Ireland’s ESG agenda: how to sustainably green your business in 2025
With so much talk about sustainability, and acronyms like ESG and CSRD being bandied about, it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to making a shift to being a more responsible business. We spoke to Laura McDermott of Colectivo and Irish designer Aoife McNamara, two experts in the field, about what the process truly involves.
Over the past few years, the word ‘sustainability’ has surged in popularity, permeating the cultural subconscious and embedding itself into everyday discourse. However, while once a meaningful concept, the term has become so ubiquitous that it almost risks losing its significance. Applied indiscriminately to products, businesses and people, it’s become harder to discern what is genuinely sustainable and what’s just fluff. Everything can’t be sustainable – not truly – so how does one cut through the noise? Government initiatives help.
The Colectivo approach
In 2024, Ireland introduced sustainability reporting at a very rigorous level. “There’s this thing called the CSRD, which everybody’s going on about,” Laura McDermott, founder and CEO of Colectivo – a collective of global experts that help organisations make effective transitions to more impact-driven business models – explains. “It stands for Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directing and it basically mandates companies to get granular about their environmental, social and governance (or, ESG).”
If anyone is going to help Irish businesses adapt to these changes, it’s Laura who has a wealth of experience on the topic, having spent years working extensively with Spanish organisations to tackle sustainability challenges. Spain implemented similar reporting back in 2018, so they’ve had much longer to get to grips with it, as has Laura. “They’re not freaked out in the same way Irish companies are now,” she laughs. “Because that reporting came in a lot earlier there, you can already see a lot more advancement in the solution and implementation side. The awareness level is higher; the market is more mature.” In Spain, CSRD has already been around for six, seven years but it’s still a relatively new concept here and has become a sort of buzzword in and of itself.
First visiting Spain in 2015 when she spent a year teaching English in Cáceres, it’s there that the concept for Colectivo was born.“It’s thanks to Spain that I have all of the knowledge and all of the skills now that I’m bringing back to Ireland. Even the name of my business, Colectivo, means ‘collective’ in Spanish. The idea is to bring together a collective knowledge to tackle sustainability challenges. Working on different projects as a freelancer meant that I met these amazing people from all across the world. I was working on social impact projects – which fall under the ‘s’ part of ESG – across Latin America and Europe. To deliver and develop those programmes, we connected with a huge amount of really cool thought leaders across those continents. When I decided to set up my own business, I invited a lot of those people who I had already worked with to come along and have a co-creation session to understand, if they were to be part of the consultancy, what that would look like. I wanted to get the best international talent working on tackling sustainability problems for businesses but in a way that they could still do their own work while also contributing to Colectivo.”
As it stands, Colectivo works off a very lean business model; they have a core team of about five consultants who are regular on projects, while the rest of the manpower comes from experts who are brought in to advise on things like corporate governance, net zero architecture or clean tech. “If you look at the Big Four, they’ll have a head count of thousands of people. Sometimes in consulting, you can have a lot of projects, and it can be really busy, and then other times it can be quiet. So what happens with all those people who you have on the payroll when it’s quiet? You have to find things for them to do,” Laura tells me. “Rather than inflating our headcount unnecessarily, we find the best talent for each specific project.” According to Laura, the gig economy is growing and she predicts that there will be increasing interest in this way of working. “If we have really complex challenges to address, we want people who are at the cutting edge of that.”
Where Colectivo differs from other consultancies is in its human-centred design approach. Shaming people for their choices never works, particularly where sustainability is concerned. “If you’ve never done this before, you’re not going to know where to start,” Laura agrees. “You don’t know what the best practices are unless you’ve gone and researched them. So we bring the expertise in that area. But we don’t just advise from a distance. We don’t just write documents and say, ‘Here is a list of 10 suggestions, off you go’. We have a co-creative approach with our clients. We work a lot through workshops where we help businesses understand these new ways of doing things. Then we help them go in and audit their products and services and do journey mapping and look at personas. We facilitate the process for them but we try to help them build the skills so that in the long term, they’ll be able to do it themselves and they won’t always have to depend on us.”
