Andrew Iwanoczko, CEO , Callala Ltd.
Walk into a centuries-old UK cottage and you’ll likely find yourself standing on a floor of beautiful, individually crafted slate, flagstone tiles. Each tile represents hours of skilled artisanship, carefully created, selected and precisely laid.
Yet, for all their individual excellence, these flagstones mean nothing without the thin lines of grout that join and secure them together. Remove that seemingly insignificant binding agent, and even the most perfectly crafted floor becomes fragmented, vulnerable, and maybe even unusable.
The Space Leaderboard, launched this summer, may appear as thin and unremarkable as grout. Yet, like its cottage floor counterpart, it serves the critical structural function of binding our dispersed excellence into something that can support the future we’re trying to build.
______________________________
The Flagstones We’ve Laid
______________________________
Consider what the UK has already accomplished. Across governments we’ve managed to deliver genuine policy leadership, both in the UK Space Agency, which has taken to chairing of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, and is driving the development of Space Sustainability Standards through the Earth∞Space Sustainability Initiative (ESSI) in collaboration with industry.
The work of ESSI allowed the British Standards Institute (BSI) to launch the first two, comprehensive, space sustainability standards for public consultation in May of 2025, so far covering the general principles of space sustainability and launch operations.
Our research flagstone showcases world-class academic innovation. The University of Strathclyde developed what remains the world’s first Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment tool specifically designed for space systems, now maintained and expanded by Metasat UK. Meanwhile, the University of Manchester is tackling the frontier challenge of space-based double materiality reporting, creating frameworks to assess impacts that we’re only starting to understand.
Our industry flagstone demonstrates sophisticated practice where standards exist. Look at Eutelsat’s most recent sustainability reporting, comprising comprehensive environmental, social, and governance disclosure that spans everything from carbon footprints to space debris management. Based on timing alone, it appears as though they are due a new set of disclosures soon. Their approach represents exactly the kind of holistic thinking that the sector needs, covering both terrestrial operations and the unique challenges of space activities.
Each of these flagstones represents genuine excellence. Yet the Space Leaderboard reveals something both uncomfortable and commercially significant: our beautiful individual capabilities remain frustratingly fragmented, and with that fragmentation, we’re missing systematic opportunities for what the Space Leaderboard calls “transition and profit”—the financial returns that become possible only when companies have done the internal research, disclosed their impacts, and taken strategic action based on what they’ve learned.
_____________________________________
The Gaps Between the Flagstones
_____________________________________
Here’s what transparency reveals that individual excellence obscures: from a review of more than 500 organisations, only 19% of UK space organisations currently publish formal sustainability disclosures, and the vast majority of those focus almost entirely on terrestrial concerns. Space-specific environmental and social risks, while sometimes challenging and sector-unique, remain significantly under-reported across the industry.
This isn’t necessarily about companies hiding information. Often, it’s about the fundamental challenge that the author has been working to address, namely, distinguishing between what can be reported today, based on existing knowledge, what remains practically difficult to measure, and those elements that can and should be part of comprehensive reporting right now.
The University of Manchester’s initial research into space-based harms and their worked example of detailed space-mission reporting makes this knowledge gap explicit. We’re asking companies to report on impacts that we’re still learning how to measure, using frameworks that are still being developed, against standards that are still emerging from consultation processes. The state of knowledge on the parameters for space-based reporting remains incomplete—that’s not a failure, it’s simply where we are in the development of a new field.
________________________________________
How Transparency Binds Excellence
________________________________________
This is where the Space Leaderboard’s function becomes clear. It doesn’t just celebrate the companies that are ahead of the curve, though it certainly does that, with organisations like Eutelsat and Capgemini demonstrating that comprehensive reporting is by-and-large possible today. More importantly, it creates the structural conditions that bind our scattered excellence into a coherent system that rewards strategic thinking with systematic financial returns.
The transparency this requires can feel confronting. No organisation really wants to appear lacking compared to their peers, particularly in a sector where technical excellence is fundamental to credibility, but they also don’t want to be held to a claim made with best intent and integrity in future years where knowledge expands.
Crucially, the Space Leaderboard’s approach recognizes that we’re all at different stages of a knowledge and reporting journey. Some flagstones in our cottage floor are perfectly finished and gleaming. Others are still being shaped, their potential clear but their final form still emerging. What matters isn’t perfection but participation. The grout works best when it has something substantial to bind, regardless of whether that flagstone represents current excellence or committed progress.
The SustainabilityOf.Space team focuses on reinforcing positive work and disclosure whilst highlighting systemic gaps in practice across the sector, not singling out individual organisations for criticism. When the Space Leaderboard reveals gaps, it’s typically pointing toward areas where the entire sector lacks adequate practice rather than where specific companies are falling short of established expectations.
