Aerial view of a dense green forest canopy

Case studies

ESG case studies: challenge, approach, outcome

Selected results from Shivani's previous in-house and advisory roles in telecom and global mining. Organisations are described by sector, not named.

Aerial view of a lush, mixed green forest canopy

Large Indian telecom operator Shape

Moving SIM cards to recycled PVC, backed by validated LCA evidence

>690 tCO₂e

avoided in one year, alongside >165 tonnes of virgin plastic

Challenge: Virgin-plastic SIM cards created avoidable lifecycle material use and emissions. Supply Chain had spotted an opportunity with a major supplier, but the sourcing decision needed a credible sustainability case.
Approach: Technically guided the initiative with Supply Chain and the supplier: obtained validated life-cycle assessment (LCA) evidence and translated it into the sustainability case behind the sourcing decision. Procurement kept the final sourcing call.
Outcome: >165 tonnes of virgin plastic and >690 tCO₂e avoided in one year, across a supplier relationship covering about 80% of SIM-card volume. The LCA was third-party assured and the switch was announced publicly with the supplier.

Mumbai skyline of high-rise towers seen across the sea from Marine Drive

Large Indian telecom operator Shape

Designing a first double materiality assessment that functions owned

70+

internal and external stakeholders engaged; 19 material topics prioritised

Challenge: The business needed to identify its priority sustainability impacts, risks and opportunities, and connect them to strategic decision-making rather than to a reporting cycle.
Approach: Designed and led the organisation's first Double Materiality Assessment with a Big Four team, structured around business-relevant priorities, with one-to-one discussions across every function.
Outcome: 19 material topics with all functions represented, which ensured strong alignment with the business, and readiness developed for meeting the business's double materiality needs. The results were presented and reviewed by senior leadership.

Low-angle view of a lattice telecom tower carrying mobile network antennas

Large Indian telecom operator Strengthen

Putting a ~7.5 MtCO₂e footprint on governed, digital GHG data

~7.5 MtCO₂e

annual footprint brought onto an enterprise GHG data platform

Challenge: GHG accounting depended on niche teams, frequently changing staff across departments and manual checks, which created data-quality risk across networks, data centres, offices, stores and warehouses.
Approach: Led the sustainability workstream for an enterprise ESG performance-management platform: translated carbon-accounting requirements into data, process and system requirements. After go-live, compared the data for the new reporting period with the previous period, performed variance analysis and undertook root cause analysis with the relevant departments.
Outcome: Less manual effort in next year's reporting cycle for offices, warehouses and retail stores; new controls such as unit checks and no-missing-data rules; and a follow-on project to automate the network energy-data pipeline.

Aerial view of a busy cargo port with container ships and cranes

Global mining and metals group Strengthen

Turning supplier ESG risk into a procurement prioritisation lens

36 suppliers

strategic and high-spend suppliers profiled, together >20% of annual spend

Challenge: Procurement needed to see which suppliers carried the greatest environmental and social exposure relative to purchasing influence, and how buying power could help reduce that risk.
Approach: Built a Power BI-based supplier sustainability guidebook: a technical scorecard, results by supplier and GICS sector, and an ESG risk score for each strategic supplier. Shared environmental hotspots with procurement and subject experts, and worked with human rights specialists on a unified supplier risk matrix.
Outcome: ESG risk profiles for the top 36 strategic and high-spend suppliers (>20% of spend) handed to Procurement, and a clear case for in-house value-chain risk governance ahead of regulations such as the ESRS. Presented to the global HSES lead at a senior leadership meeting.

Flipchart covered with colourful sticky notes from a team workshop

Large Indian telecom operator Cultivate

Building a sustainability culture 8,000 volunteers strong

8,000

employee volunteers onboarded as sustainability ambassadors

Challenge: There was no employee sustainability programme. Sustainability needed to become something people across a 20,000+ workforce understood and acted on, not just a central team's job.
Approach: Created an internal ESG & Compliance hub, including a newsletter, articles and the in-house digital channel; launched a Sustainability Ambassadors programme, and ran focused training for functions on compliance tools and processes.
Outcome: 8,000 volunteers onboarded and 1,100 hours of voluntary ESG learning in FY26.

Printed performance charts and a laptop on a dark desk

Large Indian telecom operator Disclose

Taking disclosures through assurance and lifting ESG ratings

BRSR Core

metrics taken through reasonable assurance

Challenge: Annual sustainability disclosures had to stand up to reasonable assurance and to ratings agencies, with data and narrative spread across many functions.
Approach: Anchored sustainability disclosures in the Integrated Annual Report with the report owner and business functions, across BRSR and sector ESG metrics. Set up ESG governance, SOPs and data controls (validation, variance analysis, root-cause review).
Outcome: Reasonable assurance for BRSR Core metrics and limited assurance for non-core metrics. Ratings milestones included a first-ever ISS ESG Prime status, improved CDP Supplier Engagement and Water Security scores in the 2026 cycle, and a Sustainalytics Low Risk rating maintained.

