Following over a decade-and-a-half working in the food industry and specialising in sustainability, Françoise Cardoso made the move into the live events market – specifically to L-Acoustics to take up the role of Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. Her remit: to formalise a sustainable strategy that could then be implemented company wide.
“Sustainability has been deeply woven into the L-Acoustics’ strategy for 40 years,” began Cardoso when she sat down with TPi to explain her role at the company. “I’m here to valorise this rich heritage of sustainable practices and formalise a comprehensive strategy moving forward, while engaging employees across the company. I report to our CEO, Hervé Guillaume, showing that this topic is of great importance to the company.”
In a short space of time, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility has already enacted some impressive feats such as bringing in a third-party consultant, ekodev, to conduct a full analysis of L-Acoustics’ carbon footprint assessment. This extensive assessment incorporated everything from how staff travel to work, to the footprint of its products and how they are delivered.
“When it comes to assessing what a company can do, it’s important to always have a baseline of facts,” she commented. “To our knowledge, we are the only audio manufacturer to have completed and publicly communicated such a comprehensive evaluation.”
“Following the report, we are now in the process of creating a roadmap of where we would like to be in the next five years, setting a trajectory and targets to follow-up and monitor progress.”
When it comes to enacting these goals, one of the main methods is conducting workshops – which are run by Cardoso’s colleague Allison Sarrazin. “The goal of these workshops is to educate the wider team and give them the scientific facts as to why we are enacting these changes,” stated Cardoso.
But as well as education, Cardoso also works alongside all the heads of departments including Industry, R&D and Product Management. “This means I can align my road map with theirs, ensuring that sustainability is ingrained into everything we work on.”
She went on to express how she’d had great interactions with the R&D teams for instance. “The R&D team looks at integrating sustainability as an opportunity for new ways of thinking and often come up with great ideas.”
The solutions that have come from this collaboration include everything from identifying new materials that the speakers are made from to optimising power consumption of amplifiers. She’s also working with the Industry team to improve sustainability in the supply chain by improving production modes and making inclusion and diversity a priority.
One product that already has the hallmarks of having a ‘sustainable’ focus is the L Series – the construction of which requires 56% less paint, 30% less wood and 60% less steel. The end result is 30% less volume and 25% less weight, which allows productions to cut truck space and therefore the footprint the products have on the road.
Away from individual productions, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility gave a wider view of the discussion around large company changes that in turn would lower the environmental impact of L-Acoustics. Earlier this year the company announced the opening of a new regional distribution centre in Singapore in collaboration with leading global logistics provider, GEODIS.
As well as being an indicator of the company’s commitment to growth in the APAC region, she explained that this would enable L-Acoustics to be more strategic with its distribution. Rather than making one-off shipments to individual customers, the new Singapore operation is able to predict demand and therefore allow L-Acoustics to ship products in bulk via more environmentally friendly methods like sea, rather than airfreight, which would be a huge carbon saver.
“While working in the food industry several years ago, there was a notable ‘food revolution’ against sugars and additives, which contributed to both the health of consumers and the planets,” she mused. “I think that the events industry is undergoing a similar change where we are really debating how to make things better.”
According to the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, the only way this will reap real rewards is down to communication. “When I joined L-Acoustics, I also joined the Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA), which was created to bring organisations together to tackle the climate crisis,” she commented.
Cardoso also pointed to A Greener Future and Earth Percent as examples of industry leaders collaborating to improve the sustainability of events and tours – two resources she strongly recommends others working in the field investigate.
