From Continuity To Sustainability

short, the issue at stake here is not the time we spend working
from home, but the fact that we continue to meet our respon-
sibilities to the best of our ability, living up to Mazars Denge's
quality standards.

And will there be setbacks while discharging our duties? Of
course, there will. But we will try to solve these problems to-
gether, by staying in touch with line managers and with our sup-
port departments, especially our IT department.

2. Regarding our mental health:

Humans are creatures that need to be sociable. When this is
missing, a person can falter and can feel miserable. This pre-
sents us with the problem that we are using our mobile phones
as a socialization tool more than ever these days, because the
bulk of our time is spent at home. I say problem; because right
now most of us are bombarded with at best useless, at worst
misinformation from our social media accounts. This barrage
may seem to have a transient effect on us at the time the infor-
mation is being processed by our brains. But it's very difficult
to predict the effect of the information overload that is enter-
ing our subconscious, especially in a period when we are locked
down in our homes. So, what am I doing about it? I avoid read-
ing any news on the coronavirus and this epidemic. As it hap-
pens, our marketing and communications department compiles
and shares with us a really good report with straightforward
and reliable information. Thanks to this report, not only do I not
have to bother to look up this information, but I also get up-to-
date intelligence with a summary that is very helpful.

Also, as part of our responsibility towards our employees, I
want to let you have a brief summary of the work of the Crisis
Desk which includes representatives from our finance, HR, IT
and marketing and communications departments on our firm's
operations for your information and assessment.

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• We completed and deployed our crisis communication plan
within the first 24 hours. We created the Crisis Desk struc-
ture.

• It took us 48 hours to adapt to the new situation; in order to
reduce the risk of spreading the disease from colleagues who
use public transport to commute to the office, we changed
our working hours and prepared to work remotely. We read-
ied our intra office informational visuals and distributed
them to all our offices together with their print versions.

• We focused on using the Zoom remote meeting program and
the Microsoft Teams meeting and collaboration programs.
We cancelled all our in person meetings.

• We began updating our client database in order to inform
our clients about the crisis in real time.

• On Sunday, March 15, we disinfected our Head Office against
viruses and bacteria with the highest tech available to us:
nano silver ion technology.

• As of Monday, March 16, we switched to remote working in
Istanbul, then Ankara and then our Bursa offices. We rede-
signed our office processes so as to be able to continue with
the least amount of physical contact.

• HR led the way on coordinating our remote work by prepar-
ing work schedules.

• We began monitoring the health of all employees on a daily
basis through HR and reported them to the Crisis Desk.

• We switched our training sessions on Covid-19 and the other
subjects to the e-learning platform, opening them up for em-
ployee use.

• In order for our managers to track current affairs, we began
preparing Covid-19 information notes that could be read in
ten minutes compiled from national and international news

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sources. Based on the positive feedback we got, we decided
to forward this bulletin to other stakeholders.
My hope is that this unique and extraordinary event has taught
humanity to say ‘us’ instead of ‘me’, reminding us that we have
responsibilities towards all the living things that we share our
air with, because we are simply passing through as guests of this
exceptional planet and in the final word, instead of surrender-
ing to the faulty system that has put us in this position, I hope
that our problems can be overcome using reason, cooperation, a
culture of sharing and common determination that will help us
all to live consciously and with awareness.

With love

Dr. Izel Levi Coskun, CEO and Corporate Sustainability Ambassador

As I worked on trying to implement our decisions effectively and in the
rush and intensity of following the rapidly changing news, I received an
e-mail from one of our employees on March 25th, which made me instantly
forget my weariness.
“The sensitivity shown and care that has been taken of the teams right
from the outset of this difficult process to the present day has motivated
me and I am sure my other colleagues as well. I wanted to thank you in
particular. The considerate approach taken by my firm during this difficult
time has once again reminded me of the importance and confidence of be-
ing 'part of the Mazars team'. I hope we will have better days. Thank you so
much for everything. I wish you health.”
I consider every message sent to me by our employees as an opportunity
in my mission as sustainability ambassador. Thanks to the feedback I re-
ceived from our employees, the Covid-19 epidemic was a chance for me to
see how our values, which are embedded in our brand and integrated with

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our identity, are perceived by our employees. Thanks to this feedback, we
felt that we were on the right track, and we continued to communicate
confidently, and the Crisis Desk was able to carry on implementing the de-
cisions it took.

Strengthening our Communication Network

In order not to limit the scope of our communication strategy to the Crisis
Desk, our employees and clients, we made sure to reach out to our part-
ners, to inform them of our experiences during the pandemic. This was
critical in order for us to have their support because of the role they played
in the follow-up of the decisions the Crisis Desk had to take.

On Friday, April 3, we held a webinar for the entire Istanbul office. In this,
our Crisis Desk team not only gave information about the process they
were managing, but also shared how they felt as individuals beyond their
titles and responsibilities. Here's an excerpt from the message of our Chief
Financial Officer, Sarah Coskun, assuring employees that salaries would be
paid on time.

“Our firm, which has been operating for nearly 45 years, has survived
many hardships to become what it is today. Throughout the many crises
we have overcome, our priority has been to avoid depriving our employ-
ees, and to this end, we have implemented a ‘bottom up’ system. In practice
this means that we paid out salaries (which we always make sure we pay
in a timely manner), from the lowest level progressing upwards. In oth-
er words, the most senior management team got their payments last. You
should be in no doubt that the same system continues to be used.”

After this webinar, I got a message from Rahsan Yasdiman, our director for
Outsourcing. Rahsan wanted to convey the feedback she had received in
the online meeting she had held with her team in the afternoon. It had not
escaped our employees’ notice that we had acted swiftly to begin remote
work, the training sessions for employees, the psychological counselling
and sports services, the fact that our managers and Crisis Desk officials
had kept communication lines open throughout this process, and that we

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had been quick to solve any problems we detected in the employee’s gen-
eral situation. Our staff appreciated the fact that more emphasis had been
placed on communication aimed at improving their quality of life and that
the language and culture of ‘us’ was put into practice through actions and
not just words. Seeing that the steps we took towards achieving corpo-
rate sustainability and that our corporate values, sustainability-oriented
viewpoint and efforts in this direction had started to bear fruit with our
employees has been the biggest gain in all of this.

Referencing Sustainable Development Goals

By using our common sense and collective solidarity all the decisions that
we took in the critical first five months of the epidemic contributed to the
shaping of our firm's future path and helped us to move forward with con-
fidence into the transformative period we are now living through together.
It was also the most powerful evidence that we were acting with direct ref-
erence to the Sustainable Development Goals of our sustainability vision.
Of all the decisions taken by the Crisis Desk, that of continuing to work
from home was perhaps the most important and it was aimed at protect-
ing our employees and their families by not putting them at risk. In this re-
spect, by following the UN's Covid-19 epidemic guidelines, we were guided
directly by the SDG 3 which is Good Health and Well-being, enabling us
to contribute to this Sustainable Development Goal. Other aspects of our
work towards SDG 3 included psychological counselling, educational we-
binars for parents, daily information briefings and warning messages, on-
line sports as well as the other steps we took to support our employees in
working more comfortably from home, such as providing internet support
to name one.

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Furthermore, in order to benefit fully from remote work technology, the
software we developed using feedback from our intrapreneurship depart-
ment and our Izmir Office software team emphasized the importance of
innovation in managing this process. This was the most striking example
of our movement towards executing innovation as part of SDG 9. All the
projects we developed not only enabled us to provide better quality ser-
vice to our clients, but also contributed to increasing overall productivity

by easing the lives of our employees who were dealing with the epidemic.
We envision a hybrid model of work for the post Covid-19 period. We are
currently establishing a system in which the office is used at a minimal
level and our employees can perform their work from home as much as

possible. In addition, we're trying to create a service model in which com-
munication with our clients is more frequent, but participation in face-to-
face events and travel meetings are fewer. This means a direct reduction
in our carbon and energy footprint. Our decision to contribute to Climate
Action, which is the 13th Sustainable Development Goal, is based on the
responsibility we feel as a company in light of the climate crisis problem.
The Covid-19 epidemic is an opportunity to make this happen. Despite un-
favourable economic conditions, we are continuing to apply the selection

criteria which was inspired by the UN Global Compact, in choosing our

suppliers and our clients. There have, as a result, been times when we have

chosen not to work with a number of potential clients because we had a

mismatch with them in terms of sustainability.

Throughout the negative economic circumstances in 2020, we have con-

tinued to raise awareness of integrated thinking and sustainable develop-

ment with all our stakeholders, especially our employees, and we have up-

loaded our latest integrated report to the UN Global Compact website on
1 May 2021. We have applied the guidelines of SDG 12 which are Respon-
sible Consumption and Production through these activities. Additionally,
the support we provided to NGO's during the epidemic has not been cut
in any shape or form. On the one thousandth day that Osman Kavala spent
as a prisoner, I fasted and posted a video on the subject on my Instagram
feed. All of these are a part of our commitment to SDG 16 Peace and Justice
Strong Institutions.