Heavy earth-moving equipment working on red soil at an open-pit mine, seen from above

Global mining and metals group · Large Indian telecom operator Shape

Undertaking maturity diagnostics: value chain, product stewardship and enterprise ESG

maturity diagnostics, from a value-chain sustainability diagnostic to a telecom ESG maturity review

Challenge: Before setting a roadmap, each organisation needed an honest view of where it stood: on value-chain sustainability, on product stewardship governance, and on enterprise ESG maturity.
Approach: Ran three diagnostics. For a global mining group, a 2021 value-chain gap assessment across knowledge, governance and purchasing practice, reviewing baseline processes such as the Supplier Code of Conduct, third-party due diligence and environmental standards, with a spend analysis of high-spend suppliers. For the same group, co-developed a product stewardship maturity programme (2022–2023) that built cross-functional alignment and used bow-tie analysis to find control gaps in process governance. For a large Indian telecom operator, assessed organisational capabilities against an ISO-anchored enterprise sustainability maturity and integration framework.
Outcome: The value-chain baseline set the direction for a proposed value-chain sustainability pathway, starting with ESG clauses for global procurement. The product stewardship diagnostic led to a best-practice white paper for the Board, action plans for priority control gaps and new guidance. At the telecom operator, it shaped a sustainability maturity roadmap from disclosure-led reporting to enterprise-wide integration, with priorities set across business functions.

Aerial view of a large open-pit mine with terraced benches and haul roads

Global mining and metals group Disclose

Running a group-wide Social & Environment performance survey across 36 countries

~30%

of the group's GRI-linked sustainability disclosures in 2019 drew on the survey

Challenge: A global mining and metals group's annual and sustainability reports, investor ESG ratings and regulatory disclosures all relied on performance data from every managed operation, across 36 countries and every product group and commodity. The data had to stand up to external assurance, yet site contributors saw the annual survey as a once-a-year data-entry task.
Approach: Ran the group's web-based Social & Environment (S&E) Survey with a small team, covering environment (water, waste, air emissions, land, biodiversity, GHG and energy), social (communities, social performance and health) and product stewardship data. Brought in a Big 4 firm for the annual internal verification of the data ahead of external assurance, reviewed its verification work, and was the final approver for all outputs from the S&E Survey desk. Launched a fortnightly internal series, “Do you know the S&E Survey?”, explaining the basics of group reporting.
Outcome: The survey became the nucleus of the group's HSEC reporting, supplying around 30% of its GRI-linked sustainability disclosures in 2019, with verified, approved data feeding the annual and sustainability reports, external assurance and investor ESG ratings.

Aerial view of winding haul roads cut into the terraces of an open-pit mine

Global mining and metals group Strengthen

Resetting a global environmental data and digitisation roadmap

6 continents

of operations in scope for a site-to-enterprise environmental data roadmap

Challenge: A global mining and metals group's plan to run all environmental data through one enterprise HSE platform had stalled. Operations relied on a patchwork of site systems and spreadsheets, no single tool covered every data type from GHG to biodiversity, and permit and reporting rules differed by country.
Approach: Represented the corporate environment function on the group's HSES transformation taskforce, which set out to find the right environmental digitisation roadmap. Worked with global functional teams and site teams through a sprint-based review: site and business interviews, a peer benchmark of resource companies, a functional-requirements gap analysis, and scoring of three architecture options on value, speed, cost, scalability and maintainability.
Outcome: The taskforce recommended a multi-system landscape: an enterprise platform for standardised processes and group metrics, approved environmental data systems at sites, and a shared reporting and analytics layer. Site data would be integrated rather than migrated, with rollout paced through a five-stage site maturity model.

Molten metal pouring in a steel plant at night, glowing orange

Global mining and metals group Shape

Benchmarking 47 companies on environmental practice in value chains

47 companies

benchmarked on 49 indicators across about 11 resource-intensive sectors

Challenge: As TNFD, the EU CSRD and OECD due-diligence guidance pushed environmental expectations into supply chains, a global mining and metals group needed to know where its value-chain practice stood against leaders.
Approach: Designed and ran the benchmark: 49 indicators guided by the BSR Leader Ladder and drawn from the B Lab Impact Assessment, CDP and traceability schemes, covering supply-chain strategy, knowledge, purchasing practice and governance, applied to public disclosures from 47 companies. Exchanged thinking with the procurement sustainability lead and applied it to the project.
Outcome: Presented the supplier benchmarking report to group HSES management leadership. The findings set out maturity gaps and peer practice, and shaped a value-chain environmental stance, risk-based supplier prioritisation aligned to OECD guidance, and input to the Supplier Code of Conduct update.

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