A supplier to schools, academies, nurseries and academic institutions, Findel joined The Climate Pledge’s Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator, delivered in partnership with Giki, to build on its established sustainability programme while responding to increasing customer expectations and tender requirements.
With no shortage of offers, tools and platforms to help on climate action, the Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator stood out. "It felt different," said Chris Leonard, ESG Manager at Findel. A company which takes a rigorous and thorough approach to ESG, Findel decided the Accelerator offered a practical opportunity to build and validate on the work they were already impressing their clients with.
2. Snapshot
Company Name: Findel
Employee Numbers: ~250-300 permanent employees
HQ: Manchester, UK
Sector: Education Resources
3. The challenge - why now
Findel's push to do more on climate action is driven by what customers are already asking for, and a genuine appetite to go further.
Tenders are the clearest signal. "Where our sales managers are working closely with our bigger accounts, clients want to know what we're doing, and what we can do to help them," says Chris Leonard who leads sustainability work at Findel. On sizeable contracts, sustainability information is now becoming a critical part in a growing proportion of tenders.
Smaller customers are asking too, in a range of different ways:
"We regularly see forms land in our inbox requesting us to provide our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions data for the last five years."
A change in the school curriculum is a big part of this, and the UK Department for Education's climate change guidance means many schools now have a designated sustainability lead. Frequently once schools have tackled some of the obvious quick wins, such as lighting upgrades and energy monitoring, engaging suppliers like Findel often becomes the next step in their sustainability journey.
Nurseries stand out as a particularly engaged group. When Findel shares its sustainability plans with them, the reaction is consistently strong:
"They're always really impressed, and now we're starting to have a lot of customers asking us to help improve their sustainability performance too."
There's also a sense that carbon emissions alone aren’t always the easiest way in, particularly with younger children in mind.
"The kids can't see it, so it means nothing to them."
This is pushing some of Findel's thinking towards more tangible, nature-based ideas, including outdoor equipment, resource packs and even field trips.
4. The Climate Pledge Accelerator
Through The Climate Pledge Cohort Program, Findel joined the Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator, alongside more than 20 SMEs from across the globe and a range of sectors. The Accelerator was designed as a guided learning journey that helps SMEs translate their 2040 net-zero commitment, made through the Pledge, into practical, actionable decarbonization roadmaps. Through expert-led workshops, tools, and peer learning, participants develop prioritized plans to accelerate progress toward their net-zero targets and gain internal buy-in.
The Accelerator was delivered with Giki, using our platform Giki Actions, designed for SMEs to build, implement and report on their plans. The Accelerator kicked off with a one-hour workshop, during which each participant developed an initial carbon reduction plan using Giki Actions. Participants left with a practical first draft that could then be refined, reviewed and expanded to reflect their own business priorities.
As a signatory of The Climate Pledge, Findel was able to discover the Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator. Chris is used to a steady stream of pitches for tools and platforms:
"We get offered so many things every week, this new model, this new AI tool, etc."
What stood out about the accelerator was its shape rather than its subject matter:
"It wasn't going to be something I had to commit to for a year. It was a short engagement, but with a really high impact and tangible output. It sounded like exactly what we needed and I'd not come across anything quite like it before."
The other driver was reassurance. "I wanted a sense check on what we are already doing." Chris explains, "because there's so much we do already, but I was hoping we’d also walk away with some fresh and innovative ideas.”
5. In their words - the experience
That sense check proved its worth. "By using Giki Actions, I was able to validate what we were already doing, while also gaining a different perspective and discovering practical initiatives I’d simply never thought of before” Chris says.
Throughout his time in The Climate Pledge’s Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator, it wasn't just the tools that challenged Chris’s thinking. "The Green Wall, where we can get employees to share their ideas in the office, is something I'd never even thought of. It's not the most technically advanced thing, it's just a really simple, really good idea."
The bigger discovery, though, was around employee engagement.
"That whole employee engagement piece really stood out to me and reminded me that we probably don't do enough on it," Chris says. Like many organisations, sustainability messaging can often sit within the ESG team. The Accelerator helped reframe that:
"Our message is, this is embedded in everything."