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Awareness

A few years ago, I came down with a serious nerve infection. I was in con-
stant pain, limping around all day; the pain persisted even if I was sitting
down, and I had trouble sleeping. My doctor was initially unable to diag-
nose it, so the pain lasted for about a week. Despite this, I refused to give up
any daily activities and I stubbornly continued to go to work.

At the end of that week, my body gave out. Running a fever, I went to the
emergency room of a hospital and was finally diagnosed with a nerve infec-
tion, or shingles, in two areas, from below my knee to my ankle and from
my waist down to my knee. I took the medicine prescribed and made an ap-
pointment with a neurologist the very next day. I was feeling much better
by then. After the specialist examined me, he warned me not to tire myself
out and to spend the following week resting. The medicine was working;
I immediately returned to the same busy routine. I even took a one-day
business trip to another city in Turkey. In any case, I was taking my medica-
tion regularly. The medicine was working and providing quite a bit of pain
relief. I had no complaints other than a slight ache.

The next week, when I arrived at the doctor for my check-up, he checked
my reflexes along the Achilles tendon and in the knee area. There was no
response. He turned to me and asked, "Izel, what have you done this week,
did you not rest at all?". When I told him what I had done, his face became
grave, and he said: “Look! Your reflexes are almost non-existent. If you con-
tinue like this and show up next week as if nothing has happened, I may
not be able to help you regain the reflexes you've lost. I told you to rest last
week, now I'm telling you not to leave the house, in fact don't even get out
of bed; you have been warned!”. I was completely depressed. It was the first
time in my life that something like this had happened. For me, any disease
was an enemy that needed to be eradicated as soon as possible and when I
thought of surrendering to it, I felt both weak and fragile and like a defeated
soldier. I was also pretty ashamed of myself. How could someone as happy
as I, who loved to live life, chat and share get shingles? As soon as I got
home and went to bed, I began to think.

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After a while, I realized that I was framing this condition in terms of win-
ning or losing. And of course, I realised that this point of view was wrong.
I asked myself, “Is this condition an enemy to be defeated or a messenger
trying to give me a warning? If I had been doing everything right, would I
have contracted this?”. In the end, I listened to my doctor and rested a lot.
But most importantly, I returned with the decision to make changes in my
life. Sure, I was very busy again, but now I had learned to say “No” to some
offers; I had also decided to make some changes in order to devote more
time to myself, my family and my nearest and dearest.

During the Covid lockdown, as I gazed on Istanbul's empty roads, and
sparkling seas, and heard the sound of the birds that soothed my spirit,
I couldn't help but wonder if Covid-19 can teach humanity the same les-
son that having shingles has taught me. This epidemic is a distress signal
for all of humanity, maybe it’s our last exit. Not everything began with the
pandemic and nor will it end when it too ends. But this crisis has an after,
as it has a before. In order to predict the future, we need to interpret the
past well.

The current system based simply on a continuity point of view has brought
the world great misery. The world is very sick right now and its temperature
is rising. It is in the same situation as a person with a constant high fever.
While temperature records are broken in different parts of the world every
day, billions of people are living in despair, caught in the ruthless wheels
of a system that drags both the environment and humanity down an irre-
versible path. They are losing their trust and hope. When problems such
as inequality in income and educational opportunity combine with fear
of the future, when distrust meets hopelessness, societies begin to break
apart. Populist leaders, who are always ready to exploit this situation, gain
strength by polarising the societies they have deceived and drugged with
concepts such as religion and patriotism.

The companies and institutions that feed politicians' power, in return for
financial gain, only care for their interests, buying up and using the power
of the media to further their own agendas brazenly. With their conflicting
actions, endless lies, and disregard for human rights, law, justice and peace,

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those in power are dragging individuals who are already confused and
whose values have been shaken loose, into an abyss. Individuals who have
fallen into this abyss, are caught in a vortex of hopelessness and worthless-
ness, seeking shelter and a connection to something. This need is met with
blind allegiance to the same leaders who say they represent certain beliefs,
in order that individuals may earn more money whatever the cost and in
denial of being deceived. Consequently, we bear witness to social collapse
accompanied by nature disappearing before our very eyes.
Is there no way to break this cycle that consumes us and the world we live
in? If you ask me, the way to do this is through transforming ourselves and
looking for meaning within, not externally, and finding ways to create value
for those around us.

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CHAPTER IV: Transformation

The main reason for deciding to write this book wasn't to promote myself
or Mazars Denge's achievements as a firm. I wanted to recount the stories
of an institution setting out on a journey towards sustainability and the nar-
ratives of some of the people I have met in my life; sharing my impressions
of how important it is that my personal as well as our collective transfor-
mation should create a better future for the entire planet. In the previous
three chapters, I used personal anecdotes and our corporate roadmap, both
of which I believe illustrate the importance of corporate sustainability for
a sustainable future for all humanity and how we can contribute to a joint
sustainability goal. This last section is presented as an open door - one that
I hope will lead to other transformations - composed of stories about my
own journey, of encounters with nature and living things, and of the people
I have had the pleasure of meeting along the way. I want to share the mis-
takes I have made and the disappointments I have suffered in taking you on
a mission towards sustainability and in trying to make a difference. In short,
you will witness the moments when I dropped my guard, when I became
vulnerable and when I felt quite alone, which are also a part of this process.

What you are about to read are stories about awareness and change in which
I may be the narrator, but the actual heroes are other people. I hope my tales
will touch the readers’ hearts and kindle their own transformations, and
that I will have influenced others to begin to change the system.

Paper Cups
I am not a big fan of tea and coffee. In 2015, I watched a video about pa-
per cups and was shocked to see how office workers doubled and some-
times trebled paper cups to avoid their hands being scalded, before throw-
ing them in the rubbish. It had been quite some time since our firm had
switched from plastic to paper. “How much is our annual paper cup con-
sumption?” I remember asking.

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The answer I received was much higher than the number I had estimated,
and I felt an immediate and urgent need to act. I consulted a few people
close to me and we decided to award a prize to the employee who was able
to guess accurately the number of cups we used each year. After gathering
everyone's guesses, this was the email I sent to the firm.

“We asked you to guess the amount of our paper cup usage last year - fif-
ty people participated coming up with estimates ranging from 5,500 to
857,475. Our actual usage in 2014 was 186,000, and Doga Ozsoy in Out-
sourcing came closest with his guess of 182,575.”

“Dear Doga, congratulations on winning the award. But can I draw every-
one’s attention to how high and frightening this 186,000 number is?”

“At this rate of annual consumption, we will be using something like two
million paper cups within ten years. And how many trees are we sacri-
ficing to produce so many paper cups? Do we want to guess this number
as well? To be honest, I don't even want to think about it. So, in the belief
that we are an environmentally conscious firm, we are giving each of you a
personal mug that has the Mazars Denge logo, in which you can drink your
tea. We have also ordered some water glasses. Both will be made available
to you via your floor assistants after May 20th. We will also put coloured
pens next to the water dispensers. You can write your names on the glasses
using these pens. In the hope for a more sustainable future…”

It was all good up to this point. We had mugs made and distributed but af-
ter a short while, the complaints began. In particular, the employees on the
first floor had taken to using the toilets on their floor instead of going up to
the kitchen on the second floor, to wash their glasses, and they were very
uncomfortable with this. In addition, the water consumed while washing
the glasses was alleged to be harming nature more than the trees saved. It
was further noted that the glasses were damp, leading to watermarks on
tables and stains on files. One group also claimed that the amount of paper
towels used to dry the glasses was equal to using paper cups.

It seemed this decision was unpopular with most of our employees. I, on
the other hand, did not want to go back on the decision we had taken,
thinking that it was the right thing to do, so I ignored the grumbling in the

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hope that it would lessen in time. Unfortunately, the unrest continued and,
in the end, things came to a head. A colleague who was leaving wrote in his
farewell message to all employees that we had deprived them of drinking
water through our policy of giving out drinking glasses. My patience finally
ran out. I called in the procurement manager and requested him to begin
buying paper cups again.

Looking back, I see now where I went wrong. What I should have done was
to go no further than e-mailing our consumption figures and rewarding
Doga. The transition from paper cups to porcelain mugs had happened too
quickly and I'd made a mistake in taking the decision by myself. I should
have set up an office focus group to gather suggestions. This experience
taught me that no matter how right a decision is, if it concerns everyone it
has to be supported by the whole group.

Prejudice

One day, I got a message from a senior manager asking to put forward the
CV of a friend whose husband was already working for us. She said, "As her
husband is already one of us, I wanted to check with you before sending
in her resume.”

I told her that she should go ahead and share the CV with our HR depart-
ment and that the applicant would no doubt be invited for an interview if
her credentials were suitable. What happened next was interesting: HR
interviewed and approved the candidate, directing her to the relevant de-
partment.

Despite the fact that the managers of this department were in urgent need
of a candidate, they declined to provide feedback of any kind - positive or
negative - to HR. I tried to get to the bottom of this by sending the depart-
ment managers an e-mail, querying their lack of response.

The answer I received was that they were going to speak to the husband of
the candidate first in order to obtain information about her and that they
would revert after this meeting. I asked how the manager would feel if he
had applied to our firm and we had told him we would speak to him only

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after we had contacted his wife. I also added that we were going to proceed
based on his answer to this question.