My brand is sort of a vessel for me talking about sustainability in the industry. I believe in Earth logic, not growth logic.
Irish brands paving the way
Designer Aoife McNamara is another Irish woman championing the green movement. In fact, her eponymous label which she launched back in 2019, is rooted in sustainability, and Aoife has built her business entirely on eco-conscious principles. The first Irish fashion brand to achieve B Corp certification, one of the toughest sustainability certifications to obtain, she’s intent on using her platform for good. “Learning that the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters was my fuel for wanting to become a sustainable fashion designer. My brand is sort of a vessel for me talking about sustainability in the industry. I believe in Earth logic, not growth logic, and that’s reflected in every decision I make in the company. ”
However, on the topic of these new CSRD guidelines, Aoife says she disagrees with the public tendency to see them as a jumping-off point. “I don’t think that’s how sustainability should be approached,” she tells me over Zoom. “I don’t look at guidelines as a starting point. I think certifications are great but it’s about so much more than that. Not everyone has the same mindset as me, and I totally get that. I can understand why it’s incredibly important to have government legislation, and I believe, unfortunately, it’s probably the only way forward, but I think sustainability should be embedded in people’s business models from the get-go.”
In 2023, Aoife McNamara became the first Irish brand to achieve B Corp status. B Corporations are brands that have been certified to do business responsibly, transparently, and carefully, considering the impact of their decisions on every stakeholder across their supply chain. To become a B Corp, companies must provide answers and evidence to 300 questions across five categories; governance, workers, community, environment and customers. The results are used by the B Corp team to assess if a company lives their values. It’s also a useful tool for companies to continuously re-evaluate and improve their social and environmental impact.
Speaking on her journey to getting B Corp status, the Limerick native says she was drawn to that particular certification exactly because it’s so difficult to get. “They don’t just give it to everyone. They really dive into every single aspect of your supply chain, of your customers, and of the environment in which you work. If you say, ‘Oh this material is GOT-certified’, you then have to prove that. You have to go to your supplier, your supplier has to go to their supplier – your supplier might have three other suppliers that they’re working with. The hardest part is actually getting information from third-party companies. But it’s not just about what you’re currently doing either. In three year’s time, you have to recertify, so it’s about looking to the future as well. If a company has that certification, you know they’re taking it seriously. As much as a company might be saying they’re sustainable, I think that nowadays, you have to prove it.” Her work is centred mostly in Aoife’s Cottage in Adare, Co. Limerick – an innovative hub for both designers and creatives alike, where the public is welcome to visit and browse her dreamy collections and diverse local art.
Knowledge is power
While Aoife caters largely to an Irish customer base, Laura’s clients span the length and breadth of the EU. From her experience, start-ups and SMEs like the Aoife McNamara brand, tend to have the upper hand when it comes to embracing change; larger organisations often struggle. Laura likens it to trying to turn a dinosaur into a rocket. “Start-ups and SMEs are more agile; they can move around, they can adapt. They don’t have to go through reams of red tape and try to transform the culture of a department that has 500 people in it, with employees all over the world. So they have little luxuries in that sense. Now, of course, they’re time-poor, and they don’t have the same levels of money to invest as bigger companies. They do have their own challenges. But when I look at large organisations, it’s not the current managing director who is responsible for the past 500 years of moral mistakes that that company has made. Are we going to put that person down and shame them or are we going to try to help them define the future? You get further when you partner with organisations to educate and help chart the path for change than you do if you take a defensive approach.”
