ENSO platform has provided a central point around which all our staff can discuss sustainability priorities and jointly agree goals. Having everyone involved from the start gives us greater confidence in our commitment to the changes that we need to make, both as a company and as individuals. We have now identified a clear path forward for GS1 Ireland to address our sustainability impacts and to make clear and measurable commitments for the future.”

Donal Quinn added, “ENSO is an impact-business, and we want to partner with other organisations who are also making a positive impact. We are excited about joining the GS1 Ireland Partner Programme and look forward to building on the synergies between our two organisations. Our joint-mission is to create impactful and innovative solutions for sharing sustainability information with consumers and trading partners alike.”

Background to the Collaboration

ENSO and GS1 will work with SMEs across key sectors including food and drink, consumer goods, cosmetics, clothing, homewares, and DIY. The goal of the partnership is to drive innovation across supply chains so that ESG adds value connects businesses and consumers, while also making a positive difference. ENSO and GS1 will establish a pilot programme which, over the next 12 months, will leverage data sharing and standardised reporting frameworks to make businesses and supply chains supply chains more efficient, cost effective and sustainable.

From research* GS1 Ireland has conducted, and from feedback received from members, we discovered that smaller businesses struggle to know what to do in terms of sustainability. For those that have already started and have addressed their initial changes, it is difficult to identify what to do next. That’s where there is real opportunity in combining the ENSO platform and GS1 standards as it guides businesses through the actions in a step-by-step .

Sustainability is Impossible Without Traceability

GS1 standards help businesses to be more sustainable by supporting efforts to make their inventory more visible and more traceable. Through better product identification and the efficient management of raw materials, ingredients, production processes and logistics, organisations can reduce waste, better manage product shelf-life and inventory. By switching to electronic documents instead of paper-based ones and by using standards-based logistics labels businesses can further adopt more sustainable and less wasteful business processes.

To learn more about ENSO, GS1 or the collaboration please contact us or visit our websites.