Student project: Ben Sharpe's experience with Techbuyer
Benjamin Sharpe and his peers have been working alongside the circular economy technology provider ‘Techbuyer’ to help achieve a 5-star UN Sustainable Development Goal rating.
BA Business and Management students Ben Sharpe, Hetty Lucas, Joe Hung, Marsha Narula, and Nihal Singh, have recently completed a placement with the circular economy technology provider ‘Techbuyer’ as part of their Business Consultancy Project module within the School of Business and Society. The module aimed to introduce students to the practical reality of becoming an effective business consultant.
We asked Ben Sharpe, a member of the student team, to share his experience being involved in this project.
Read Ben's story below.
Tell us a bit about your project.
The basis of the Business Consultancy Project module was that as students in the School for Business and Society, this module would allow us to learn more about the behaviour and role of consultants within a real-world organisational context by fulfilling a client brief and project with an external client.
For this module our group was allocated to work alongside the circular economy technology provider 'Techbuyer' based in Harrogate, to assist them in meeting specific requirements to achieve a five-star rating on the UN Sustainable Development Goals 'Support the Goals' framework. Having already achieved four stars, the fifth required evidence of supplier education, therefore our project consisted of creating, developing, and presenting a supplier education engagement webinar to as many of Techbuyer's supplier stakeholders as possible.
By the end of this project we received approval from the UN Support the Goals organisation that Techbuyer had achieved its fifth star, and most importantly acted to improve widespread awareness that the UN Sustainable Development Goals are not simply for multinational corporations (MNCs) but can be easily integrated into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
What have you learned from this experience?
From this experience I have learned that within the practical reality of organisations, it is incredibly easy to not act with a sustainable mindset, yet from consistently engaging and learning about a company that integrates sustainable operations into every part of its operations, I know that it is possible and achievable.
On a personal level, this module project allowed me to develop my knowledge of how sustainability is thought about within the reality of business, alongside developing my communication and presentation skills throughout the process.
What are you looking to do in the future?
In the future, having recently graduated from my final year at York, I intend to pursue an early career in an organisation or body that seeks to protect or enhance its operations towards minimising environmental impact. I am of a strong belief that organisations as well as people have significant capabilities to affect social and environmental change for the better, and so as I begin my next chapter after York that is something which I wish to play a role in in the future.
A huge thanks to Ben for sharing his team’s sustainability project. We would like to wish him and the rest of his team every success in the future!
You can read more about their work with Techbuyer below.