Education is an area in which Aoife and her team have also excelled. “I was two years into my business and we were talking about sustainable clothes, we were creating them but I felt like I wasn’t really connecting to the consumer. I felt like people just loved my designs, but they didn’t understand too much about the sustainability side of it and what we’re doing in that regard. So that’s when I started to bring in educational events. Education is such an important part of sustainability. I feel like 50% of my role is nearly to educate, and 50% is to design. I have an emotional connection to want to make a change within the industry, and that’s why – when I’m talking about design, when you see my brand – you know it’s something that’s deeply embedded in what we do. As a brand, we’re trying to reconnect people with nature. We started our rewilding retreats three years ago now, and they’re incredible. We have Erica Bracken leading them and it’s all about connecting because I don’t just want to be sustainable, I want to have a sustainable lifestyle. It’s not just about buying sustainable clothes, that’s only one part of it – a very small part. What else are you doing at home?”
“I opened my first store during my second year in business and everyone was like, ‘What are you doing opening a store? Everything’s online now.’ But I love meeting my customers in person. I learn so much from seeing the garments on different bodies. I learn from seeing what fabrics people are touching. Customers love hearing the story of the fabric, and I can see the switch in their mindset when I talk to them about the journey of the fabric, or the sustainability, or the messaging behind why we decided to use that fabric over a different one. They really understand the price point of the garment then, and they really understand the mission that we’re on. My customers have been a huge inspiration in how I design, and how I move forward as a brand owner, especially with the retreats. Being able to bring customers into my world and showcase that to them helps them to really understand what we’re doing as a brand. And that inspires me even more. It has to be a lifestyle change, there’s no other way.”
Are there quick wins businesses can implement to get them started? Of course. Businesses can always do small things like changing light bulbs but on a more transformative level, the most effective way of ensuring success is to adopt a growth mindset. Laura also stresses the importance of getting comfortable with asking for help. “We need to stop thinking that we have the answers to everything. If you ask me to single-handedly develop a decarbonisation strategy, I won’t do it because I need a team around me. I don’t know all the answers, I don’t even know all the answers when it comes to design and I’m ok with that. The whole idea of Colectivo is about mining group knowledge. By bringing in people from different backgrounds, from different job types, from different generations, and actually tackling issues from multiple fronts, it reduces the risk that something is only one dimensional,” she continues.
“If we can leverage the learnings of other organisations, then we don’t need to start from scratch. There are best practices out there, there are case studies, there are people who know and who have done this hundreds of times. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re trying to cherry-pick the people who have that very niche knowledge, who can help you leapfrog five years of general research on this topic, and who can give you exactly what you need in the moment that you need it. It’s great having the international connection, because it’s so rich, and the people that we have are top of their game.” It’s also about doing more with less. Before this wave of mass consumerism washed over us, before we had endless amounts of products at our disposal and information in abundance, we had fewer things and we had to be a lot more resourceful.
On a systemic level, looking at collective intelligence is so important. As are partnerships, which Laura describes as “absolutely fundamental”. “It ties into that idea of the collective. That’s how movements start – with a couple of people joining together and then that growing in momentum. That’s one of the good things about being positioned in Ireland; we’re connected to other European countries who are in the same boat when it comes to CSRD. It’s a great time to be working for change.” The first batch of reports – which will be published sometime this year – will act as an example of the way other companies will be reporting in the future. In theory, they will be available for public viewing, though what format that will take remains to be seen. “They could build a digital repository where you can access other reports, or it could be a case of companies just publishing them on their own websites. Either way, they do need to be published and accessible to stakeholders,” Laura notes.
Grants and funding
This year, Laura and her team are excited to launch the GreenStart boot camp, a 10-week programme offering highly personalised support for businesses developing their sustainability strategies. Colectivo will collaborate with Forager by Feebee Foran to deliver immersive GreenPlus programmes tailored for larger organisations. Both initiatives benefit from significant Green Transition funding, making them highly accessible for clients of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
The Green Transition Fund supports companies at every step of their decarbonisation journey, from initial planning and capability building to investment, research and innovation. It aims to support companies as they prepare for a low-carbon, more resource-efficient future. Colectivo is one of the official partners of Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and LEO in delivering this. “We’ve seen a steady increase of companies claiming the grants to try to improve their green performance,” says Laura.
