S USTA I N A B I L I TY Sketching out a path for a sustainable future Six of the global mobility industrys leading associations have come together to map out a shared vision for the future sustainability of the business. FIDI Communications Manager Magali Horbert looks at progress to date, FIDIs role in the coalition, and next steps for this forward-looking approach A FIDI Communications Manager Magali Horbert s the year draws to a close, saying that 2022 was a bumpy ride would be an understatement. With multiple COVID waves, the arrival of war in Ukraine, and ongoing supply-chain bottlenecks (to name but a few of the many crises we have faced) wreaking havoc in our globalised world, 2022 was definitely not a normal year and it looks like we wont be returning to business as usual anytime soon. Add to this the hot topic of the climate crisis and you could be excused for rolling your eyes and thinking give us a break! However, the environmental crisis is different, in that it is not limited in time and cannot be reversed by the decision of a select few politicians. Scientific evidence is clear: human activity is currently the main cause of climate change, and most governments and legislators across the world are taking this seriously. For businesses in general, including our international moving industry, pressure to change has been increasing for the past year, mainly driven by customers. Now legislation is kicking in, making it mandatory for companies to prove that they are sustainable and this change will be permanent. So, even if you dont believe in the climate emergency, you should take sustainability seriously; the survival of your business might just depend on it. Defining a Global Mobility roadmap for sustainability FIDI has been looking into what sustainability means for international moving and relocation, how it will impact our members, and what we as an association and an industry should be doing. The momentum has been growing over the past 18 months, with an increasing number of clients requesting sustainability credentials from their suppliers, and a host of providers offering a varied range of solutions to go green. The first realisation was that this topic is too big and complex for a single company, or even a single association, to tackle. At the very first sustainability roundtable, held at the FIDI Conference in Cannes in April 2022, we invited association leaders, RMCs and corporate clients to discuss how we could tackle this sustainability issue together. As an immediate result, six leading associations representing the main sectors of the global mobility industry FIDI, IAM, EuRA, WERC, CERC and CHPA came together to form a Global Mobility coalition for sustainability. As a first action point, the associations decided to draft our industrys sustainability roadmap. With the expert guidance of Deloittes sustainability and global mobility team, a group of dedicated and knowledgeable individuals from across the sector set about identifying: l What sustainability means and the challenges it represents for each sector individually and our industry as a whole l How we can and should coordinate our efforts towards common goals l What needs to be done to create a common framework of real, impactful and measurable action. The roadmap will be used by the participating associations to identify individual and common action points, and to coordinate our efforts in an impactful way. 74 FF308 Dec-Jan 23 pp74-75 Sustainability.indd 74 05/12/2022 17:21