The manager gave me a cursory response saying, "Let's reach out to her
directly through HR". Thinking that my message had not been understood,
I brought up the subject again at our management meeting a few days lat-
er. At this meeting, one of our managers made an interesting point: “The
spouse of the candidate is in a managerial position close to me. I wonder
why he did not approach me with this. Also, his wife is applying through the
assistance of another manager. I'd be lying if I said I'm not offended by this.
Wouldn't it have been much more appropriate if he had talked to me first?"

I told him and the other managers at the meeting that this issue had noth-
ing to do with the candidate's spouse, that she wanted to make her own
application independently, that there was nothing to cause offence in this
and that we should all respect this decision. I also asked them not to con-
tact her in any way during the process.

In the end, I personally interviewed this candidate, who successfully
passed the technical interview without her partner being involved. When
I told her what had happened, she thanked me for my sensitivity and ap-
proach. And I thanked her for applying to us without asking her partner to
put in a good word. Since she is a mother with a small child, I informed her
that when she started, it was also important that she be able to spend time
with her child as she wished, and that we would try to adapt to her sched-
ule and not ask her to adapt to ours. She's still with us today. I believe with
all my heart that she will work at Mazars Denge for many years and will
be very successful.

Sound

It's very important to me to directly contact colleagues who have been suc-
cessful in a particular area or project to let them know that I'm aware of
their efforts. At one such call to a manager, after congratulating her, our
chat continued on more generally about her career and plans. Out of the
blue, she asked me if it would be all right for her to share something per-

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sonal, adding that this was something no one in the office knew and that it
had to stay private. I replied that secrecy is one of the tenets of our profes-
sion and that she could absolutely trust me to keep her secret. On hearing
this my colleague told me that she was queer and that unfortunately, she
had to hide this fact about herself at all times and this made life quite dif-
ficult for her. She explained that she had been shunned by her family and
community when she first came out, and that the possibility of meeting
with a similar attitude at work had meant that she had only shared this

with her current supervisor and now with me.

For a moment I was at a loss but then I felt I had to just come out with
what was on my mind: “I'm overwhelmed with emotion right now. And
I'm so fortunate that you have felt able to share this terrifically important
and private side of your life with me. I am aware of how your position is

perceived today in the society we live in, and I can only imagine what kinds
of difficulties it causes you. So, I honestly don't know how many people
would have the courage to share in this way. It is vitally important for me

that the doors of Mazars Denge are open to everyone and that we set an
example for other companies. I'm also sure that we have many employees
at our firm who do not conform to the gender norms of our society. Now I
do wonder whether everyone can express themselves comfortably at work
or do they experience difficulties, feelings of being excluded, believe they
have to hide their real selves and act as if they were someone else; I genu-
inely don’t know. But this revelation is a first for me and a very important
beginning for other LGBTI+ individuals at our firm. Together we can be
their voice. And I hope we can create an environment where LGBTI+ indi-
viduals can be completely comfortable.”

This encounter helped increase my motivation no end because it showed
me that the possibility of a world in which equality, justice and respect
for each individual, living thing and our entire planet, with its living and
non-living components, might bear fruit through individual actions. I find
it impossible to make sense of the fact that our overly personal and unique
features have for centuries continued to be an obstacle to our interaction

with our society. My inability to make sense of this situation contributes

almost nothing to the solution. To reach that solution, I need to reach out

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to other people, listen to them, and show the courage and dedication of
acting together with them. I think I’m succeeding to some small extent.
On the other hand, the main issue is that I am – and we are – just at the
beginning of our journey. As a result, I’m aware that I have to work hard-
er than ever for a more just and sustainable future today and for future
generations, for our children, taking small but confident and sincere steps
towards this goal.

Shortly after we had this conversation, I was presented with an interesting
opportunity to take action. An association that tries to solve the challenges
to LGBTI+ individuals received some dedicated funding and approached
our firm for an audit. Around that time, the demonstrations at the Bogazici
University against the government’s unfortunate and unilateral appoint-
ment of a caretaker president as the rector of the school began to spread
wider resulting in the segregation of LGBTI+ individuals and impacted this
association as well. When the audit team gave me a heads up on what was
going on, I decided to ask for a meeting with the association managers.

At this meeting, I learned that the association provides free psychological
counselling and legal support to LGBTI+ individuals as well as education-
al services to institutions. Before I took the meeting, I had asked my col-
leagues at Mazars Denge if there had ever been any requests on our firm's
psychological hotline for issues relating to sexual orientation and gender
identity. They couldn't locate this heading under the issues that were cov-
ered. So, I suggested to the association that I could introduce them to the
management of the international company that provides the psychological
counselling hotline along with other services, which our firm subscribed
to and that furthermore we were prepared to pay a higher monthly fee to
add LGBTI+ to the range of psychological counselling services we received
from the international company provided that the association could have
their share of this extra fee.

I also added that if the international institution chose not to accept this
proposal, Mazars Denge would be prepared to work with the association
directly to access this additional service. They liked this idea a lot. The
following week, we organized a meeting with the managers of both par-

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ties together with our HR manager bringing all of them to the negotiat-
ing table. At this meeting, I explained to the managers of the international
psychological counselling service hotline that this presented a very impor-
tant opportunity to add the LGBTI+ psychological counselling service to
their existing offering in order to increase awareness and inclusion within
the institutions. I told them Mazars Denge was ready to pay and take part
in a pilot study as their first client. Before presenting this to them, I also
explained that I planned a training session with the association and that
an announcement of the updated hotline at the end of this training would
increase the interest in the line. The model was accepted by everyone. If
this model proved successful, my hope was that the international insti-
tution providing the consultancy services would go on to offer this ser-
vice as a standard to all its clients and that other enterprises might also be
quite interested. But most importantly, this working model from which all
three institutions stand to gain, might strengthen awareness and respect
for gender equality and the institutions involved can contribute to social
peace and harmony by setting an example for others.

Turning a Negative into a Positive

I went to Ankara to attend a Board of Directors meeting of a business
association. Knowing that our meeting would be protracted, I booked a
late return flight. After dinner, I got into the lift with the Chairman of this
particular group. He asked, "Izel, how are you getting back to Istanbul to-
night?" “By plane; my flight is at 21.45. I'll be leaving soon” I replied. “We're
going back with a private jet, you should come too,” he said. When I politely
declined his offer, he insisted; “Going back together will give us the oppor-
tunity to talk". I replied, "I can't come on a private jet - my carbon footprint
will be too high".

The Chairman said, “That's nonsense, Izel, our plane will take off irrespec-
tive of you joining us. And the other plane will depart whether you are on
it or not. Nothing will change. I'm telling them that you're coming with us".
He left me no choice but to accept the offer even though I didn't feel at all
happy.

164

As someone who calculates carbon footprints at every step, I was very
troubled because I was obliged to do something I didn't want to, and it
was too late to change my mind. While I was chatting away with the Chair-
man, I was also mulling over how I could turn this trip into a benefit, and
then I had an idea. I surreptitiously counted how many people were on
the plane. There were 12, including the captain, co-pilot, cabin supervisor
and stewardess. The next day, I planted seven trees for every person on
the plane and sent each of them a certificate with the message “For your
carbon offset”.

This deed must have been appreciated by some of the members of the
Board of Directors, as I received a number of positive comments. To this
day, I am not entirely convinced that I have been able to fully compensate
for something that I did, knowing it would trouble me, by means of a posi-
tive act. But when I think back to planting those trees, I feel some relief that
I increased the awareness of those on the plane. At the very least, I think I
invited everyone present to think about their carbon footprints.

Crossing Paths

At its core, a sustainable vision and approach enables a person to make
sense of their lives and the world. With consciousness of the uniqueness
of existence and of interaction with other beings comes an understand-
ing of how valuable existence is. We realize that the glass of water we are
drinking is not just a source that can be ignored. Behind the thirst that has
been quenched is a long story that includes other humans, living things
and inanimate objects.

The same is true for the people with whom we share our stories. We can
love some of them very much and we can be angry at others. We may learn
from some and teach others. This interaction is based on co-existence and
creating together which has enabled us to survive for generations and to
build civilizations. On the other hand, this interaction has become a ma-
jor threat to the planet and its inhabitants due to its destructive effects.
Therefore, when we write our common stories, acting not only from the

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perspective of looking out for ourselves and ours but on behalf of everyone
and all living things can be much more significant than you might think.

In 2004, Marmara University invited the Entrepreneurship Commission
for the Young Businessmen's Association of Turkey (TUGIAD) to give
courses to their students. At the first lesson, no one knew anyone. I sat
among the students who probably thought I was a student too. It wasn't
my turn to teach first, so I attended the first two lectures as a member of
the audience and tried to get to know the class. I was looking for answers
to questions like who was asking the questions? Was the class interested in
what was being said? What kind of groupings were there, and what kind of
expectations did they have? In the third lesson, when it was my turn, I left
my seat and began my presentation.