“There are trillions of euros that are mobilised on an EU level through the Green Deal. That trickles down to a local level on a country-by-country basis. If you really want to advance on your sustainability journey, take a little bit of time and see what’s out there for you. Through the GreenStart boot camp, companies who are clients of Enterprise Ireland can apply to get a GreenStart voucher which gives you up to seven days of consultancy, highly subsidised. Usually, the capped day rate is at €900 so the most you’ll pay for the seven days is €6,300 – if you get the grant to offset it, you only pay €1,300. It’s such a great opportunity for SMEs.”
Another thing worth mentioning is the Triple Transition, which is an EU concept stating that companies need to transition to becoming more green, more social and more digital. Colectivo works with clients in making progress in all three areas and Laura has plans to scale projects up in 2025. “
“When we first set up Colectivo back in 2022, the awareness at corporate level in Ireland was pretty low. Now, there’s a lot more awareness, so we can start talking about more advanced concepts like the Triple Transition. I love working with clients, getting to know them, building rapport, and making stuff fun, because a lot of the time, it can be very dry and corporate. ESG is a buzzword that everybody’s using now because it is a compliance requirement and it can be quite stale, but I actually think that it can also be a really fun activity to develop new innovations that can be creative, help you create new revenue streams for your business and engage your staff in a new way to help them feel a sense of purpose.”
The end goal for sustainability is not to just produce really nice reports. It's about actually making a change.
Defining the future
While these new reporting guidelines are definitely a step in the right direction, change won’t happen overnight and, as Laura points out, the end goal for sustainability shouldn’t just be “to produce really nice reports”. “It’s about actually making a change. It’s important to recognise your downfalls but then what actions are you going to take to combat them? What pilots are you going to run? What initiatives are you going to start? What partnerships are you going to try to build to adapt to those targets that you’ve set?” Within the fashion industry, B Corp is another positive but there’s plenty more still to do. “I don’t know if B Corp is going to reshape the narrative around sustainability in fashion,” muses Aoife. “It’s one of the biggest polluters behind oil and agriculture, that’s a fact. It’s a trillion-dollar industry, and now we’re seeing the likes of ultra-fast fashion brands Shein and Temu take off. It’s scary because we seem to have gone backwards. It’s going to take a lot of work to even get these companies to listen. The demand is there for them, which is why education is so important.” Due to hike Kilimanjaro at the end of this month, Aoife is heading to Tanzania with Earth’s Edge, which is another B Corp-certified company, and fellow Irish woman and IMAGE Business Club member Ashley McDonnell of Tech Powered Luxury.
Together, they’re working on a documentary which will highlight the devastating effects the fashion industry is having. “We’re going to some of the world’s biggest landfills while we’re in Africa. Most fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion brands get sent to landfill because they can’t be re-worn. They’re made from such bad fibres, mainly plastics, which won’t biodegrade, so other countries are left with them. We want to showcase that. We’re also going to do a tour of Ireland to show what the Irish industry is doing well but also what we could improve on. It’s so important to draw attention to this because these issues aren’t changing. I’d love to say it’s getting better, but I feel like the global industry is getting worse. I’m obviously so passionate about it so I do believe we will get there but it’s going to take a lot of time, work and education.”
Ultimately, incorporating sustainability into all aspects of your business is about more than just compliance or certifications. These things certainly help but they shouldn’t be seen as a tick-box exercise. True change requires a shift in mindset and oftentimes, an entire lifestyle overhaul. As both Laura and Aoife have shown, the path to sustainability is one paved with creativity, collaboration and courage. Whether it’s through adopting a human-centred design approach, educating customers, or leveraging international expertise, the journey is as much about making a difference as it is about making progress. By starting small, seeking expert guidance, and embracing innovative solutions, Irish businesses can lead the way in building a greener, more sustainable future – one meaningful step at a time.