The main project of my time at M2030 was to improve engagement and usability of the reduction plan features. I started with discovery work, to answer the main questions relating to: what makes a quality reduction plan and why do Suppliers not evidence them on the platform?
There was a business need for users to use the functions of the action/reduction plan and the actions.
Actions were the USP of the product/platform: these were best practices to reduce emissions within manufacturing sites. The action plan acted like a project management tool, as the platform's initial target audience were for sustainability, health & safety, or quality managers within manufacturing sites.
However, as the need to reduce emissions across supply chains increased, this target audience became redundant. Many more different types of users were using the platform, as required by their customers: the large Supply Chain owners.
As the platform had dual-access and visibility: ie. the SCOs had their own side of the platform where they could see their suppliers data and action plans, and the impact that had on their own Scope 3 footprint. Therefore, there was a business need for the suppliers to use the action plan. No actions, plan or data meant that their SCOs did not know what their own Scope 3 footprint was or the risk of continuing business with the suppliers.
Data obtained from the backend Django database showed that numbers of use of the actions were low, as collated and illustrated by the diagram below.
B column illustrates that, despite the number of facilities (manufacturing sites) that entered their overall emission data, there were very few that demonstrated what they were doing to reduce it.
Further research was to engage current Supplier users in interviews and surveys to determine their feedback as to why they didn't use the action plan feature set.
Feedback could be condensed down to:
- did not find it valuable for their organisation for many reasons.
Awareness was being addressed within this work initiative.
However, the actions perception of value was the main focus of my work within this case study. What was it about the actions, the action library and the action plan that made it redundant to users?
From 1:1 interviews with suppliers, their problem were:
- their org/site already had an internal system/software they were using and had no need for the M2030 offering.
- additionally, they didn't see the point in transfering this information across.
- the org./site had an internal team/external consultant that provided them with best practices and managment of what, how and why in reducing emissions within their org/site.
- they didn't want to share confidential practices with their SCOs.
- the user was constrained by processes/hierarchy/budget as to what to do and when.
- the information/planning was done by someone else and difficult to obtain to upload.
- the platform did not provided an 'easy' upload/import function, to input a formed plan onto the platform.
- due to the longevity, or trialling of, needed for some actions, there was no accurate/completed reduction data/savings to input.
- the site did not manufacture directly and therefore most of the actions were not relevant.
From the user feedback received, we answered what has already been done to address this and what research determined that these were problems.
- Bulk upload is one of the most common questions CAT team members get asked when
it comes to AP.
- Fake door testing for Import Action button results show that 400 unique users (12%) out of total 3400 unique Platform visitors clicked on the button. Significant rise of interest was captured during the last week before FMCG campaign deadline which allows us to take an assumptions that problem is more common when there is a tight deadline to meet.
a. Based on the Action Adoption analysis, if Organizations has 5+ Facilities, one Action repeats in 1.6 Facilities within the Same Organizations. Real numbers can be ultimately higher because of Created Actions – unique ID is assigned if Action is created from scratch in every Facility.
Suppliers are very careful about providing any extra data that SCOs can have access to. UI of M2030 Platform does not seem to be giving enough assurance about what data input can be seen by the SCOs and what can not. There is also a general and larger problem of data security of M2030 itself.
During the Research Phase, we also identified and validated other Problems that worth solving but require some additional research and coordination with other teams.
This problem seems to be very complex and it has a lot of Educational aspect therefore there will be more collaboration with CAP and Sustainability teams to move it forward. How to calculate Environmental savings is one of the most common questions CAT team members get asked when it comes to AP which was also found during the User Interviews.
This problem and solution process can be found within this case study.
Based on current data:
- 66% of respondents have Scope 1 & 2 carbon reduction target
- only 18% of respondents have verified Science Based Targets (SBT) for Carbon Reduction
- 26% of respondents are committed to set Net Zero targets by the end of this year
Preliminary Data Analysis shows that Facilities that have Scope 1 & 2 carbon reduction target tend to have better APs that those who don’t have such target (out of 169 Facilities that supplied to Asda in 2022, those who answered “Yes” to questions “Does your organization have Scope 1 & 2 carbon reduction targets?” have 2.125 times more Action Adoptions compared to those who answered “No”.
a. Suppliers that are very new to the concept of Environmental management and reporting do not know where to start and/or only know that they must start with reducing their energy usage.
After this planning and documenting, I started to to ideate on how to solve these problems.
The PM assigned to the work defined the main goals:
Goal 1:
Provide Buyer's visibility into their Scope 3 Emissions Reduction Pathway by 2030
KPIs / Success Metrics:
1. Increase the amount of CO2e tracked in suppliers' action plans
Goal 2:
Reduce time/cost for Suppliers that produce most CO2e to build Action Plans w/ Savings
KPIs / Success Metrics:
• Achieve a 50% adoption rate of the Action Plan among facilities that produce most CO2ewithin 2 months of sign-up
• Achieve a 30% growth in the number of facilities reporting estimated CO2 savings (current:15% of facilities)
Some of the known risks to the success of the solutions and project were determined as such:
- Effective carbon reduction demands reliable Measurements data, is Measurements datareliable? (poor data quality could lead to flawed analysis and additional costs for the Buyersin the long-term)
- Poor quality of estimated Environmental Savings
- Business Growth rate is not being accountable underlines the quality and reliability of theCarbon Reduction Plan impact and consequently Projected Footprint View for both Suppliers and Buyers
- Buyers lack own drive/communications to their Suppliers, therefore the platform can achieve so much if Buyers will not improve internally
Ideas were categorised by problem and assessed by the PM and the devs for their impact and feasibility, a seen in the visuals below.
The ideas were then taken to design stage: where I created prototypes in Axure.
My process within this work intiative went to creating ideal user flow diagrams for the to-be-developed user processes. Below is a selecton of the diagrams I made, that went on to be prototyped.
The main ideas that were developed were:
In my analysis of what could be improved within the action detail layout, to increase usability and the end goal of the user shortlisting and adding savings, there were multiple factors:
- increasing the hierarchy of savings data input, to make the user awar that this data is necessary and beneficial (but not required)
- progressive disclosure and user choice to view info/content: to not overwhelm
Below are static images, demos and prototype links of restructured layout designs.
I redesigned the 'empty state' of the action plan: to show users what the could do to not make it empty, with direct CTA buttons for each function.
The previous 2 static images show the function of copying action(s) within 1 org to different facility action plans. This version is closr to what was deveoped and released.
At thi point, I was moved to other projects within the company and the impact was not measured, and the work put on hold.
See one of the prototypes of multi-applying an action to another facility's reduction plan.
Empty state prototype of an action plan
Copying an action from 1 facility to another prototype
Action detail layout improvement - as a slide out prototype
A restructured layout of an action detail page
Or see below for videos demoing the ideas. Demo videos were created with Adobe Premier Rush and Quicktime.
Allowing an easier preview of an action within the action library page. Therefore, increasing the usability of an acin could increase the shortlisting of an action.
Giving the user the functionality to select 1 or more actions within a facility profile, to then add to antoher facility's action plan. This then reduced the time to achieve a task.
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