We celebrated 2021 as our most successful year to date.
We reported huge growth in all key business metrics: revenue (+36%), profit, team (from 12 to 18 people), and remuneration. We worked on some great projects (75 in total) for a large number of clients (53 different organizations in total). We overcame all the difficulties. We moved to a great new office.
We’ve helped our clients become stronger and create more value for themselves, their employees, customers, partners and the communities in which they operate. Unfortunately, much of our work is strictly confidential, but I can still share some of our biggest successes for 2021.
Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) was ranked among the top 15 mining companies in the world according to S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment!
After many years of working together and a huge number of projects, in 2021 we supported the DPM team in qualitatively meeting the environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG) of global rating agencies. Key to this is S&P Global CSA, an annual survey of the sustainability practices of the world’s leading companies, which includes some 7,500 individual companies across 61 industries. It is something of an unofficial world championship on the subject.
This result is a consequence of DPM’s consistent efforts and investments in technological modernization, reducing environmental impacts, and improving the quality of life for employees and communities. Much of the information is contained in their first Assessment of Risks and Opportunities related to Climate Change (TCFD report) and their latest Sustainability Report. S&P’s assessment strongly improves the company’s investment grade, makes it much more attractive to major investors, and proves that the Bulgarian mining industry is among the world leaders.
To us, in Bulgaria, they may seem very big, but DPM is actually a relatively small company with only two mining sites in the country and a metallurgical plant in Namibia. It hovers around 30th place in Canada and is not in the top 200 mining companies in the world. Receiving such a high ESG score is a unique achievement for such a small company in this industry.
The methodology for Natural Capital Accounting which we are developing with The Coca-Cola Company is on its way to becoming a global standard!
Since 2013, we have been helping The Coca-Cola Company assess the impacts of its global Water Replenishment Program beyond the millions of cubic meters and have an adequate answer to the question: „What is the value of the environmental and social benefits of every dollar invested in the Program?“ We first implemented a pilot project as part of the development of The Natural Capital Protocol. We then went through multiple applications for dozens of projects around the world and refinements of the methodology. In 2021, we presented our work at COP26 in Glasgow, World Water Week, Forum for the Future of Agriculture, and a number of other European conferences. We are also participating together in the CEO Water Mandate expert group of the UN Global Compact to develop a business standard for doing such assessments.
Sofia was a finalist and became second in the Green Capital of Europe competition!
At the end of summer 2021, the European Commission (EC) published the results of the evaluation of the documentation submitted by the candidate cities for the European Green Capital 2023 Award. For the first time, the EC experts ranked Sofia among the finalists, together with the cities of Tallinn (Estonia), Krakow (Poland), and Helsingborg (Sweden). The jury assessed the progress made by the cities in 12 areas, 5 of which were prepared by our team. Unfortunately, Tallinn won the final and Sofia came second. Very few people expected us to get that far.
These are just three specific examples we can afford to share. We support more and more Bulgarian and international companies in their orientation towards the Green Deal, the EU Taxonomy for sustainable finance, and the setting and implementation of climate and decarbonization targets. We continue to actively work on water management in Bulgaria, as well as on specific projects on waste management and circular economy. Increasingly, public and private companies are relying on our support to achieve higher scores for their sustainability, corporate responsibility, and/or ESG reporting, practices, and performance.
We perform Life Cycle Assessments, environmental product declarations (EPDs), and/or carbon footprints for all sorts of businesses, from an aluminum plant in Malaysia to a global US automotive parts supplier. We are advising one of the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers on how blockchain technology can support their corporate goals for sustainable supply chains: tracking their investment in nature and adding value to the small communities from which they buy cocoa.
We can safely say that we are the most experienced company in Bulgaria in the above-mentioned fields!
And finally: the dessert (or should we say the main course)
At the very end of 2021, we saved the honor of Bulgarian moussaka!
An English media published a study claiming that „Bulgarian moussaka is the most polluting traditional dish in Europe“. This caused a strong media reaction in our country. The lightning-fast reaction of Peter Seizov, the world’s top expert on calculating carbon emissions from our team, led to the discovery of basic mistakes in the calculations and the rapid removal of moussaka from the top of this disgraceful ranking.
We see this work as part of our corporate social responsibility. 😊