When government procurement can reference public sustainability rankings alongside confidential bid assessments, policy intentions translate into competitive advantage for companies that have done the work. When ESSI’s carefully developed standards become measurable through transparent performance data, early adopters benefit from being ahead of the curve rather than merely compliant. When University research priorities align with the gaps revealed by honest transparency, we create the conditions for companies to develop proprietary insights that translate directly into market positioning.
The Space Leaderboard’s “know and disclose” principle doesn’t demand perfection. It demands the kind of strategic, self-knowledge that enables organizations to identify which sustainability transitions offer the greatest potential for profitable differentiation. This creates a virtuous cycle where transparency drives research priorities, research fills knowledge gaps, expanding knowledge enables better reporting, and better reporting creates competitive advantage for those willing to lead.
___________________________________
The Foundation We’re Building
___________________________________
What emerges from this binding process isn’t just better individual performance. It’s a systematic approach to sustainability that can support both the ambitious future that UK space policy envisions and the commercial success of the companies that lead the transition. When companies can see where they stand relative to their peers, when researchers can identify the most critical knowledge gaps, when policymakers can track progress towards national objectives, we move from having scattered excellence to having structural capability that rewards strategic leadership with systematic competitive advantage.
Consider how this might work in practice. A government procurement process could reference Space Leaderboard rankings while recognizing that some gaps reflect sector-wide knowledge limitations rather than individual company failures. Companies that have invested in understanding their impacts gain clear competitive advantage. A startup seeking investment could demonstrate its commitment to sustainability by engaging transparently with current standards whilst acknowledging areas where the sector still lacks adequate frameworks. Such transparency attracts ESG-focused capital that values strategic thinking over mere compliance. A university researcher could identify the most impactful areas for primary research by examining where disclosure gaps persist across the industry. This creates opportunities for industry partnerships that translate academic insights into commercial advantage.
The financial logic is compelling. In a sector where regulatory pressure is intensifying and customer expectations are evolving rapidly, companies that understand their sustainability impacts first can shape standards rather than merely comply with them. They can identify opportunities for efficiency improvements, new service offerings, and market differentiation whilst their competitors are still working out what they don’t know.
_____________________
The Path Forward
_____________________
The UK has already assembled the individual capabilities needed for leadership in space sustainability. Our policy frameworks are advanced, our research is world-leading, and our best companies are demonstrating comprehensive approaches to environmental and social responsibility. What we needed was the binding mechanism that transforms these individual strengths into collective capability, so transforming individual organizational insight into their competitive advantage.
The Space Leaderboard provides that binding function through radical transparency. Not the kind of transparency that simply celebrates the leaders, but the kind that honestly reveals both progress and gaps, creating conditions for systematic improvement rather than isolated excellence. It creates the market conditions where companies that invest in understanding and addressing their sustainability impacts can capture systematic financial returns from that knowledge.
Like the grout in a cottage floor, this transparency may seem unremarkable. But it’s what transforms a collection of beautiful individual tiles into a foundation capable of supporting the weight of our ambitions, the whole time ensuring that the organizations bold enough to lead the transition are rewarded for their strategic vision rather than penalized for their candor. Without it, even our most impressive sustainability initiatives remain vulnerable to the structural failures that come with fragmentation.
The question now isn’t whether UK space sustainability has the correct components. We demonstrably do. It’s whether we’ll embrace the transparency that allows those components to function as a system that rewards strategic leadership with competitive advantage. The cottage floor is laid, the tiles are beautiful, and the grout is setting. What we build on that foundation, and who profits from building it first, is up to us.
Andrew Iwanoczko
Author Andrew Iwanoczko is Chief Executive of Callala Ltd and a key figure behind the SustainabilityOf.Space initiative, which developed and operates the Space Leaderboard. His work focuses on the practical challenges of space sustainability reporting, helping organisations distinguish between what can be measured and disclosed today versus what requires further research and standards development. Andrew supports academic research into space sustainability metrics and has contributed to the development of frameworks for space-based double materiality reporting. Through Callala, he works with space sector organisations to develop practical approaches to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure that balance current capabilities with evolving regulatory expectations. His expertise spans the intersection of space policy, sustainability standards, and commercial implementation, with particular focus on creating market conditions that reward strategic sustainability leadership. Andrew’s work emphasizes that effective space sustainability requires both technical excellence and transparent communication about the journey toward comprehensive environmental and social responsibility.
www.callala.co.uk
www.sustainabilityof.space
