Why sustainability is a people problem first, and a technology problem second
How Precision Group’s ESG and IT teams work as one and why that is the real reason behind our Level 3 SGP certification. The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting are at the centre of this achievement. By Rich Boland, Client Services, Precision Group
In print, we are used to talking about sustainability in terms of paper grades, ink formulations and waste practices. All of that matters, but the people whose work results in accurate carbon and compliance reporting are fundamental to progress, too.
However, in my experience, the real difference is the people who decide what to measure, how to use the numbers, and how brave we are willing to be in changing the way we work. In fact, The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting play a vital role in driving these decisions.
At Precision Group, the reason we hold Level 3 Sustainable Green Print certification and ISO 14001 is not because we discovered a “magic platform”. Rather, it is because a small group of people inside the business — our IT Development team, led by Dave Arvaji and Kit Loi, and our ESG expert Matt Gatfield — have treated sustainability and compliance as a shared problem to solve. Not a report to file. For us, it’s the people, working collectively, who are responsible for ensuring both accurate carbon and compliance reporting.
They are the ones who connect the dots between ESG and IT. Specifically, their work does four things.
- They decide what we should measure, and their role as the individuals behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting is key here.
- They work out where the data should live and how it needs to flow.
- They build and integrate the tools that allow us to trust the numbers.
- Crucially, they use those numbers to change behaviour so we can save more and waste less.
People first, systems second
The “technology technology” is important. However, it is a second-order decision and, ultimately, the people behind carbon and compliance reporting drive our success.
The first-order questions are all human-technology focused, and the accuracy of our compliance reporting depends on the people making these decisions.
- What does “good” look like for environmental performance in a real production environment?
- What would give our teams information they can act on during the day, not at the end of the quarter?
- How do we design systems that are rigorous enough for ISO 14001, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS, but simple enough that people will actually use them?
This is where Dave, Kit and Matt come in. Together, they have built a way of working where environmental, operational and security data are treated as one discipline — not three separate projects. Notably, The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting shape how this unified approach happens.
In practice, that means the platforms we use are the result of their thinking, not the starting point. From our production workflow system through to carbon and ESG reporting tools, they chose and configured those systems so that environmental performance sits in the same place as job scheduling, inventory, client data and access controls. Because of the people responsible for accurate carbon and compliance reporting, these integrated solutions are possible.
That people-first design shows up in the detail. The way The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting have embedded practical solutions is evident here.
- Jobs carry not just quantities and deadlines, but environmental attributes and risk factors, thanks to those responsible for accurate carbon and compliance reporting.
- Waste is reconciled against actual production, not assumptions.
- Solar output is normalised against throughput, so teams can see efficiency — not just kilowatts.
None of this happens because a vendor sold us a dashboard. It happens because our internal people insisted that if we were going to take sustainability seriously, it had to live in the everyday work of the business, and that’s the real contribution of those behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting.
IT and ESG as one team
In many organisations, environmental performance lives in one corner of the business and IT in another. By contrast, at Precision the collaboration between IT development and ESG is deliberate. Here, the way the people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting work together is truly distinctive.
Importantly, they all report into our Operations Manager — Systems, Workflow, Compliance and Future — Matt Gatfield.
The compliance and environmental lens
Matt brings three core questions to the table, reflecting the ethos of the people at the heart of accurate carbon and compliance reporting in our organization.
- What does SGP Level 3 actually require, in practice?
- How do we demonstrate that our performance is auditable and repeatable, not a once-off exercise?
- Where are the gaps between our current operations and what ISO 14001 expects?
The systems-thinking lens
Meanwhile, Dave and Kit bring a complementary set of questions. The people responsible for accurate carbon reporting collaborate here with compliance and operational teams to devise solutions.
- How do we attach those requirements to real jobs, machines, suppliers and clients?
- How do we make sure people see meaningful numbers at the right time, not just a long report at month end?
- How do we build controls — logging, permissions, retention — that satisfy both SGP+S and information security standards like ISO 27001 and PCI DSS?
Why the combination matters
Together, they design processes and data structures that make it almost impossible for sustainability to become a side project. Specifically, environmental information sits inside the same governance framework as client and payment data. As a result, the same systems that enforce access control and audit trails for sensitive information also underpin our environmental claims. For clients — especially banks, government agencies and charities — that integrated approach matters. In short, when we talk about carbon, waste and renewables, we are not asking them to “take our word for it”. The evidence lives in the same disciplined environment as the rest of their work with us. In every case, it’s The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting who ensure this level of integrity.
Culture before dashboards
It is tempting to think that if you buy the right ESG platform, you will become sustainable. Our experience is the opposite. In practice, you become sustainable by making sure you have people who hold three lines. At the end of the day, those people are at the center of accurate carbon and compliance reporting.
- Curious enough to challenge how things have always been done.
- Disciplined enough to treat data quality as non-negotiable.
- Practical enough to know that if a system is too complex, no one will use it.
Only then does the technology pay off. The Sustainable Green Print (SGP+S) framework rewards exactly that kind of discipline. Specifically, Level 1 anchors the basics — waste, compliance, record-keeping. By contrast, Levels 2 and 3 add energy, water, emissions, chemical storage, carbon reporting, and the adoption of renewables. And then doing it again tomorrow. After all, The people behind accurate carbon and compliance reporting remain essential for this ongoing progress.
The long view
Being family-owned has allowed us to take a long view. Since 2022, we have invested in solar, emissions reporting, supplier scoring, data integration and SGP+S aligned documentation. However, the real investment has been in the people who make sense of it all and hold the line on standards. The tools exist. The standards are clear. What makes the difference is whether you back your people — your developers, your analysts, your compliance leads — to work together, ask harder questions of the business, and build systems that turn environmental aspiration into operational reality. Ultimately, it’s the people behind such accurate carbon and compliance reporting who are our greatest asset.
In the end, when ESG and IT operate as one team, sustainability becomes the way you run the place.