There was a quick-witted student in the back row, who was very energetic
and could hardly sit still. He was watching the lectures carefully and ask-
ing very good questions. Later, I learned that his name was Mert, and his
interest never waned throughout the semester. He was extremely intelli-
gent, outspoken, critical and had marketing skills. His team came first in
the project presentations. At the end of the year, I asked him about his
career plans. When he explained he wanted to look for a job in marketing,
I said our firm did not have a marketing department but asked him if he
would like to set one up. He immediately accepted and we started working
together.

We worked with Mert for seven years. We have many bittersweet memo-
ries and learned a lot from each other. One time he got something wrong,
and I scolded him in front of the Independent Audit team. He stayed silent
but afterwards he came to my room and said, “Izel, you're like a brother to
me. You can say what ever you like, you have every right. But please don't
tell me off in front of everyone again. It's not your style or mine.” He was
right. This incident taught me a lesson.

Mert and I laid the foundations of our Marketing and Communications
Department. We updated our website, marketing materials and our firm’s
credentials. We put together a marketing plan, defined our target audience

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and planned a roadmap on how to reach our target audience. I personally
helped Mert prepare for his Certified Public Accountant exams.

Our most exciting project was on the Turkish Commercial Code (TTK),
which came into force in 2012. Mert had a terrific entrepreneurial side. We
got along very well on these issues. One of the TTK articles on Internation-
al Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) stipulated that going forward, ac-
counts would be kept according to IFRS instead of the Tax Procedure Law
(VUK). The switch to IFRS would enable financial statements prepared
in Turkey to be internationally accepted. Could Turkey become a centre
for bookkeeping for businesses from around the world? I had big dreams.
However, it did not seem possible that we could teach these standards to
the hundreds of thousands of professionals simply by way of the train-
ing programmes provided by our professional chambers. I came up with
an idea. We met with the manager of an e-learning company to develop a
web-based program that would turn our knowledge and experience into
an effective training resource.

We took this decision in 2011 and immediately began preparing. About
thirty software developers started to transfer the data from our independ-
ent audit department. The outcome was a program that taught standards
with questions and answers, providing quizzes at the end, but which, most
importantly, created a template for how to convert a financial statement
from VUK into IFRS from start to finish. This program would be accessible
from all corners of Turkey.

Mert and I prepared a very detailed marketing plan. We even set the pur-
chase price for the software. We were working at a frantic pace. That's
when an idea popped into out minds. Banks were going to need IFRS state-
ments from their clients and it was critically important that they be pre-
pared accurately. So, a situation could arise in which banks could be our
clients and professionals could become users of this service. If banks want-
ed to offer such a service to their clients, what might be the amount they
would pay for our product? We held numerous meetings and modelled
these issues at length. We talked to the accounting associations and made
appointments with banks which were extremely interested. Orders began

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to arrive, in their thousands. Mert and I were incredibly excited. We had
created an in-house project using our own expertise and experience and
now thanks to this project, we had created a platform where colleagues
could learn IFRS easily as well as creating a serious income stream for the
firm. Frankly, we were over the moon.

This euphoria lasted until July 1, 2012. I must have been one of the first to
read the law that came into force that morning. I searched and searched
the text of the law, looking for those four letters IFRS instead of VUK for
minutes on end. IFRS was not in the text; we would continue to apply VUK.
In the blink of an eye, so much effort, so much work, so much investment
had been for nothing. We were shattered. One change in the law and our
dreams lay in ruins.

After this unfortunate experience, we made Mert a member of GYIAD
(Young Executive Businesspeoples’ Association) as our firm's represent-
ative so that he could develop himself and his network. We both complet-
ed our PhD’s on sustainability at Marmara University and knew that this
would be the most important topic in the future. Mert left the company at
the beginning of 2013. I've had little contact with him since, but I knew
that he continued as a member of GYIAD and was co-chairman at one
point. I came across him at a GYIAD event in 2019. Mert told me about the
entrepreneurship courses at GYIAD and the ongoing cooperation with uni-
versities. He told me how many university students they have sponsored
over the years and how they have taught them both entrepreneurship and
sustainability. He also told me that this project actually dates back to 2004
and what we accomplished together and that he felt that circularity and
sustainability is this very thing. I was overcome with emotion. Mert Tinik
established ACT Consulting after leaving Mazars Denge. He is a licensed
Business Coach. He currently coaches numerous business executives with
his team and provides strategic consultancy services to businesses.

As I related at the beginning of the story, my path crossed with Mert's that
day. We could easily have been rivals or strangers to each other, but the
vision of creating a better future united us. We made mistakes and experi-
enced disappointments along the way, but I see this moment, which might

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at first sound like a story of failure, as a narrative of learning from each
other, striving and struggling together to find the best outcome despite
everything, and I'm glad that our paths crossed.  

Ripple Effect

One of our most important aims in preparing and publishing our sustain-
ability reports is to raise awareness, which is why I always make sure to
send our sustainability reports to my stakeholders with personalised mes-
sages. One of them is Rifat Perahya, CEO of Intermobil Hella, a very old
client of ours who is active in the automotive industry.

After I sent him our second report, he came to visit and asked for a short
briefing on sustainability. I used a few examples to show him the differ-
ence between continuity and sustainability, explaining how we are trying
to combine our firm’s strategy with a vision of sustainability. The subject
intrigued him as well. He said that his company wanted to follow in our
footsteps and asked me to plot a path for them. I told him that the first
requirement was that the person at the top of the company should believe
in this work. Then, I explained the critical role of the HR Department in
establishing the infrastructure and spoke of the necessity of establishing
a sustainability committee which needed to include representatives from
different departments. I invited his company's employees to the NGO fair
we organize every year.

I adapted the brief for Rifat into a presentation which I gave to Intermobil
Hella's employees when they visited us. It was obvious that they were im-
pressed. I introduced their HR manager Mirel Kalvo to our own HR man-
ager Mehmet Eronat. I introduced Rifat to the managers of Ashoka and
ADYSK, a few of the NGOs that we maintain close relationships with. Then
I began watching from afar how things progressed.

After a while, Rifat reached out and informed me that they had prioritized
the climate crisis and initiated a sustainability perspective in their strat-
egy. I was very pleased to hear this. Not satisfied with this first step, they
had also become Global Compact signatories. The process had begun for

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Intermobil Hella. They submitted their first sustainability reports to their
stakeholders in March 2021.

My experience with Rifat has shown me that we have undergone similar
journeys and that our mutual influence has spread, despite prevailing neg-
ative conditions. Rifat's sincerity in learning about sustainability and be-
ginning the transformation of his company on the road of sustainability,
demonstrated once more how important cooperation, learning together
and making progress by inspiring each other are in this process. The 17th
Sustainable Development Goal, 'Partnership for the Goals', is shown at the
top of a pyramid graph because working together and forging solidarity
is the prerequisite for the realization of all of the other goals.31 This spirit
of cooperation and solidarity can be achieved not simply between insti-
tutions, but also in the smallest of groups of people and its effects can be
magnified. We need to decide urgently when we are going to change to the
kind of coexistence on this planet -our home- that does not harm the living
and inanimate beings around us so that we may enjoy many years of life
on this planet.

Firdevs

I've been interested in archaeology since I was a child. I think the chief
reason for this interest lies in a trip we took to Cappadocia when I was
four or five years old. Who could have known that I would one day return
to this magical place as part of an archaeological project? While complet-
ing my master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC), I looked into whether I could take extra courses in history, art or
archaeology, and learned of a professor who carried out summer excava-
tions in Turkey. One of the world's most prominent scholars on Byzantine
Architecture, Professor Robert Ousterhout was part of UIUC's architecture
faculty. I found his office and made note of his in-person office hours; I
turned up on a suitable day and when he came out of his office, he was sur-

31 "How Food Connects all the SDGs", https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-vi-
deos/2018-08-22-how-food-connects-all-the-sdgs (February 2022)

170

prised to see me. After all, I was not his student. Still, he invited me in, and
my eyes welled up when I saw his posters of Urgup, Goreme and Avanos
on the walls. With a sudden longing for my country, I almost begged him to
include me in his summer excavation, saying that I had learned that he was
heading to Cappadocia, and I was ready to do anything so long as I could
be part of the team.

After hearing my story and of my interest in archaeology, Professor Ouster-
hout added me his team. In addition to our dig at the Aksaray Canlı Church
settlement, we visited the surrounding villages. During one of these visits,
to the Yaprakhisar Village ruins, the weather darkened and there was a
terrible downpour. We were quite a distance from the car and a young girl
who felt sorry for us, came to our rescue and we rushed to take shelter in
her house.

The women of the house greeted us with smiles and offered us tea. We
didn't want to inconvenience them, but it would have given offence to
refuse the hospitality they offered with such sincerity, and we were very
tired. We took off our shoes and sat down around the floor table. After a
while, the girl who had called us in came out bearing a tea tray and cups.
After they served us with tea, we started chatting. Since I was the only
team member who spoke Turkish, I tried to explain to our hosts the reason
for our visit to the area and what we were trying to do.

