Acclāro Consulting

Advisory Services

The last ten years have seen the maturity of CR/CSR policies among leading corporate entities. The vast majority of FTSE 100 companies have focused CR/CSR goals and have established Corporate Responsibility departments to achieve them. Amongst these companies, the need for external expert advice is generally limited to the development of a strategic plan and managing the culture change process required to implement this plan.

There is a greater need for performance improvement within “second tier” quoted companies that currently have no established department for Corporate Responsibility. These companies have well known brands that require both policy improvement and protection from reputation damage.

Acclāro focuses on providing advisory services that allow these entities to implement their CSR programmes. Acclāro also enables other stakeholders, such as corporate customers and not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) to engage in community projects for mutually beneficial outcomes.

Performance Improvement Services

Acclāro seeks to work with these companies to enable them to improve their CR/CSR performance.

Acclāro conducts an initial strategic review (based on the BitC and DJSI surveys) to gain an understanding of the company’s current rating. Based on this review our consultants will develop a bespoke CSR programme, structured to achieve key milestones and goals in order to optimise our clients’ corporate responsibility in a structured and demonstrable way. Where required Acclāro is also able to provide programme management services to ensure efficient and timely project delivery and performance enhancement.

Acclāro recognises that many companies are in continuous evaluation of their requirement to commit resources to Corporate Responsibility programmes. Therefore any approach that can self skill their organisation to achieve CR/CSR performance improvement is highly desirable. Our clients benefit from our ability to position ourselves as a politically neutral Programme Manager in corporate environments where our independence enables faster results and improved efficiency.

On the 1st February 2008 our Client Engagement Policy on client engagement and conflicts of interest was agreed by the founders and can be summarised as follows:

• We will only provide consulting services to a single quoted corporate entity in any specific industry sector, in each of the three major trading zones (Americas, Europe & Asia Pacific), at any one time.
• This principle will remain in place for one full GAAP annual accounting period after the last day of all commissions.

We do not believe that there is a conflict of interest in engaging with numerous quoted corporate entities operating in an identical vertical market. Our policy is to promote CSR collaboration between entities in this instance.

Commercial Negotiation Services

The growth in CR/CSR interaction and collaboration between stakeholders has highlighted the need for advisory services in ensuring these engagements are successful for all parties. Acclāro provides commercial negotiation services, preferably acting on behalf of NPOs, where there are tangible mutual benefits for all parties. This can be illustrated by the following questions that are now a common occurrence:

• Does it serve the self-interest of a B2B corporate supplier and customer to undertake a joint collaboration project?
• Should NPOs engage with profit maximizing entities in a commercial manner in consideration of reputation and fundraising priorities?
• How do quoted corporate entities measure their Return On Investment from either CSR policy implementation or from their financial engagement with NPOs?

Acclāro will seek to answer these questions and implement the desired outcomes on either a success fee or project fixed fee basis. Where we can, we will.

Sustainable Development Services

There is an increasing requirement for building owners to ensure their buildings are certified to sustainability standards. The desire is to formally demonstrate an effective and efficient building delivering cost savings and greater asset value.

With increasing legislation and costs for the operational management of facilities, there is a need for regular auditing and reviews to manage this risk and to identify areas where cost savings and improvements in efficiencies can be made.

Acclāro has dedicated consultants that deliver certification and verification services for the built environment and corporate accommodation.

Sustainable Building Certification

Currently there are two main international standards – LEED and BREEAM International – both of which are widely recognised. There are benefits and downsides to each standard and therefore a one size fits all approach is not necessarily the most cost effective.

Building certification is primarily required for new developments, but can also be achieved for existing buildings as a regular stamp of the performance achieved. As such it can be used throughout the properties lifecycle and influence the rental values and operational costs. Each standard rates the building from poor to exceptional.

Environmental Audit

These audits seek to quantify and raise the environmental performance of a building. In time, this may mean single audits incorporating environment, health and safety criteria but initially Acclāro would suggest keeping these separate to maintain the focus and raise environmental auditing up to the same level.

A scoring approach that is aligned with current health and safety audit procedure is employed. Initially to gain a baseline, it is recommended a full audit takes place within a 12 month timeframe. This can then be adapted the following year to focus upon areas where the improvements are most necessary and provide as either full audits or basic audits.

Energy Audit

An energy audit will provide a better understanding of property’s design energy efficiency, together with a guide of how the owner / occupier can improve energy efficiency and therefore save money. The occupational rating tells the owner how well a building is being operated, showing energy performance based on actual consumption in addition to the in-use performance and in comparison with benchmarks.

Our advisory report contains recommendations for improvement derived from the detailed energy audit. This approach also allows an understanding of the distinction between modelled building energy performance and actual consumption. This helps identify process and behavioural issues to approach energy savings on a site.

For more details on our consulting services please contact Sital Joshi by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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