Innovation

AtStake Advisors is a sustainability consultancy that focuses on sustainability strategies, including all three pillars: economic, environmental, and social. Their real strength sits behind human rights and labor issues in global supply chains. They also provide stakeholder engagement strategies where they look for opportunities to drive innovations in either a client's process, policies, or strategies. Rather than providing stakeholder management, AtStake Advisors takes it another level by focusing on real engagement with stakeholders where there is true benefit for both organizations.

Inspiration

Sean Ansett began his career as a volunteer for the Peace Corp. Unlike many volunteers, he worked in an urban setting doing micro enterprise development work in the Dominican Republic. During our interview with Sean, he mentioned how the community where he lived had three free trade zones and he lived alongside many workers who toiled in those zones. This first got him interested in human rights issues. He explained, "I really got interested in some of the dilemmas regarding the high unemployment rate and need for jobs, but also hearing the stories from those workers after they finished their shifts at the factories."

After his time in the Peace Corps, he received his MBA from the University of Cambridge and accepted an internship with Gap, Inc. in their global compliance program where he worked on labor and human rights issues in the Caribbean and Mexico. This further sparked his interest in sustainability work and inspired him to start a company which is devoted to helping other organizations solve their sustainability challenges.

Overall impact

AtStake Advisors offers many types of consulting services, but the company’s two main focuses are on stakeholder engagement and sustainability strategy development. The three pillars of sustainability are incorporated into their work, but the main focus is on human rights and labor issues within global supply chains. Through their work, companies are enabled to take stakeholder management to another level. Companies within the apparel sector, in particular, are addressing issues that are long overdue and are shown new ways to bring their products to market while also promoting long lasting positive change.

Business benefit

Over the past 15 years as a sustainability consultant, Sean has worked on many different projects for a variety of companies. Sean has worked for well-known clothing companies such as Burberry where he was responsible for overseeing environmental sustainability, community investment, and ethical trading strategy, along with Gap Inc. where he designed and implemented the company’s global stakeholder engagement strategy which repositioned the company as a leader in Social Responsibility.

Among his many achievements, the one that has stuck out as most interesting to him is when he advised on the Bangladesh Accord. Following the collapse of Bangladesh's Rana Plaza building, Sean assisted in creating the first ever legally binding agreement between trade unions and the Global Union Federation on fire and building safety standards.

Social and environmental benefit

The work provided by AtStake Advisors has lead to significant social and environmental improvements in factories and communities across Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Sean Ansett developed a program known as the Mexican and Caribbean Global Compliance Program that ensures social and environmental code of conduct compliance among 225 garment factories in the region. He is a regular speaker and writer and enjoys lecturing at top Global MBA programs and academic institutions to share his experience and knowledge in hopes to spread the type of work he has done.

Interview

Sean Ansett, President of AtStake Advisors