Then I learned the name of the young girl. She was called Firdevs. She at-
tended school in the winter and in the summer looked after the animals
and helped her family sow and tend the fields. Listening to us speaking
English she was watching us with curious and radiant eyes, with longing
and some admiration. She suddenly said, "I want to learn English too."
“Don't they teach you English at school?” I asked. She said that they had
not been given English lessons yet and she wasn't sure when they would
start. So, I told her to write to me when she started school again so that I
could send her some books to begin learning English. When she heard this,
I remember how the smile lit up her face. I got a letter in September that
year. She wrote that school had begun, but there were no English lessons,
and how she wanted to learn and be able to speak English like us. So, I sent

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her the few grammar and reading books I had in my possession. She wrote

me a second letter thanking me. I sent her a few more books. Then we lost

touch.

Fifteen years passed but I never forgot Firdevs. One day, I happened to be in
the vicinity of the village again. I tried to recall which house had belonged
to Firdevs and asked a local man. Firdevs must have been in her 30’s by
then. The man said, “See that field down there? There's a woman working
there, that's Firdevs.” I thanked him and with quick steps half ran towards
Firdevs, who had saved us from the rain all those years ago. She was hoe-
ing the field. Standing a little at a distance I called out. She raised her head.
I would not have recognised her. She looked at me with a stern expression,
"How can I help you," she said. “I'm Izel you remember me? You took us in-
side that day in the rainstorm and offered us tea. I sent you English books.”
“Yes, I remember,” she replied. Her expression had not changed much. The
sparkle in her eyes had long disappeared, and her sunburnt face was al-
ready wrinkled. “Firdevs, tell me, what did you do all these years? Did you
finish school, did you learn English?” I asked. “School is long over,” she re-
plied shortly. "Well, did you get married?" She said, “Look, Izel, I wanted to
keep studying. But my family wanted to marry me off. They didn't let me

go to school, and I refused to get married. As you can see, I am working in
the fields, nothing has changed for me, and life goes on.”

When I think about what Firdevs has gone through, I understand more
deeply the importance of equal opportunity in education. Maybe there are
many people around us who have to endure a life far different from the

dreams they had as a child because they did not have access to a proper

education and have to be content with what they were given. I am aware

that life is not a bed of roses and that we may not be able to achieve our

dreams simply through education, but I think the fact that an individual
is unable to benefit from the right to education under equal conditions
deprives us of their contribution to the world and weakens our social ties.

The direct connection between depriving a girl, who wants to learn Eng-
lish, of the education she deserves, and the difficulties and cases of vio-
lence still experienced in Turkey and all over the world is an undeniable
fact. Years have passed since this incident and the question that has been

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going round and round in my mind is this: if Firdevs could have continued
her schooling, what would she have changed for herself, for this country
and for the whole world?

Vicious Circle

There are common characteristics that all auditors need to possess. Some of
the more noteworthy traits are ethical behaviour, being disciplined, obser-
vant, discreet, sceptical and having a passion for numbers. Assuming that I
also possess these general features, I try to empathise with the employees of
the Financial Audit Department I manage.

In 2013, our Head of HR and I interviewed a director-level candidate. We
both sensed her leadership potential. Without hesitation, we made her an of-
fer at partner level and she accepted. The new partner lived up to her prom-
ise within a year through hard work, technical skills, work related contacts
and the new business she brought to our firm. We were experiencing some
management issues at that time, and I offered this partner the role of manag-
er to replace the person who was already leading the department. I spoke of
my belief in sustainability and the change I hoped we could instigate.

I was very excited. I was aware that this partner's acceptance of this chal-
lenging role was critical to the future of the department. She said, “I will do
my best to live up to the trust you've placed in me.” She had to leave her role
after two years because of a family decision to live permanently abroad.

This posed a serious problem for me because the department needed a lead-
er and there were few candidates willing to assume the mantle. We faced
two alternatives: either I had to look for an outside candidate or run the
department alongside my duties as CEO. I chose the second route. I began
by observing what was going on in the department. I tried to get a handle
on which teams were servicing which clients, how much time was spent on
each and the details of financial figures. I also tried to get to know the senior
executives. However, the resignations that had begun just before the depar-
ture of the department manager continued despite the change of manage-
ment. Worst of all, our HR manager, in whom I had complete trust, had just

173

moved to another job six months before and my hands were tied. In addition
to my duties and responsibilities as CEO, taking on this job would impose a
serious workload on me.

What really worried me was how I would communicate with the depart-
ment given that I was also CEO. Being in direct daily contact with the CEO
was likely to create anxiety. My observation process took several months.
At the same time, I was conducting exit interviews with those who were re-
signing in an attempt to understand why they were leaving the firm. Some
drew attention to a member of senior management who treated them rath-
er harshly. This was undoubtedly a serious issue but there were also other
leavers who did not work with this person. The financial situation of the
department was also not very bright. Despite this, salaries were in line with
industry averages. Some stated that they felt under-valued. The only access
I had to the junior level personnel was during exit interviews and I couldn't
obtain detailed information about the progress of the department as a whole
from them. We scheduled meetings with partners and managers every two
weeks, and we talked about financial data, clients, technical issues, and qual-
ity control. Oddly enough, they showed no surprise at the resignations. So, I
prioritised the senior management of the department. It seemed to me that I
had to create an atmosphere of trust between the people at the management
level. If there was no trust among managers, then it would be impossible for
us to induce confidence in either the teams or our clients.

Another issue was that although our firm had published its second sustaina-
bility report, the managers of this particular department showed no interest
in it. Although I tried to present on the subject a few times and share our
goals and roadmap, I could not get feedback from anyone on the subject.
Also, our partner and director meetings were being held in an atmosphere
of coolness and generally the participants would only speak when addressed
directly by me. Months passed, and the resignations were incessant. The de-
partment completed its first year under my management with only a small
loss but by the end of the year, the resignations had increased to 30 percent.
I needed to find a solution urgently, but I felt trapped.

174

At the beginning of my second year as head of the department, I tried to
reach out individually to partners and directors, aiming to establish trust
at the senior management level. I shared an office with two other directors,
spending part of my day in this three -person room. I thought this would be
a good way to communicate directly with them, observing their daily prob-
lems and to allow them to have insight into my approach in the decisions I
made. However, chaos reigned within the department. Although there didn’t
seem to be a problem with client satisfaction, the resignations meant that
those remaining had to pick up the slack and the burden was such that the
entire department was looking to resign as soon as possible. If you asked the
partners, they said this was the nature of the business, but I didn’t want to
admit this possibility.

Occasionally, there were some complaints about the program we used to
automate audits, but I could not get detailed information about how much
it was being used. The only way I could get information about the internal
affairs of the department was to personally attend audits. But I didn’t have
enough time for that either. When I was tied up by the audits, the firm busi-
ness was disrupted, and vice versa. So, I decided to make surprise team
visits when I had availability. I began visiting selected clients in our regular
audit program and started seeing the teams on-site and spent time talking
to them. Before each visit, I would buy some chocolates or a tray of sweets
and share it round the teams. During these visits, I would briefly review the
client’s trial balance and our files on them, as well as meeting and chatting
with the teams. However, that didn’t seem to work very well either.

While looking for an alternative, I started organizing meetings which
brought the whole department together. After discussing our sustainability
vision, I would try to obtain everyone’s opinion. However, no matter how
hard I tried, no one would get up and say a word. The silence was starting
to infuriate me.

While trying to understand the chaos, I decided I had to take a radical route.
Our firm employed the staff pooling method which is based on the princi-
ple of taking personnel from a central pool and putting together teams ac-
cording to the needs of a project, because this reduced overall costs. But this

175

made it difficult to check the quality of the work and the performance of
those who carried it out, and to some extent, even team members could not
monitor their work when there was a time shift in the calendar. The model

was also causing staff to burn out and even alienate them from the profes-
sion. However, the fixed team model, though more costly, provided in-depth
follow-up of projects, increased learning and more efficient communication,
resulting in employees’ ownership of the work. That’s why I decided to re-
turn to that model, which we had used in previous years with some success.

This decision was critical, and I anticipated resistance. So, I asked for the

support of one of our consulting unit partners. We conducted detailed sur-
veys ranging from who lived in close proximity to each client, to which sec-
tor they had more experience in. We held meetings with partners, directors
and teams from different levels. At the start of these, I tried to explain how
an integrated perspective – comprising the values of our firm and how these
values affected our way of doing business, as well as the value-added service

that we provided to our stakeholders - could be strengthened only through
a fixed team model. Our partners insisted that this was not implemented by
other firms in the sector, that the pool system was generally accepted and
should continue to be applied. I, on the other hand thought that the fixed
team model should be adopted by everyone and if the transition was made

without everyone's buy-in we would encounter other problems. For this rea-

son, I did not consider a top-down order to be appropriate.

Despite the fact that the meetings and fixed team discussions continued
with great intensity, the insistence on maintaining the conventional model
continued. After a very tense meeting, I told them that the fixed team system
was going ahead and requested work distribution plans from the teams. I
was extremely disturbed that things had come to this. My voice was shaking
with anger as I left the meeting. It was July 2019. After the announcement,
there were a few more resignations. As I had expected. I requested that
meetings be held at which each team discussed their strengths and weak-

nesses and determined the areas they needed to develop.

