Three ways UK brands are turning climate data into business wins

Insights from Butternut Box, Wickes, and Foster + Partners at Sweep’s Climate Compass event 

Sustainability isn’t a side project anymore—it’s a business strategy. That message rang loud and clear at Climate Compass, Sweep’s London Climate Action Week event, which brought together sustainability leads from across sectors to share how they’re making climate data work harder for their business.

Butternut Box, Wickes, and Foster + Partners might not have much in common on paper — one delivers fresh pet food, one sells home improvement goods, the other designs iconic buildings. But all three are finding that climate action isn’t just good ethics. It’s good economics, too.

Their stories highlight three powerful strategies any business can adopt to embed sustainability into daily decisions—and unlock real results.

Use your data to shape decisions, not just reports

Climate reporting is important—but only if it feeds into action. That means getting the right data into the right hands, early.

This kind of insight is proven to pay off for the fresh pet food manufacturer and retailer. In 2024, Butternut Box reduced its Scope 1 carbon intensity by 6.5% through a heat recovery system that repurposes waste energy from their freezers to power steam boilers which gently cook the company’s pet food recipes. The result? Lower emissions, lower gas bills, and greater resilience to price shocks.

At FTSE 250 DIY retailer Wickes, improving internal access to data is a key focus as the company scales its use of Sweep.

“We’re building a common language,” said Ines Sordo, Sustainability Manager. “If you want people across the organisation to care [about your sustainability programs], they need to understand the numbers and how it affects them.”

That common language is helping Wickes’ teams move from general climate goals to specific, measurable action, especially on Scope 3 emissions from their global supply chain.

Foster + Partners, a global architecture firm, is also using data to drive smarter decisions — especially around travel, which makes up a significant part of the corporate footprint.

“As we’ve grown, we realised we needed a more methodical way to capture data,” said Chris Trott, Head of Sustainability and Research. “Now we’re modelling carbon in ways that help us decide when, how, and even whether we should travel.”

Collaborate early and often—across the whole organisation

All three companies agree: tackling emissions requires company-wide effort. From procurement and product to logistics and leadership, everyone has a role to play.

“It’s no good me working on Scope 3 in isolation,” said Alisa Heimann. “Our product teams need to develop lower-carbon recipes. Our buyers need to source from suppliers who are decarbonizing. It’s got to be a shared effort.”

At Wickes, internal education has been crucial to building that shared ownership.

This culture of internal collaboration is matched by Wickes’ deep partnerships externally, especially with suppliers in parts of the world where sustainability practices are still developing. Wickes is part of the Global Home Improvement Network and leads a taskforce under its “Make It Zero” initiative to drive joint decarbonization across the industry.

Foster + Partners, whose core business is design rather than delivery of architecture and urbanization projects, faces a different challenge: how to take ownership of sustainability when its own teams are not always in control. For the firm, collaboration means aligning across its own global teams, and using data to influence decisions beyond its own walls.

Connect climate action to business outcomes

Perhaps the most actionable lesson from Climate Compass was this: if you want sustainability initiatives to gain traction, tie them to other business priorities—like efficiency, cost savings, and risk reduction.

“When a project delivers carbon savings and cuts costs, the business case sells itself,” said Heimann. “Our heat recovery system was an easy win. It lowers emissions and reduces our reliance on volatile gas prices.”

At Wickes, efforts to electrify stores and decarbonize operations are gaining support because they align with longer-term cost management and compliance goals. And with tools like Sweep, the company can now demonstrate impact in concrete terms.

“The moment you stop talking in abstract benefits and start showing numbers, you get people’s attention,” said Sordo.

Even at Foster + Partners, where emissions are dominated by business travel, tying sustainability to business outcomes is making a difference.

“We’re asking: should we go? What’s the impact if we don’t? Which airline is best? These are live conversations now, because sustainability is part of how we manage projects and relationships,” said Trott.

Smart business starts with smart data

The takeaway from the Climate Compass discussion? The organizations making real progress on climate aren’t the ones with the slick but low-in-substance sustainability reports. They’re the ones putting carbon data in the hands of decision-makers and embedding sustainability into everyday business decisions and strategizing.

They’re using data not just to track what happened, but to shape what happens next. They’re investing in collaboration, not just compliance. And they’re connecting climate action to business value: because that’s how you build resilience, efficiency, and long-term growth.