Modern Law Magazine Issue 67

INTERVIEWS
INTERVIEWS
A Unique Approach to ESG
A Life of Fighting Climate Change
Modern Law Sat Down the Gihan Hayes, CEO and Founder of
CommUnique, to talk about her work helping businesses achieve
their ESG goals, and the importance of making it part of your DNA.
Can you tell us about your journey
and what inspired you to start
CommUnique?
I founded CommUnique for two reasons.
The first reason is that I noticed a gap
in the market, and I needed to fill it
as soon as possible, before someone
else figured out there was a gap in the
market. Secondly, I wanted to create
a company that brought my personal
purpose to life. My personal purpose is
to help the invisible become visible, and
CommUnique does that. We do this by
hiring freelancers from underdeveloped
countries and under-represented
communities. We mentor, and coach
them, and then they deliver the work
with me. If our clients like the work
we have done, they then can go on
and hire our freelancers. Every year
we get 15 sustainability enthusiast or
communication specialists onboard and
work together with clients, and although
this business model can be difficult,
it is definitely working for us. We are
an ESG communications advisory firm,
and we do this through three different
services. The first one is to integrate
ESG into a businesses business model
by creating a strategy and helping the
client understand what initiatives they
need to take or what companies they
need to partner with so the strategy
can be brought to life. If a company
decides to become carbon neutral, we
will advise them on what that means
for the company’s growth, but also who
they should partner with to help them
achieve their goal. The second service is
ESG communications where we help the
company to humanise the sustainability
initiatives in a clear, transparent, and
storytelling way. The third service is
training. This is where we train leadership
teams and employees to understand the
role they play in the sustainability journey,
and more importantly, why they should
care about it. We are a B-Corp certified
organisation which means meeting the
high standards of environmental and
social performance, I am an advisor to
the B-Corp in the U.K. I also sit on the
board of the Money 2020, the largest
FinTech networking platform, and I am
the only person from an ethnic minority
background who is a sustainability mentor
for Accenture’s FinTech innovation lab.
What is the mission and vision of
CommUnique, and how do you
work towards achieving it?
My vision is to grow and to also help
companies to understand the importance
of sustainability but also the importance of
a diverse talent pool. Our mission and goals
are still evolving, but my ultimate goal is
for CommUnique to be the largest ESG
communications and advisory firm in the
world where by the majority of employees
are from underdeveloped countries and
underrepresented communities.
How does CommUnique
incorporate ESG principles
into its own business strategy
and operations?
For us the E has come naturally as I am
the only one from CommUnique in the
U.k. and all my freelancers are from
around the world. This means that we
do everything online and everything
is digitised. However, our mindsets are
not stagnant on this issue and we are
always looking for ways we can become
more environmentally friendly, and
how we can quantify our progress. As
for the S, as I have previously stated,
CommUnique is made up of people from
underrepresented backgrounds and
underdeveloped countries. We pay all our
freelancers a fair wage, and give them
training to future their careers and help
them progress. For our G we have a board
that hold me accountable, we aim to
work with companies who have previously
struggled with ESG and are wanting to
make positive changes.
It is very important to me that
CommUnique is a company that
practices what we preach, and that
we show we are constantly striving
to improve ourselves and up hold our
core values.
Can you share some specific
examples of environmental
sustainability initiatives that
CommUnique has implemented?
The initiative I am extremely proud of
is one we did with a large organisation
in the Stock Exchange. They wanted to
humanise their strategy and wanted to
bring their employees with them on their
journey. So, we created an application
that employees would voluntarily be
able to download that would collect data
from where the employee had commute
from. It would then translate this data
into easily consumable information on the
employee’s carbon footprint. For example,
it would say that if you were to drive into
work everyday you would produce five
swimming pools worth of carbon, but if
you were to walk for 5 minutes and take
public transport you could reduce that by
half a swimming pool.
“I would be a very proud women
when I see that there is an ecosystem
of sustainability that is as diverse,
inclusive, and as equal as possible.”
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