“We we’re doing sustainability activities, but we weren’t doing anything to track them properly “
Ryan Watkiss
Technical Planning Coordinator at Leggett & Platt
Diploma in Business Sustainability Graduate
Why did you decide to take the Diploma course?
I’ve worked at Leggett & Platt for 15 years, mainly on the planning side. About 12 months before starting the course, I moved into supply chain, and sustainability became part of my role. Part of my deliverables was to create a sustainability action plan for our UK branches, drive buy-in from top management, and set up internal committees.
We were already doing sustainability activities as a business, but we weren’t really tracking them. We weren’t looking at metrics, baselining, or performance – and we weren’t really communicating what we were doing either. That’s what led me to the course. I wanted to understand how to approach it properly.
Why did you choose this course over others?
For me, it was about getting that baseline knowledge and understanding how sustainability fits into a business. I had an understanding of what we were doing already, but I didn’t have the background knowledge around how to apply it properly – things like reporting, metrics, and even how to communicate it. The course gave a broader introduction to everything, which is what I was looking for.
How was your experience with the content and learning format?
I thought the structure of the course was good. I liked how it builds things up from scratch. It takes you through getting top-level buy-in, setting up committees, establishing baseline data, and benchmarking performance – all of which made sense to me.
As I was going through the modules, I was making notes and linking everything back to how it would fit into our business. I ended up filling two notebooks and saving templates, screenshots, and diagrams by module, so I’ve got everything there ready to use. The knowledge checks at the end of each module were good as well.
Did the course have an impact on your work?
Yes, it changed how I thought about what we were doing. We were doing things like installing solar panels, but we weren’t really doing anything to metric that or show the impact. The course helped me understand the importance of starting from a baseline and putting proper structure around it. It made it clear that it’s not just about doing activities; it’s about tracking them, benchmarking them, and showing progress. At the time, I was setting up a sustainability committee and starting to put plans in place, so the course aligned well with that.
Would you recommend the course to others?
I think it’s a good course for anyone looking to get that baseline knowledge and understand sustainability from a business perspective. It’s also good value for money – I’ve done more expensive courses before and come away with a lot less. If you’ve got the time to go through it properly and apply it as you go, you’ll get a lot out of it.
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