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Why failure is an option in sustainability
Sustainability in UK manufacturing rarely comes with a clear roadmap. Energy costs are high, electricity runs five times the price of gas, and the once-promising hydrogen route to decarbonisation has gone quiet. For businesses setting net zero commitments against that backdrop, the challenge is separating genuine ambition from targets that look good on paper but cannot be delivered.
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Steven Wright, Head of Sustainability at Portmeirion Group Limited, runs health, safety, sustainability, environmental and product compliance across six brands and international operations in North America, Canada and China. Over nine years with the business, his remit has grown from energy management and emissions reporting into a broad governance role, informed by a master’s in sustainability from Cranfield University.
Speaking with Rachel Green, Steven makes a case for treating failed projects as learning, embedding sustainability into procurement, operations and finance rather than one job title, and building net zero targets that hold up to quarterly scrutiny. What follows is a summary of the key points.
A group-wide strategy across six brands
One of the biggest shifts Steven describes is how he now views the business. Where his early focus was on the ceramics side and the carbon from energy consumption, Portmeirion Group spans ceramic manufacturing, home fragrance, timber products and textiles. Each area carries its own environmental impact, from packaging and waste to supply chain and social engagement.
Managing sustainability across six brands has no single fix. The approach is to install a group policy on core sustainability functions while recognising that each brand starts from a different point. Steven notes that there is no magic bullet, only a consistent framework applied across different products and operations.
Mandatory supplier audits and bringing suppliers on board
A recent exercise has been making social audits mandatory for all Tier 1 suppliers, ensuring the way the group operates is as sustainable as possible. Where a supplier lacks the specific audit requested but holds an equivalent, the team assesses the data chain and works with them rather than forcing a rigid standard.
Resistance usually comes from a sense that change means more bureaucracy. Steven’s view is that governance should not mean bureaucracy, and that clear communication about why data is being requested drives better uptake. He notes that most sustainability work is carried out by people without sustainability in their job title, which makes engagement essential.
If we can’t get them engaged we’re going to struggle to get valid data.
Energy, kilns and the cost of UK manufacturing
The kilns are the main energy consumers and, by default, the biggest carbon emitters across the six brands. The deeper issue is cost. Steven describes UK manufacturing at a crossroads: the industry needs to invest in new technology and bring kilns into this century, but without clear guidance on alternative fuels that investment is hard to justify.
A few years ago hydrogen was positioned as the route to decarbonising gas emissions. That approach has gone quiet, with policy now favouring electrification at a time when electricity prices are roughly five times higher than gas. Steven notes there is a desire within ceramics to decarbonise, but that it depends on support and engagement from policymakers.
Setting net zero targets that are achievable
Steven observes a common theme where ambition is confused with credibility, and points to organisations scrapping net zero plans because their roadmaps were never achievable. Portmeirion’s Crafting a Better Future strategy commits to net zero for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040, tracked quarterly by a business sustainability committee with an annual review of whether objectives remain relevant.
The strategy began in 2021 assuming hydrogen would deliver net zero. With that no longer the case, the business has pivoted into a transition phase, monitoring viable technologies as they emerge. The committee is made up of five senior managers and the chief operating officer, with action groups beneath it chaired by committee members to keep responsibility clear.
Practical takeaways:
- Track progress against net zero targets regularly rather than waiting for the deadline.
- Build in a plan B and plan C, and be transparent if the original route stops being viable.
- Reduce energy use first before looking to offset emissions.
Failure as a learning tool
Steven is open that plenty of projects have not gone to plan. His position is that failure is an option, but failing to learn from it is not. An organisation that only pursues projects with guaranteed success will not generate new innovation, so the risk of a new project has to be understood and its lessons captured when things go wrong.
That extends to how progress is reported. Rather than presenting a dashboard of green ticks, Steven would prefer a difficult conversation about a result, with root cause analysis when something fails. Celebrate what works, investigate what does not.
I’d rather have a difficult conversation about a target result than just presenting a dashboard with a green tick.
Collaborating across international teams
Coordinating operations across North America, Canada and China means working with teams at very different starting points. Emissions reporting is not globally unified, so Steven’s work involves understanding each country’s approach, cultural view and timeframe. The conversation notes that China is understood to be aiming to peak emissions around 2030 before working towards net zero.
His advice for working across countries and cultures is direct communication. Reach out to stakeholders, understand the barriers and work around them. The worst approach is sending a questionnaire with no context, which either gets ignored or produces data that does not reflect the essential need for accuracy.
Making data collection meaningful
To avoid sustainability reporting becoming a tick-box exercise, the team works proactively with supply chain partners on the energy used in overseas ceramics manufacturing. They trend consumption against a metric such as energy per tonne of saleable product. Where one supplier performs worse than the sample pool, they anonymise the data, share how that factory compares, and explore how to bring it down.
Steven’s test is simple: if data does not lead to a conversation, an action or a decision, you should ask why you are collecting it. Overloaded spreadsheets with cells marked mandatory for no clear reason only obscure the points that matter. Keep requests lean and relevant.
Packaging standards and single-use plastic
The main packaging challenge in Europe is how individual member states interpret an overarching regulation such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). Two countries have asked for the same data in completely different ways. Portmeirion’s response is to share one underlying baseline dataset and let each framework interpret it, rather than building bespoke versions and risking the wrong data.
On materials, the group now primarily uses card and has eliminated single-use plastic as a packaging material. It has invested in a shredder so that imported card arriving at the distribution centre is reused as a replacement for plastic void fill, with recyclability and repurposing built into supplier conversations.
Where to start, and the three areas to focus on
For businesses starting from scratch, Steven’s advice is to look at what customers are asking for and find the common theme. Do not be afraid to start, accept a possible false start, and incorporate what you learn into a second attempt. Plenty of resources and networks exist to support the work.
For companies without a dedicated sustainability function, he points to three areas: procurement, operations and finance. Procurement influences carbon footprint, packaging, supply chain and cost, so sustainability questions belong at the start of the process. In operations, better quality yields mean less waste. In finance, the goal is to reframe spend as saving rather than cost, embedding sustainability without risking commercial success.
Sustainability shouldn’t be a department as such. It’s making it a behaviour.
Practical takeaways:
- Start with the sustainability questions your customers are already asking.
- Embed sustainability questions into procurement decisions from the outset.
- Frame investment as a saving to align sustainability with commercial goals.
Looking ahead, Steven sees growth in UK manufacturing and decarbonisation of the kilns as closely linked. Kilns run around the clock, and keeping them filled with UK-made products improves efficiency, since firing fresh air is a waste. A successful campaign to bring the Spode Christmas Tree range back to the UK, originally made two miles from its current home before being outsourced, has challenged assumptions about UK production costs.
The thread running through the conversation is that sustainability works best when it stops being one person’s remit and becomes a shared behaviour across procurement, operations and finance. Honest reporting, meaningful data and a willingness to learn from what does not work matter more than a dashboard of green ticks.
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