Sustainability and business – What matters and how your business can promote innovation and boost competitiveness

What sustainability means and why it matters.

Incorporating sustainability into businesses of all sizes and revenue levels is no longer an option in the rapidly changing business landscape. Indeed, increasingly senior decision-makers in business as well as employees recognise that ‘being sustainable’ is a MUST. However, acknowledging the imperative of sustainability to ensure the survival of their business is not the same as having answers as to what actions can be taken immediately and in a cost-effective way.

Often there is a lack of clarity among many about what sustainability means. For example, some view sustainability to be about measuring carbon in order to ‘be green’ and addressing the climate emergency or encouraging the purchase of eco-labelled goods. Indeed, it is not surprising to find that an overwhelming majority of small and medium enterprises are still struggling to grasp the basics of sustainability, what it is, why it matters now or even how they are at risk of losing business opportunities in future.

Common/popular myths include: ‘becoming a sustainable business’ is costly or too expensive. Sustainability means reducing carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ for climate change or having to sign up for all 17 goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Whilst reducing carbon emissions is part of the environmental pillar of sustainability, it is certainly not the only environmental factor businesses need to consider. Indeed, travel, transport, waste management, and water usage are all part of the environment.

It is essential for business leaders to recognise that integrating sustainability is more about embedding alongside current systems and processes. This means it is less about ‘bolted on’ extras that are costly, out of sync with activities of the business and are not meaningful solutions. Instead, ensuring a strong business case can be made about how to integrate sustainability to boost competitiveness is an important and pivotal next step in taking action.

Benefits of integrating sustainability into your business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the numerous benefits of integrating sustainability in businesses are increasing competitiveness, delivering greater value for customers/clients serving as a springboard in being more innovative (e.g., processes, technology) and creating new revenue streams (waste, circular economy). Moreover, organisations have reaped the benefits of greater resilience in supply chains and more cost-effective solutions for energy use and managing waste.

In respect of increasing staff retention and talent attraction, a study reported by IBM to check employees’ perspectives on sustainability revealed that 71% of job seekers say sustainable companies are more attractive to work in. Overwhelmingly, it seems that younger jobseekers look for purpose-driven companies that care for the planet, have a positive social impact and consider a ‘triple bottom line’ approach to business.

The benefits of sustainability can be quantitative, as outlined above, as well as qualitative. The latter includes higher brand value and attracting new talent to future-proof your workforce.

To be effective, businesses need to integrate sustainability (with its pillars of environment, social, economic, and governance), instead of treating sustainability as a ‘bolted-on’ extra to their business.

Because of the shifting focus from the single bottom line which some may interpret as ‘profits at any cost’, there is now greater demand for non-financial issues to be factored into decision-making and in calculating Return on Investment (ROI).

Of necessity, therefore, actions taken need to be aligned with the day-to-day operations and/or strategic plans of the business. Developing suitable action plans for a road map to integrate sustainability begins with a reality check of what the business is doing already, identifying what else can be done and the priorities before planned phased action to integrate sustainability to increase business competitiveness.

Take action with the Sustainability and Business – Understanding the Basics for Maximum Benefits workshop

Taking place on October 19th at 9:30 am – 12:30 pm, this half-day workshop is ideal for decision makers in small organisations who need to grasp the basics or gain greater insights into sustainability, but do not have an internal expert on sustainability in their business. Neither are they interested in accreditation or other costly ‘bolted-on’ solutions for their business.

Along with an overview of the basics about sustainability, this workshop will cover:

• Key pillars of sustainability and why sustainability matters for SMEs
• Understand how the basics of sustainability can achieve business priorities
• Steps business can take to move from talk to action
• Myths and confusing terms about sustainability -dispelling myths
• Sustainability audits: catalyst in progressing your sustainability journey
• Gain practical insights into how other business have taken action on sustainability
• How integrating sustainability can improve business growth and competitiveness

About the blog writer and PHY Ltd

Dr Veronica Broomes is the founder of the Sustainability Support for Business Service at PHY Ltd, a company that helps business owners and their teams get to grips with the basics of sustainability so as to improve their performance, boost competitiveness to win more business, increase their retention and attraction of talent and lower the risk of being left behind. Veronica has more than 20 years extensive experience of working at the interface of sustainability, entrepreneurship, and research. Through dynamic, informative and expert-led training and the use of an innovative and highly accessible online sustainability audit portal, businesses discover how they can promote what they’re doing already on sustainability, receive tailored recommendations on actions and new approaches to align their business goals with sustainability pillars that are better for the environment (planet), deliver greater positive social impacts for people and secure their profitability.

Alongside membership of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability and Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, Veronica is a direct member of Rotary International and Sheffield Sustainability Network.

Contact information

Tel: 0114 551 3387
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn (business page): https://www.linkedin.com/company/sustainability-support-for-business/

LinkedIn (personal profile): https://uk.linkedin.com/in/businesscoachingandproperty

Website: https://peakhomesyorkshire.co.uk/sustainability-audit/

2023 Sustainability Insights and Business Survey: https://bit.ly/3OVyLGJ