As a direct result of the Accelerator, Findel is now exploring the inclusion of ESG objectives within colleagues’ personal goals, a proven way to help embed sustainability more deeply across the business.
There's a personal dimension to Chris's approach, too. He's always careful not to be preachy about sustainability:
"You don't have to go around beating the drum in everyone's face."
He traces some of his own motivation to being a father. "I've got a lad who’s eight… I'll be helping him brush his teeth, and he'll say, ‘Daddy, turn the tap off.’"
Findel also receives letters from schoolchildren asking questions about where products are sourced. “Often children ask us some genuinely good questions that really make you stop and think" Chris admits. It's an outlook shared across the wider business too: Findel's parent company, Manutan, has sustainability firmly embedded within its strategy, giving Chris and the wider team the support to continue driving forward-thinking and innovative ESG initiatives.
6. Turning insight into action
By the end of The Climate Pledge's Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator, Chris had a tangible output to show for months of reflection and refinement: a high-quality Carbon Reduction Plan, built around best practice and global standards on climate transition planning.
"In the past, some of our plan felt more like a pledge." Chris says. "Because there is such a breadth and depth of actions provided through Giki Actions, it challenged us to ask ourselves ‘Have we thought about that?’ or ‘Could we go a bit further here?’
"I've gone back through our plan, strengthened it and expanded it with additional themes and actions, so customers can see we've genuinely considered every aspect of our decarbonisation pathway."
Findel’s action plan covers over 70 different actions across a wide spectrum of carbon cutting and capabilities:
Operational decarbonisation, including Review cloud service providers for renewable usage and Ensure pension funds include sustainable options
Sustainable Business Travel including: Set internal carbon budgets or carbon prices on business travel and Offer sustainable hotel options on work trips
Supply chain decarbonisation, including introducing contractual clauses with suppliers on net zero targets and performance
Culture and employees, including Provide online tools for employees to see carbon footprints of journeys; Add sustainability to job descriptions and goals and Understand where sustainability capability gaps exist in the workforce
Engagement with government and civil society including Advocate for a carbon price; Advocate for renewable energy and green technology and Review industry association climate positions
Their plan now sits behind a simple, one-page partner pledge for customers, with the fuller detail available for anyone who wants it.
Findel is a genuinely complex business to plan for. It sells around 32,000 different products, roughly 60% stocked in-house and 40% sourced directly from suppliers, ranging from everyday stationery to specialist items sourced from single small suppliers. Building a plan that holds up across that range was, in itself, no small task.
Chris is also candid about why Findel moves carefully rather than quickly on any of this. "We're cautious about what we go with. We've never just gone for the shiny badge. Being robust and rigorous is really important to us," he says. "We've long been certified to UKAS-accredited ISO standards, and trust has always been important to us." After years of building credibility in sustainability, he's clear it "would be awful for that all to be unpicked by a bad decision."
7. Ripple effects
The clearest result so far is commercial. "There's one tender we're working on right now that's the first to come back for an updated Carbon Reduction Plan," Chris says. “This is a significant framework agreement and being able to provide the level of sustainability information they're looking for is clearly an advantage."
The reaction from nursery customers has been similarly encouraging, with more of them now approaching Findel for support with their own sustainability journeys, inspired by the progress the business has already made.
Internally, the Executive Leadership Team's commitment to sustainability has enabled Chris and the wider team to put ideas from the Accelerator into practice. And that same collaborative approach is now being reflected across Findel's wider value chain: Alongside its supplier decarbonisation programme, the business is increasingly supporting customers with their own sustainability ambitions, with schools and multi-academy trusts turning to Findel for guidance in much the same way that Findel collaborates with its own strategic suppliers.
8. What's next
Building on the foundations strengthened through The Climate Pledge's Net-Zero Roadmap Accelerator, delivered with Giki, Findel's next steps are focused on embedding sustainability more deeply across the business through greater employee engagement, while continuing to support customers and suppliers as they progress on their own sustainability journeys.