What Is Business Sustainability? (And Why You Should Embrace It)

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With climate change and a dwindling amount of natural resources, there has been more and more focus on sustainability in large organizations. Certain businesses have leaped to the forefront of this, deciding to spend capital to make their process more sustainable over time and shore up goodwill. Many of these businesses have become more profitable as a result.

Key Takeaways:

• There are three pillars of sustainability: economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. They are also informally referred to as profits, people, and planet or by the acronym ESG.

• Making your business sustainable often leads to an increase in profits and positive public relations. While there’s often an upfront cost that has to be taken into consideration, the process more than pays for itself over time.

• More and more consumers are willing to alter their purchasing decisions in order to focus on sustainability. It’s especially pronounced with the younger generations, which means that sustainable goods have a long-term market.

What Is Sustainability in Business?

Sustainability refers to having processes that can run continuously over time. Sustainable is defined as “of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.” In business, generally, that means that they do their best to use resources that can be renewed and aren’t destroyed by being harvested.

Sustainability in business and society is often broken down into three different pillars. These highlight the primary aspects of sustainability and how to work towards it. Oftentimes shorted to the acronym ESG, they are:

• Economic sustainability. Informally referred to as profits, this aspect of sustainability focuses on the business’s ability to generate revenue. The sustainability aspect of it ties into the supply chain and risk management, as well as compliance with laws and regulations. Accounting transparency and compliance are important aspects as well.

• Environmental sustainability. This is part of sustainability that most people think of when hearing the word. Metrics such as carbon footprint, waste, pollutants, and water usage are all under this umbrella. Other important aspects are where they source their goods and what environmental impact producing, processing, and shipping them has.

  Due to its focus on natural resources and carbon footprint, this part of sustainability is sometimes referred to as a planet.

• Social sustainability. Most believe that businesses have a social responsibility to give back to the society and community that made them possible. Businesses that are labeled socially sustainable give back to their community and encourage diversity and discussion with community leaders. In informal contexts, it can be referred to as people.

Why Is Sustainability Important in Business?

Sustainability has multiple benefits to both the business that employs it and to its customers. Successful businesses are focused on sustainability and how they’re viewed by the public, which leads to more careful and reasoned decisions.

Here are several benefits to making an effort towards sustainability.

• Positive public image. Consumers pay attention to how businesses treat their resources and workers, meaning that a scandal can cause a boycott of your business’s goods. No member of leadership wants to be caught out as the business that treats their workers poorly or is damaging the environment.

  A blow like that to a company’s brand can damage them for years. Some companies will never recover from it. Depending on the severity of the damage and the force of public backlash, it can even sink a business entirely. A mistake of that sort also leads to higher scrutiny in the future, both from the public and from regulatory bodies.

• Sustainable goods are in demand. More and more consumers are looking for sustainable options. Many of them are willing to pay a premium to get a product they know has a smaller impact on the environment. The younger generations in particular are tuned to this, meaning that you can get lifetime customers out of it.

  Beware of how you advertise the sustainability of your product, however. If it’s misleading or exaggerated, you can be accused of making it sound better than it is or greenwashing. An accusation like that can be hard to shake and can hurt your brand with environmentally conscious consumers.

• It’s attractive to investors. Investors, regulators, and other authorities are on the lookout for sustainable businesses. This is partly due to demand and the various environmental issues that have arisen from unsustainable businesses; If your business has a plan for sustainability, that makes you much more attractive.

• It pays it forward. It’s important to remember that everyone is part of their environment and community. Putting money and resources back into your community builds goodwill, but more importantly, it lifts everyone. If your business makes an effort at sustainability, then it makes the world a better place for future generations.

• Extends your business’s lifetime. Depending on the nature of your business, you may have a finite number of resources. In the case of harvesting goods, making sure that your practices are sustainable and have a limited impact can mean that you’ll be able to keep the process going for longer. That extends the life of your business.

  It’s also known that unsustainable practices can have a long-term negative impact on the environment and people nearby. That can lead to injury, death, and displacement. Not only is this morally repugnant, but it can also lead to a loss in goods produced, customer base, and overall wealth, which will drop discretionary spending.

• It’s profitable. Though there’s often a large upfront cost in investing in sustainable practices, the businesses that do so show a competitive advantage across the board. The most sustainable companies are often the most profitable. So it’s not an either/or situation, nor does it require a sacrifice of profits to achieve.

Steps to Take Towards Sustainability

There isn’t a clear step-by-step process to get to a sustainable business model. That being said, there are methods and management strategies that you can use to push your business in that direction and keep it there. Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Assure compliance. There are environmental regulations in place in terms of energy requirements, pollution, and other sustainability practices. Be sure that your business meets these – or even exceeds them. Not only does it push you closer to sustainability and help your image, but there are also fines and penalties if you fail to comply.

2. Make it part of your mission. Sustainability shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be part of your company’s mission, which makes it something that everyone should work towards. That makes it a group goal and an aspect of your organization’s culture.

   Common goals are a motivating factor, and putting them front and center will ensure that your workforce will consider it as a part of your projects.

3. Set goals. Your organization should have sustainability goals. That’ll mean that you’ll always be working towards greater sustainability and that it’ll be top of mind for your staff. If you have goals, too, it’ll make sure that sustainability measures won’t continually get shunted to the back burner.

4. Take sustainability measurements. A big part of having goals is being able to measure progress. That means that you need to be able to track how sustainable your business is.

   There are several different ways to measure it, such as waste production, pollution numbers, and carbon footprint. Taking these into account helps you set goals and can help you communicate your sustainability level with the public.

5. Model the behavior. It’s important that leadership is on board with an emphasis on sustainability. That means that you and other members of the top brass have to model the behaviors and make it clear that it’s a priority to the organization.

6. Share information. It’s important that no one hoards information. In order to know how well your sustainability strategy is working, you need to be able to communicate with one another. It’s also important to know what different parts of the organization are doing so that no one’s working at cross purposes.

   Stakeholders, shareholders, the board of directors, employees, and the community should also be kept abreast of your efforts. The more transparent you are, the less likely there will be miscommunication.

7. Work together. Make sure that different parts of your organization are working together towards your goal of sustainability. Working at cross purposes or not getting buy-in is going to cause your efforts to stagnate, which doesn’t lead to accomplishments.

Business Sustainability FAQ

1. What are some examples of sustainability in business?

   Carbon offsetting, net zero supply chain emotions, and free cooling are examples of sustainability in business. Carbon offsetting is the practice of investing in charities or organizations that reduce carbon emissions as a way to offset the amount the business produces.

   Net zero supply chain emissions would be using electric vehicles to transport goods or other similar low or no-emission transportation. Free cooling is using natural phenomena to cool server farms, such as putting the room that houses them underground.

2. Does sustainability make a business profitable?

   While sustainability itself may not make a business profitable, many of the most profitable businesses focus on sustainability as a part of their culture. This leads to a shared goal, better public opinion, and more efficient use of resources over time.

3. What are the three pillars of sustainability?

   The pillars of sustainability are economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. These are sometimes abbreviated to ESG, with the G standing for governance, which means proper use of the resources in the environment. It’s also sometimes informally referred to as profits, planet, and people.

References:

1. Harvard Business School Online – Why You Need Sustainability in Your Business Strategy

Author

Di Doherty

Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.