Coincidentally, it was time for the election of new assistant auditor candi-
dates. Somehow, we had moved to a fixed-team model, but I was still unable

176

to communicate effectively with the department, so I decided to take a very
long-term approach. I was going to meet with every assistant auditor can-
didate who achieved a certain grade in English and the technical exams and
who had gone through the partner interview phase. The HR Department al-
lowed me to interview about 30 candidates according to my schedule. In this
way, I would get to know them as they were beginning their jobs, learn some
of their stories, and strengthen my communication over time. I was able to
meet these bright people and establish my first bond with them. In October,
they began their first training sessions. We closed 2019 at a financial break-
even point. However, we had lost almost 40 percent of our department by
the end of that year. It seemed that the switch to a fixed team system was
leading to even more losses and great tension in the department. I contin-
ued to hold meetings. and while discussing decisions taken on behalf of the
department, I was also sharing information about our sustainable business
model. However, when it came to the question and answer section, no one
spoke up and no one wanted to talk. I was monologuing and had been put
in the position of a manager who was forcing staff to listen when they could
have been more productive.

When I asked how many people had read our sustainability report at one of
these meetings, it frustrated me to see how few people raised their hands.
It was the first time in my career as a manager that I was confronted with
a case like this. I was putting a lot of time and effort into giving these talks,
organizing meetings, identifying problems and sharing them in order to get
feedback however the result was far from satisfactory. Then suddenly we
were in the busy period of 2020 and Covid-19 broke out. Everyone was con-
fined to their homes, and we began servicing our clients remotely. The res-
ignations stopped immediately. After a few months, I heard several different
Independent Audit Department employees express their satisfaction that
we had moved to a fixed team system.

However, despite all our efforts, we were not able to stop the successive res-
ignations that kicked off again at the start of 2021. I was very depressed.
Department managers said that resignations were a systemic problem in
our profession, and it was not possible to square this circle. Something was
amiss and I definitely felt out of place. The leaders of the teams with the

177

highest number of resignations could not offer a solution and it made me
even more sad to find out about these resignations from our HR Department
rather than from them directly. While taking any decision, I was careful not
to act without consulting my colleagues at the management level. But the
situation was now intolerable. I had to be aware of what was going on with-
in the teams, so in February, I formed a group with representatives from
each of the six fixed teams. I started holding meetings with these groups;
informing them that there was a problem with communication, that some
information was not getting through to me, and therefore I had difficulty
in reaching the right decisions. I emphasized that their feedback would
therefore be critical. I asked them to share whatever they liked and said
they should be comfortable talking to me. And then, they began describing
the problems they had experienced and observed one after another. After
listening, I decided to act swiftly on the issues that they had voiced and of
which I had partial knowledge. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we took steps
to provide our employees with expenses support, training support and in-
stalment advances for taking their audit-qualification exams, and provided
more detailed information about the work to be undertaken before sending
them out to client audits.

I often come across such situations in my business life. I become despondent,
I lose patience, I am disappointed, I am tired and worn out. But I always keep
in mind the difference between continuity and sustainability. Every time I
take a hit, I try to rein in my anger as much as I can and try to turn problems
into opportunities to learn for everyone around me. I also think about giv-
ing up and quitting. But these are just thoughts. Because I have an ultimate
purpose and my work has meaning. If I had been doing this job just to make
money, I would have given up by now. I substitute hope for disappointment,
and the motivation of my teammates, who believe in me and the value we
create, instead of fatigue. All these things keep me going without giving up.
In the end, even if I can’t reach everyone, seeing that there are people I can
touch and identify with, gives me strength as I move towards my goal.

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Our Joint Responsibility

Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg and friends, whose call for urgent ac-
tion against the climate crisis was made famous in their ‘school strike for
climate’ in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018, called a global strike
on September 20, 2019. Even as these young people were taking a brave
stand to protect our planet, I thought about what I could do about this
issue as the manager of a firm and so prepared the following message to
send out to my colleagues.

“In 1987 the Montreal Protocol to prevent further damage to the ozone
layer was signed by 197 countries, and James G. Anderson, a professor in
environmental chemistry, who helped prepare the protocol claims that the
carbon in the atmosphere is now at the same level as it was 12 million
years ago. At that time, the oceans were 10 degrees warmer and there was
no temperature difference between the equator and the poles. On 23 May
2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg and her friends called for a collec-
tive strike in order to raise awareness of the global climate crisis and to
remind us that the fight against global warming is not only the responsibil-
ity of young people but of everyone, and in particular of businesspeople.32

This appeal draws attention to the disasters that may occur in the event of
global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees if carbon emissions are not immedi-
ately reduced and is an invitation for people to take action. In her earnest
call for collective action, Greta and her friends demanded that companies
stop their activities for climate justice on 20 September 2019.

For a more habitable future, would you like to answer the call of these two
million young students, who hoped that September 20 would be the start
of a new chapter in our history?”

As I did not receive positive or negative feedback from my colleagues after
sharing this message, I added it to the end of the agenda to be discussed
at the coordination meeting to be held at the beginning of September

32 Jenny Tuazon, “Greta Thunberg's Invitation: Stand With Us On September 20 and Beyond,” May
23, 2019, https://globalclimatestrike.net/greta-thunbergs-invitation-stand-with-us-on-september-
20-and-beyond/ (February 2022)

179

which would be attended by all service heads. At the end of the meeting, I
brought up the subject and shared the text I had prepared with the words,
"What do you think, shall we join the strike and do our part as a compa-
ny?” I asked. I thought that my offer would be accepted with enthusiasm,
but unfortunately, that was not what happened. One partner said that as a
company that provides auditing, accounting, tax and consultancy services,
he did not find it appropriate that we concern ourselves with these issues
and that there was no need to strike. It is very difficult for me to express
my disappointment at these words. I was floored. For a while I didn’t even
know what to say. Feeling my disappointment, Leon Bey said that while it
was out of the question not to come to work that day, we could consider
holding an in-house activity specific to that day. I had no choice but to accept.

After the meeting, I brought up the decision to hold the Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGO) day, which we organize every year, on the 20th of that
month. This time there was no objection. On the designated morning, rep-
resentatives of the Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG), Ashoka, the
Hrant Dink Foundation and the Marine Life Protection Association (DYK)
arrived at Mazars Denge. Each NGO introduced themselves with half-hour
presentations. Our employees came in groups to listen to the NGO repre-
sentatives. In his speech, DYK representative Volkan Narcı stated that, in
heeding Greta and her friends’ call to action, they and Greenpeace were
leading a garbage collection campaign on September 21 at Heybeliada,33
with divers cleaning the sea floor of the Cam (Pine) Harbour at the back of
the island and that all our employees were welcome to attend.

On September 20, after the end of the NGO fair, I signed myself out on so-
cial responsibility leave. I headed first to the climate crisis demonstration
at Kadikoy on the Asian side of the city. No one from the firm came with
me. Thinking it was because of the rainy weather, I went on to Burgazada
from there. The next day, I crossed over to Heybeliada to begin collecting
garbage. My wife and elder daughter were also able to catch up with us to-

wards the end of the activity. While taking a group photo to commemorate

33 Heybeliada (Halki) is the second largest of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, off the coast
of Istanbul.

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the event, my eyes searched for my colleagues. I scanned the crowd in the
hope that maybe some of those who I know live on the island had attended
the event, but I couldn't see anyone from the firm. That day I couldn't help
but think, “Where am I going wrong?” The next day I came down with se-
vere flu. I think the disappointment and low mood had a negative impact
on my immunity.

Why Sustainability?

You have decided to become a more sustainability-focused institution.
Congratulations! Now is precisely the time to ask these questions be-
ginning with: what does sustainability mean for our organisation? Are
we embarking on this with the expectation of profits, are we bowing to
market or public pressure? Before we begin this process, have we en-
quired as to the expectations of our employees, and have we obtained
their suggestions? Is sustainability an add-on to our corporate strategy
or are we ready to shape our corporate strategy on a sustainable basis?
It doesn't matter how many yes or no answers you end up with. The most
important thing is to be able to answer sincerely and confidently. Be-
cause the sustainability process requires a sincere belief and continuous
effort towards achieving a sustainability vision. So don't hesitate to take
an objective sounding of your institution as you begin this process. Set
forth your motivation and purpose, and then keep asking questions until
you come to this key question: Are you ready to take action for a vision
you truly believe in?

The release of the English version of our first sustainability report coin-
cided with an international meeting of the Mazars group of companies.
Instead of packing extra shirts and trousers in my suitcase, I placed as
many sustainability reports as possible in there to take my weight up to
exactly 20 kilos, checking on the scales at home. I distributed our report -
the first GRI standards compliant sustainability report we had produced
- to all the high-level participants I knew at the meeting. They took the
report and left the meeting.

181

The following year, I did the same thing with reports from my suitcase,
distributing them this time to the members of the Executive Board. I re-
ceived no feedback other than a dry thank you and congratulations. The
same thing happened with our third sustainability report. During this
period, there was no country other than Turkey within the Mazars Group
that issued a report in compliance with the GRI and Sustainability Ac-
counting Standards Board (SASB) standards. However, the reports I gave
out must have had some impact, because the following year they invited
me on to the podium and asked me to present on sustainability with a
short speech. So, everyone heard that Mazars Turkey was interested in
this issue.

