Top Tips for Creating an Effective Sustainability Roadmap
January 29, 2025
McArdle Skeath has been a leader in quality supply chain management for over 50 years, offering services in the areas of transportation, refrigeration, storage, and value added services. Specifically, their expertise in transporting chilled, ambient, and frozen goods has put them at the forefront of refrigerated transport across the UK and Ireland.
By leveraging innovative technologies, such as their live temperature monitoring processes, McArdle Skeath provides their customers with clear visibility and assurance of proper management of their products. On top of this, the organisation offers custom, tailored services to ensure that their customers receive the best possible experience.
McArdle Skeath maintains client trust by delivering services and solutions in innovative and cost effective ways, while setting industry standards in service, reliability, and safety. This sector-leading mindset is now being applied to sustainability at the company. In this case study, we will discuss how the team at McArdle Skeath has leveraged the ENSO platform to progress their sustainability journey, take action, and communicate with customers.
The Challenge
McArdle Skeath is continually ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation and progress in their industry. They want sustainability to be no different. Because of increasing customer information requests, the prevalence of sustainability in requests for proposals and quotes, and the fact that engaging with sustainability is the right thing to do, the team has decided to dedicate time and resources to progressing their sustainability journey.
The team at McArdle Skeath has increasingly received requests for information about multiple sustainability considerations. The challenge here is to have the correct information in a shareable format while also demonstrating your monitoring processes to your customers. A specific case in which this challenge arises is when their larger clients request information. This is because they are working towards complying with the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), meaning that McArdle Skeath needs to be ready to share their data and contributions towards the overall value chain impact of said company.
“Commercially, our customers tend to be very large companies, all of whom have to comply with the CSRD reporting regulations. In order for them to do that comprehensively, they come looking to us for what our contribution to their greenhouse gas emissions is,” says Ron Woods, Business Development Executive at McArdle Skeath.
When asked for sustainability information from their customers, whether they are reporting on the CSRD or not, McArdle Skeath needs to be ready. This means having their data, commitments, and proof points readily accessible and ensuring they are as comprehensive as possible while also being able to properly and fairly allocate impacts.
The Solution
The McArdle Skeath team knew the importance of taking sustainability action while also ensuring adequate monitoring and measurement processes. By gathering this information and continuing on their sustainability journey, the organisation is making sustainability one of their key competitive advantages. Preparedness, specific commitments, and transparent data allow the team at McArdle Skeath to be ready for any customer request, while taking steps to have a more positive impact as a company. McArdle Skeath used the ENSO platform in many different ways to bolster their efforts.
Key Benefits:
- Identifying New Opportunities: At McArdle Skeath, they had already started considering the environmental impacts of their operations and ways to monitor and mitigate them. However, with the ENSO platform’s four impact categories (Business, Trading, Environment, and Social), the team was able to identify new opportunities for action as well as things they were already implementing. This holistic look at sustainability helped McArdle Skeath understand their current strengths and opportunities for improvement, while moving beyond the E in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance).
- Structuring the Journey: Getting started with sustainability can be overwhelming and confusing. The ENSO platform helps make sustainability more accessible by breaking it down into bite sized pieces, helping businesses to get started and to progress on their journey. The McArdle Skeath team uses this structure to help prioritise next steps through their regular ESG meetings.
- One-on-One Support from the ENSO Team: We are all working together to learn about sustainability best practices and how we can ensure we are having a positive impact. In a continually changing landscape of legislation, information requests, and best practices, it can be helpful to have one on one support on your sustainability journey. The ENSO and McArdle Skeath teams regularly communicated to ensure that any questions were answered and that they stayed up to date with sustainability requirements.
- Having Data Ready for Customers: As stated above, the McArdle Skeath team has been receiving more and more information requests from customers about sustainability. On top of this, many more requests for proposals or quotes are including sustainability considerations. By using the ENSO platform, particularly the Resource Use section, the team is able to access their data and share it with those asking. For example, they can quickly gather an estimate of their carbon emissions using the ENSO platform.
The Results
By partnering with ENSO, the McArdle Skeath team has been able to organise their current data, identify new opportunities, and progress their sustainability journey. This progress is in line with their overall goal to be an industry leader, as they are taking steps to be ahead of the curve in regards to sustainability.
While customer request preparedness is a key goal of the organisation, they are also taking advantage of the Actions Section of the ENSO platform to continue moving their sustainability journey forward. During their regular ESG team meetings, they use this section of the platform to identify specific things to work on and to progress towards. This shows the McArdle Skeath team’s commitment to doing the right thing and understanding and improving their impacts.
Through their hard work, paired with the resources and functionality of the ENSO platform, McArdle Skeath is better equipped to answer customer requests and to make a positive impact. The team has a great understanding of the fact that sustainability is a journey and that we are always learning and improving. As they continue on their journey, they will continue to lead, to be a great partner in terms of providing sustainability information, and to genuinely engage with sustainability in order to have a positive impact. =
Conclusion
“Our sustainability journey is driven originally by our customers and we want to be ahead of the curve. We want to be ready with the information they require so we can support them,” says Niamh Hanlon, Sales and Marketing Coordinator at McArdle Skeath.
While customers continue to expect top quality service, this expectation is quickly expanding to include sustainability. McArdle Skeath recognised this trend and took steps to ensure that they are ready to prove their sustainability commitment and to transparently discuss their progress. Through their work with ENSO, they have been able to identify new opportunities while collating current information to be prepared for any customer requests or proposals.
The collaboration between the passionate teams at McArdle Skeath and ENSO has resulted in great learnings and progress towards more sustainable business practices, all while enabling transparent communication. McArdle Skeath is prepared to continue their journey with sustainability and have a great foundation for approaching any future changes in the regulatory landscape, as well as future customer requests.
To learn more about sustainability initiatives, actions, and commitments at McArdle Skeath, please visit their sustainability webpage here.