VDart: Teamwork to make the sustainability dream work

No matter where you go or what you do, it’s impossible to escape the term ‘sustainability’. With climate change advancing at a rate more rapid than had been anticipated, ensuring that we work together to restrict and reduce the planet’s warming is paramount. 

‘Reduce, reuse and recycle’ has now been joined by worldwide initiatives to curb harmful emissions, encourage a more plant-based diet, limit water misuse and loss, and integrate renewable energy-capturing capabilities. Conducting business in such an environment is no doubt fraught with uncertainty and potential missteps.

Helping organisations to digitally transform in the face of such drastic organisational change is VDart. Based out of Atlanta, Georgia in the US, VDart is, in the words of its Executive Vice President Rohit Bardaiyar, a “leader in digital transformation and technology talent management services”.

“VDart group as a whole is a 3,700-employee company, and we've been in business for about 14 years, specialising in talent management services. We've got a digital transformation company called Dimiour. We've also got a BPM workforce solutions company called TrustPeople, and then a digital identity and access product called Vouch,” establishes Bardaiyar, who, in addition to his EVP role for VDart, co-founded TrustPeople and functions as the organisation’s Chief Sales Officer.

Bardaiyar brings more than 25 years of strategy, consulting, P&L and account management experience to his roles, partnering with both emerging and Fortune 500 technology companies. A post-graduate in Business, Bardaiyar attended various Executive and Leadership programmes, including Tuck Business School and mentoring/leadership development programmes with Delta Air Lines and Accenture, the latter a global Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin.

Being a company focused on digital transformation – widely accepted as one way to clean up supply chains and procurement while storing information in one central location – possessing a clear and actionable sustainability framework is essential, which is where Accenture comes in.

In fact, 2021 was the year that, under Bardaiyar’s leadership, VDart successfully graduated from Accenture’s Diverse Supplier Development Program on Sustainability. A five-year pilot programme, it focused on the adoption of “five major United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

Following this programme, VDart was in a position to develop its sustainability roadmap and form a framework. But how exactly did Accenture make this possible?

“Accenture played a pivotal role in not just helping us establish our sustainability vision, but also in creating a strategic roadmap for the next five years – including reporting mechanisms and an implementation plan,” Bardaiyar says. “They were instrumental in helping us adopt the UN SDG, even helping us design our newest green offices in India, per Accenture sustainability standards.” 

The partnership between VDart and Accenture has included an expansive remit, with focus also being placed on other elements of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations, of which diversity, inclusion and equity (DE&I) is a core part.

“Diversity and inclusion is in VDart's DNA,” Bardaiyar states. “At the moment, I'm proud to say that at VDart 52% of our workforce is made up of women, while 38% of workers in our company are first generation workers, and 32% of our spend is with small, diverse companies. That's how we think.” Bardaiyar states “ESG needs to be central to the procurement decision making process and no company is too big or small to adopt”

He concludes: “At VDart, we are particularly proud of the special programmes and employee engagement initiatives that we've built around women leaders and advancing their position in the company. We’re also particularly proud of the green office that we built to house 600 of our employees in India all under one roof – both of which are as a result of our mentoring programme with Accenture.” 

Read the full Accenture report HERE