After this presentation, a partner from Mazars UK said that an interna-
tional working group would be formed to explore the possibility of pro-
viding some sustainability services and they would like me to take part
in it. After I returned to Turkey, we talked on the phone and he asked
me why, given that sustainability consultancy services had begun to be
offered in many countries, Turkey did not provide this as a product, de-
spite the fact that we had been preparing reports for three consecutive
years. I said we would be ready to service our clients soon but for now
we were continuing to invest in this offering. After a while, I received a
similar question from another stakeholder, who was well-versed in the
subject and knew us well, and this time I felt the need to make a longer
statement. I said that I was waiting until the whole of our team involved
in the preparation of the report in Turkey genuinely understood what
corporate sustainability means, was able to internalise the issue, and for
a serious awareness to arise within the firm; for this reason, although the
sustainability report was a priority for us, we were somewhat behind in
rendering the service to clients. While our stakeholders agreed that my
approach was right, they noted that there was a serious income potential
in this business and that there would be tough competition ahead. I em-
phasized that this offering concerned non-financial data, therefore I was
waiting for it to be better understood by our employees, who were, by
the nature of their profession, accustomed to focusing only on financial
data. Furthermore, I explained that I believed this kind of service could

182

not be provided properly without sufficient knowledge and awareness,
independent of the potential for financial returns. I added that we need-
ed to hire environmental and industrial engineers to our team for the
first time, particularly to focus on the aspects of sustainability metrics
and the auditing of integrated reports, and that we would have to be a
little more patient in finding the right candidates. After this conversa-
tion, it struck me again how important it was to answer the question
“Sustainability to what end?” with sincerity and care. When you move
towards sustainability acting only with the motive of meeting the short-
term demands of your market, you are in effect ensuring the continuity
of a dysfunctional system that hinders a sustainable future. You start to
lose your authenticity and corporate reputation in the eyes of the people
you work with and of the society in which your institution is situated.
That is why critical questions must be raised about what you are aiming
at and why you have chosen to work towards sustainability, and to an-
swer these questions sincerely in order for both you and those around
you to believe in you and the work you do.

Coat Rack

About 15 years ago, I heard a flattering story about the CEO of one of
Turkey's most important textile brands. He was such a consummate
professional that when he went through the company door each morn-
ing, he would take his feelings out and hang them on the coat rack.
He would only put them back on when it was time to go home in the
evening. "Wow, that's how one needs to be!" I thought when I first
heard the story; but as time has passed, I realized how much effort this
person must be making to play this role. Then I thought about the ef-
fort his employees in the company must have to expend in suppressing
their emotions. Because if someone at the top of management hangs
their feelings on a coat rack, this is definitely reflected in the company
culture. In those years, I was not aware of how negative the effect of
such an approach could be on a workplace. However, in the years that
followed, I saw that the freedom of employees to be themselves and to

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focus on their work instead of expending their energies on pretending
to be other than who they are, feeds their motivation and creativity.
That's how I learned the right approach.

Today, there are still many executives who hang their emotions on that
coat rack. As for why they still feel the need to do this, it seems to me
that they haven't been able to find an alternative. If they have only the
continuity menu to choose from: if their aim is to grow, earn money,
increase profits, maximize self-interest, rely on consumption, think
horizontally and keep competing; in other words if they don't have the
choice of the parts that make up sustainability, they will have no choice
but to set aside their emotions, and reject the language of peace and the
ethics of care. Regrettably, it's not reasonable to expect these managers
to transform themselves and their companies after working with this
mentality for so many years. That's why we need to hold fast to the
values that make us who we are, and we should not stop expressing the
truths we have with courage, and we should fight for these truths with
patience, without giving up and without losing our hope.

Marmara

I have a very different relationship with the Sea of Marmara, maybe be-
cause I've lived in Istanbul all my life and maybe because I've been going to
Burgaz island since the age of one. Marmara has always affected me deep-
ly with its scent, the different kinds of creatures living in it, its fish, corals,
seagulls, wind and its not too salty taste. For me it’s like an old friend, even
a love story that will never fade. Every time I go to its shores, I want to
touch it and breathe its scent into the depths of my being.

As I write these lines, I think about how many memories I have that are
connected to Marmara. I was probably five or six. While I was making my
way in a small wooden skiff around the island, I saw the water flickering a
little ahead of me. Before I could shout "Look, a diver," I noticed a huge tail
flicking and a few seconds later a massive tuna fish leapt out of the water
in all its glory. As soon as it hit the water with its whole body, another tuna

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leapt after it, and they both disappeared into the depths of the sea. What
an amazing sight it was.

The Sea of Marmara, in which there was an abundance of marine life until
I was 16 had swarms of lobsters, hermit crabs, sea bream, mackerel, tuna,
swordfish and sharks; sea horses were frequently seen on the coasts; it
was a unique sea where the water was as clear as glass to a depth of almost
15 meters. Every moment was full of surprises, lively, fresh and sparkling.

When Bedrettin Dalan took office as Mayor of the Istanbul Metropolitan
Municipality, he put forward his pet project for cleaning the Golden Horn,
which was so polluted that we felt like vomiting from the nauseating smell
every time we passed over the Galata Bridge. His project would collect wa-
ter from the Golden Horn, which had been black for years due to industrial
waste and pump it into the Sea of Marmara via a 'genius' method called
'deep discharge' and in the process turn the Golden Horn as blue as the col-
our of his eyes. Immediately, there were objections from scientists and the
subject began to be discussed widely. But some people think they know
everything better than anyone else and Dalan went ahead without heeding
objections.

On the way to the island that summer, we noticed that the sea was start-
ing to turn brown right up to the shores of Fenerbahce. The colour of the
whole sea soon blurred. Fish began to die in great numbers. We never saw
some species again- like the fish that is the subject of Sait Faik's short story
'The Death of the John Dory Fish'. The sea was so muddied until the mid
1990's that we couldn't see our arms or legs when we went swimming.
We learned for the first time that you could catch hepatitis from mussels
and that sometimes you got mercury poisoning if you ate too many fish. As
the fish stocks declined, every year the number of industrial fishing boats
of 25 - 30 meters increased, in addition to the industrial and domestic
waste around Marmara that grew every day. The beaches and cliffs on the
coast were replaced by miles of concrete blocks that prevented the sea
from breathing. The wastes of gigantic construction projects were buried
in depths of the Sea, carried by ships without any thought to their impact.
Even more sadly, in 2015, mud from the deeply polluted Kurbagalidere riv-

185

er, full of germs and bacteria, was transported to the outskirts of Yassiada

island and emptied in the water. Fortunately, after a few trips, saner minds

intervened, and they put an end to this practice. Industrial zones were

established in the most beautiful corners of the Marmara; its entire sur-
roundings were filled with petrochemical, cement and coal plants, fertiliz-
er facilities and shipyards. Disregarding the ecosystem, millions of cubic

meters of sand were pulled up from the golden sands that used to caress

our feet.

Scientists repeatedly warned us that, “The sea is dying, its oxygen is run-
ning out, precautions must be taken,” but no one cared. The only thing that
mattered was the Marmara Region's contribution to industrialization and

its role in Turkey's economic growth. Despite all this, Marmara, a young

and very special sea, continued to endure and share its beauties with us.
In fact, in the last five or six years, the sea seemed to be getting a little
clearer. We were overjoyed to see dolphins visit us on the shores of Or-
takoy on the Bosphorus Straits during the Covid-19 epidemic and the sea
partly cleared in the summer of that same year. But then, all of a sudden,

we encountered the mucilage scourge that we had heard about in April
2021, and this time it struck with incredible intensity. If the mucilage had
been merely submerged under water, perhaps no one would have cared.

This time it was not like that. Mucilage spread like a plague. Videos and
pictures published on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube revealed the extent
of the environmental disaster that had begun with mucilage. The scene

that met me when I went to Burgazada that year was chilling. I was lost for
words. What had happened? I was aware of the millions of cubic meters
of domestic wastewater discharged into the Sea of Marmara and the cool-

ing activities of factories, and that the Sea had been hit by a temperature
increase of approximately 1-1.5 degrees Celsius above that of the effect
of global warming. But something else must have triggered it; what could
that thing be? After I looked into it and discovered the background to this
disaster, I could not sleep. I had not been aware of the 2011 Ergene Safak
Operation, a project that had started in November 2020 which was part of
a broader movement called the Ergene Basin Protection Action Plan. The

Ergene River, which used to irrigate the most fertile agricultural areas of

186

Thrace, had in time become one of the world's most poisonous rivers due
to industrial wastes and pesticides being dumped into it. It turned out that
these waste waters were combined with the waste from industrial zones
under an economies of scope and scale project pipeline and transported to
Tekirdag on the coast of the Marmara. From there, it was discharged into
the Marmara Sea with a deep pipeline laid into the seabed. We are now
all witnessing the results of this. Some scientists claim that an unbearable
odour like that previously wafting from the Golden Horn will result from
the mucilage and all life in the Sea of Marmara will disappear within a year.
Surface cleaning is no more than a public relations stunt because more
than 99 percent of the mucilage is underwater. That's why living things
can't breathe. The sun cannot penetrate the sea. The planktons, fed with
the loaded nitrogen and phosphorus caused by pollution, also consume
whatever remains of the oxygen in the Marmara. The corals transported
from Sivriada island to Neandros are also unable to breathe. Marine Life
Conservation Society volunteers make frequent attempts to dive and clean
the corals, but unfortunately, despite all of their efforts, the death of these
corals now seems inevitable.

