Why do You Need a Business Sustainability Strategy?
Business sustainability can invoke passion and inspiration among your employees and your customers while benefiting your company financially. By listening to the other voices which influence your companies future you can develop your own vision of what sustainability means to your business.
Developing this shared vision, where sustainability is a philosophy that runs through every aspect of your company culture, can capture hearts and minds while also increasing responsible growth of your triple bottom line.
Identify and Capitalize on Global Trends
Everyone is moving in the direction of a sustainable future. This makes it easier to identify and capitalize on global trends. Viewing your overall business strategy through the lens of sustainability is rapidly becoming the norm.
Issues like rapid urbanization, water shortages, depleting natural resources, and changes in climate are forcing their way into corporate boardrooms and company annual meetings. , modernization, mass connectivity and social unrest become challenges a company can help address, and opportunities for growth.
As Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.”
This is true for your business sustainability planning. Embracing a sustainability vision that you infuse throughout a company, creates focus, a roadmap, and context for making your business operating decisions.
Sustainability Simply Makes Sense
Sustainability simply makes sense from a strategic business perspective. A few things to consider:
- A 2011 study by MIT noted that sustainability is now a permanent part of 70 percent of corporate agendas.
- D S Simon Productions reported, “media initiatives with a corporate social responsibility focus generate 35-50 percent more positive media coverage on television, radio, web and social media than comparable programs without CSR.”
- Social and environmental responsibility is also appreciated by investors: In the stock market, responsible assets rose more than 324 percent from 1995 to 2007, confirming growing interest in sustainability among investors.
- 92 percent of young professionals would be more inclined to work for an environmentally friendly company, according to a MonsterTRAK poll on green employment.
How do You Embrace Sustainability?
How do you embrace this type of ingrained, and internalized sustainability? It all starts with your corporate vision. Here are some examples to help you create your meaningful sustainability vision and mission.
Prehaps by following the powerful strategies adopted by PepsiCo, Walmart, DuPont, and L’Oreal you will find your path to business sustainability.
Calculate Your Carbon Footprint
If you would like to calculate your Carbon Footprint, follow the link to the free carbon footprint calculator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
