By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Tomás Sercovich, CEO of Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI)
Tomás Sercovich is CEO of Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI), an organisation comprised of over 100 of Ireland’s leading businesses. BITCI helps organisations measure, manage and report on their corporate responsibility and sustainability.
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
My main priority is to support the team to deliver on our ambition to drive change in business for a more inclusive and sustainable Ireland, where everyone thrives.
I am privileged to work every day with very motivated experts that bring their passion for change and their desire to help people – whether the CEO of a large company, a sustainability practitioner, a vulnerable jobseeker or a student in a DEIS school.
I engage with our exceptional Board to ensure we have best in class governance and to enable Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI) reach out to more business leaders, policymakers, funders, and peer organisations.
BITCI has been driving change for 25 years. I am honoured to be the custodian of a unique organisation with such a powerful mandate.
What are your biggest challenges as CEO?
My main challenges are to engage our member companies in a meaningful programme of support, ensuring we remain a trusted partner in their journey to inclusive and sustainable business. We aspire to be a critical friend of business as they drive these significant transformations.
As a movement, we always want to grow our network, hence, expanding the membership is always top of mind. Additionally, ensuring appropriate funding and excellent governance are always critical.
Engaging our colleagues is also fundamental. It is a challenging marketplace for jobs, and I am keen on ensuring people enjoy their work, feel fulfilled in their purpose, and can enjoy a good work-life balance!
What are the challenges facing the industry going forward?
The biggest challenge is to get all businesses, large and small and all government departments to act more promptly and holistically to ensure Ireland meets its decarbonisation obligations. 2024 is the hottest year on record and our nature and wildlife is being depleted. Time is of the essence, but action can be slow.
BITCI believes all companies must pivot their business models to be more sustainable to minimise their impact on the environment and ensure their future viability. However, a sense of being overwhelmed, lack of skills and know-how, and cost implications are all real barriers that businesses must be overcome. Providing supports, resources and upskilling through collaboration and collective action is the key to addressing these barriers and engaging in effective supply chain engagement models to reduce Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
What new trends are emerging in your industry?
Our partnerships with business, government and communities help people and the planet. BITCI is very committed through our individual work with members and our collective action campaign Elevate, The Inclusive Workplace, Pledge to ensure employers attract and retain a workforce that is reflective of the society we live in. Unfortunately, in some companies progress to advance the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion agenda have been eroded or scaled back entirely.
It will be interesting to see if this retrograde trend expands further under a President Trump administration and if it will have a knock-on effect in American companies based in Ireland. Having a diverse workforce reaps significant benefit to the employer and the employee so this is a worrying trend if it gains further traction.
Are there any major changes you would like to see in your sector?
The demands on businesses to become more sustainable are increasing rapidly from investors, customers, and staff. Likewise, the regulatory and legal frameworks around reporting progress across the four pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental, social and governance) are complex and demanding. While reporting on progress is necessary, many of our members have highlighted much of their staff time is devoted to responding to reporting data requirements leaving less time for innovation and action to ensure targets are met and progress made.
I want to remedy this imbalance and strive for all companies to be best in class by going beyond compliance and demonstrating continuous improvement. This is already visible in our member companies who have attained the Business Working Responsibly Mark, an independently audited standard for sustainability.
How do you define success and what drives you to succeed?
To us, success is defined by the impact of our initiatives. Our scorecard looks at the number of companies we engage across collective campaigns, the number of students in DEIS schools we impact through our programmes or the jobseekers we support to achieve sustainable employment.
Our impact is also measured through our reach, for example events, social media presence. In our world we always discuss whether our work is “moving the dial” on tackling inequality in our society or decarbonising our economy. Honestly, this is hard to measure but despite it being an immense challenge, it is a great motivator.
Looking back over 25 years of Business in the Community Ireland, you can see things have changed for better. Collectively we are a more inclusive society, and we have moved from climate laggard to climate active.
What have been your highlights in business over the past year?
As BITCI are leaders in sustainability and social inclusion, I am proud how our education and employment programmes continue to improve pupils and job seekers employment prospects by addressing systemic barriers.
We have led pioneering projects with members to adopt more effective supply chain engagement models to help upskill SMEs on carbon literacy and reduction tactics. Also, a major highlight was the launch of our latest collective action campaign Accelerate, The Business Pact for Climate and Nature. This builds on the success of our Low Carbon Pledge but takes a more holistic and innovative lens as it expects companies to set a net-zero by 2050 target (approved by Science-Based Targets Initiative) by 2030 and develop a Climate Transition Plan to guide implementation. Already nine of our members have signed up. I look forward to more member companies joining this campaign in 2025.
What’s next for your company?
In 2025, BITCI will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. It has been fascinating to see how the sustainability agenda has evolved over that time to a point where it is now something all companies are progressing to varying levels. Plenty of events are planned to showcase the impact BITCI and its members have had in championing all aspects of sustainability. A main highlight will be our 25th Anniversary Sustainability and Social Inclusion Summit, taking place on 11th September 2025 in Croke Park. Hope to see you all there!
Also, we will be rolling out our new Strategic Plan 2025-2028, which will be transformative as we develop diverse engagement models to respond to the different levels of maturity and need across our membership. Demonstrating our expertise, relevance and uniqueness will remain central to everything we do.
Where do you want your business/brand to be this time next year?
I would like BITCI to be even more known for the value and impact of its collective campaigns at the end of 2025. Being able to convene, inspire and collaborate with multi-sectoral businesses to ensure they strive to operate in a net zero/nature positive economy and an inclusive society is what makes our brand unique.
We have demonstrated over the past 25 years our expertise and leadership in championing all aspects of sustainability and we will continue to do this into the future. While the marketplace is more crowded, BITCI together with our members can and do make a difference in moving the dial from ambition to action.
What is the best book you’ve ever read (non-business) and why?
Despite its Netflix notoriety, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of those books that you can re-read multiple times, and each time discover a new character and a different story. It’s like the story of the universe told through the lens of one family in a small town in rural Colombia over one century. It shows humans in all their glory and misery, vulnerable yet determined to progress.
What is your favourite hobby and why?
My partner Colm is a fabulous cook. Sitting down to a great meal with great company of friends and family is an immense source of joy. Travelling (sustainably) opens the mind and teaches me that in the end we are all the same human race!
What is your mantra for life?
Enjoy what you do, every day. Seek change. Trust people. Be kind.
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