The deep discharge practice has been legalized with the adoption of the
Wastewater Law in 2004. If you ask the authorities, they will say, “We're
not doing anything illegal, and this is the most cost-effective method”. But
what about the cost to the environment and humanity? As I write these
lines, an extremely poisonous flow of water containing toxic chemicals and
various heavy metals are being discharged into the Marmara Sea at Tekird-
ag every day.

I have begun an on-line campaign at http://change.org/marmaradenizi on
change.org to petition the government to stop the deep discharge, even
if it is now too late and to change the law. To date, more than 50,000 sig-
natories have joined me. Can we have an impact? Will we be able to take
the necessary steps to transform the mindset that harms us and everyone
around us? Time will tell. But right now, it hurts me. It's as if, just like those
corals and other sea creatures, I can't breathe and I'm drowning.

187

Promise to the Future and to our Youth

Hope is what restores the human mind that has lost its way

At an event I attended recently, one of my students lamented: “I'm very
confused, I don't know what to do with my life. I'm tired of always being on
the receiving end of bad news. Yes, I'm an entrepreneur, but what can I do
on my own? I just can't decide. I no longer have any hope that things will
change or get better. Do you still have hope?"

“Would I be at this event with you right now if I didn't have hope?” I an-
swered without having to think about it. I was angry with myself after-
wards. Because in answer to that question, I should have told them this
story.

There is a narrow road in front of the compound that we moved to on Bur-
gaz island, in the early 1980s. At the side of the road there's an incline
and an area about one metre wide where it joins the land behind it, and
plum and olive trees and oleander shrubs grow there. The view from our
balcony also looked out on to a rather lovely red pine tree which shaded
a significant part of the plot opposite us. This pine was such an imposing
and fragrant tree that I recall our relative taking deep breaths every time
he visited and each time after inhaling the dense resin smell into his lungs,
he would say, “It is worth coming all the way to Burgazada just for this one
tree.”

When I began to commute to work, I couldn't come to the island every day.
One day I noticed that the municipal workers were digging at the end of
the road that passed in front of our house. I walked up to them and greet-
ed them, asking what they were doing. They said, "We're going to lay big
drainpipe here." They were digging a ditch across the road.

I led the workers to the spot where the pine tree grew and said 'Look you
see this beautiful pine tree. Take care not to hurt its roots when you lay
your pipes, ok?" I asked. They told me not to worry, and that they would
give it a wide berth. Though I wasn't entirely reassured, I left them think-
ing that they probably wouldn't touch such a large tree.

188

The works went on while I went back and forth between my place of work
and the island, I would occasionally stay in Istanbul for a day or two. After
one such day spent in Istanbul, I returned to the island with pleasure and
walked up to my road, noting that the work had been finished. I looked at
where the tree should have been, but there was only a gap in place of the
red pine. With briefcase in hand, I started running in that direction like
a crazy person. Nothing remained of the huge tree except for its roots, a
thick smell of resin and some branches which had fallen from its trunk
while it was being cut lay scattered on the ground. I remember feeling a
cascade of anger rushing from my feet to my head. I began to shout, saying
whatever came first into my head. “What's going on, who is that shouting?”
asked our neighbours from their balconies. “How was this tree cut down?
Didn't anyone see anything, why didn't you do anything?” As I cried out, I
realized that the neighbours were not even aware of the tree's existence,
let alone able to react to its being cut. My anger only increased. I ran home.
I took a large bucket and filled it with water. I carefully poured the water
over the root, the only bit that was left of the tree. I continued watering
until I got tired. Like Don Quixote tilting against windmills, a weird person
in business clothes kept pouring water on to the cut trunk of a tree railing
against a system that destroys trees.

That day, I knew that no tree would grow from that trunk ever again. But I
kept giving it water to show the respect I had for it and in the hope that it
might live once more. I continued this ritual intermittently until the end of
summer. The next year, when we went to the island, I continued to water
the same area. Months passed; so much so that I forgot to water the tree
trunk. But one day, that water poured on in some vague hope brought forth
life; a red pine sapling began growing very fast in the spot right next to
the cut tree. This new tree, born of hope, grew and grew over the next few
years and became a substantial tree like the pine before it.

We humans have ignored many trees and other souls while keeping an
account of our own lives; we have not cared, and we have made immense
mistakes that are difficult to repair. We have let these mistakes become a
part of our lifestyles and have allowed them to lead us and even to dictate
to us as if they were our indispensable truths. It is because of this that the

189

balance of the scales of life have been disrupted: such that they endanger
both humanity and the entire planet. Now, while there is still opportunity,
it is up to us to restore this balance. Now is the time to start the transfor-
mation by recognising what's going on. There's no more time to lose. But it
is not a hopeless task either; Plato said in his book The Republic, “Hope is
what restores the human mind that has lost its way.”

Dear young people, I appeal to you: don't let executives who hang their
feelings on their coat racks, or a succession of lying politicians on TV
screens, or deteriorating economies, lockdowns and diseases stand in the
way of your struggle and don't let these things get you down. Let no one,
no organisation, trend, way of thinking or belief prevent you from being
clear-sighted in seeing the truth. Please do not give up on the journey of
getting to know yourself and of discovering whatever it is that gives mean-
ing to your life. For my part, I have found this meaning in sustainability,
which I think of as an awareness of being able to see the bond between us
and all living and inanimate beings.

Sustainability is, above all, a change in one's perspective. This change in
perspective for businesses needs to start from the very top. However, it
is unfortunately not quite possible for institutions and organisations that
have been accustomed to act from a continuity perspective for years and
years to achieve a change to a sustainability perspective overnight. That's
why it's up to us. As young people, beginning your business life with this
awareness and your role in future decisions will also trigger the trans-
formation that we seek. When I say transformation, I am talking about a
transformation that is reflected in everyday actions. When company man-
agement makes a new investment or decides to purchase something, in-
stead of saying "I will make this amount of profit from this transaction",
they will say, "I am investing in this, taking society and the environment
into account as well; my results will add value - not a burden- to my stake-
holders”. And this should be reflected in actions, not words.

In this book, I have tried my best to explain the basic principles of corpo-
rate sustainability, which I believe to be in perfect harmony with the traits
that make me who I am, and how we map out Mazars Denge's corporate

190

sustainability route as a team in line with these principles, using a conver-
sational tone and with personal anecdotes. I hope that this process and my
stories will shed light on your own personal sustainability journey.
With my best wishes that you will be a part of this transformation, that you
will contribute your own personal stories of hope and that you will join me
in leaving a more habitable and fairer world to our children and to future
generations...

191

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Izel Levi Coskun was born in 1973 in
Istanbul. He studied at the University of
Istanbul, English Faculty of Business Ad-
ministration, and received his master's
degree from the University of Illinois
at Urbana Champaign. He completed
his doctorate at Marmara University in
2013 completing his thesis titled ““From
the Turkish Consumer’s Perspective, the
Relationship Between Corporate Sus-
tainability Components and Brand Equi-
ty Components”.
He has worked at Mazars Denge since 1992 and is currently CEO and Cor-
porate Sustainability Ambassador. He serves on the boards of the Turkish
Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD), the Business for Goals (B4G)
Platform and the Turkey Informatics Foundation (TBV). He has active roles
in many NGOs and civil associations such as the Marine Life Protection As-
sociation (DYK), Bugday, Endeavor, Young Executive Businessperson’s As-
sociation (GYIAD), the Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage
(KMKD), The Turkish Family Business Association (TAIDER), The Turkish
Association of Certified Public Accountants and Certified Public Account-
ants (TURMOB). He is the husband of Sibel Horada Coskun and father to
Serra and Lara.

192

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

BCorp B Corporation

BGIV These Young People Have Potential
COP 21 Conference of the Parties 21

CVC Corporate Venture Capital

DYK Marine Life Conservation Society

EVA Economic Value Add

GMAT The Graduate Management Admission Test

GRI Global Reporting Initiative

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GYIAD Young Executive Businesspersons Association

HBR Harvard Business Review

IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards

KBGV Cultural Awareness Development Foundation

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

KVKK Personal Data Protection Law
LGBTI+ Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex
M&A Mergers and Acquisitions

SDG Sustainable Development Goals
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

TAIDER Turkish Family Businesses Association

CBRT Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey

SME Small and Medium Sized Enterprise

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language
TUGIAD Turkish Young Businessperson’s Association

TUIK Turkish Statistical Institute

TUSIAD Turkish Industry and Business Association

UIUC University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

UNEP United Nations Environment Program

UNGC United Nations Global Compact
VUK Tax Procedure Law

WBCSD World Business Council for Sustainable Development

WCED World Council for Economic Development

193

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