Future perfect BUSINESS
30 | SUSTAINABILITY WORDS | Gordon Miller
A
recent piece of research called the UN Global Compact- Accenture CEO study
2010 polled 1,000 CEOs, business leaders, members of civil society and academic experts worldwide to fi nd out how sustainability was driving their organisations. Signifi cantly, 93% of the CEOs surveyed saw sustainability as important to their company’s future success; and 81% reported that sustainability issues are fully embedded into their company’s strategy and operations - an increase of 31% since the last survey in 2007. Moreover, 58% of survey respondents selected the consumer among their most important stakeholders, above employees (45 per cent) and government (39 per cent). Why do these business leaders – amongst them the CEOs of Daimler, De Beers, Deutsche Telekom AG, Diageo plc, Dow Chemical, GlaxoSmithKline, Goldman Sachs, Heineken – see sustainability as so important to their business strategy and operations? How and where does the consumer fi t into the picture, and how can your company adapt to take advantage of the business opportunities that a sustainably driven
future presents? Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, a brand making a signifi cant investment in sustainability, said: “The fi nancial community is increasingly looking at companies and rewarding those that think smartly about their use of resources.”
In other words, a company’s share price is infl uenced by all the usual factors – plus sustainability attributes. And on the issue of consumers, the report notes that they are important drivers of the corporate sustainability agenda. 58% of the CEOs in the survey identify the consumer as one of the most important stakeholders infl uencing how companies will manage societal expectations over the next fi ve years, compared to 50% in 2007. The fi ndings of the UN Global Compact-Accenture study are supported in Consumer Futures 2020: Scenarios for tomorrow’s consumers. The report by think-tank Forum for the Future, Sainsbury’s and Unilever concludes: “Savvy brands will make money by accelerating the transition to a more sustainable world. Companies should use their marketing, communications and innovation skills to create consumer demand for sustainable and profi table
www.opp.org.uk | DECEMBER 2011
What does the future look like for your company? Have you done a rational enquiry into how tomorrow, next year and the following 10 years might pan out for your business? And what are the critical factors that will impact your organisation, how can you adapt to meet them, and how will you maximise the opportunities they present?
products and services.” Understanding, strategising and implementing sustainability into one’s business activities needs to be followed up by measuring, monitoring (and improving) and reporting your company’s sustainability outputs – before communicating its fi ndings far and wide. It must be absolutely clear what data is being reported, and how and why it is collected. For example: • Does the fi gure for carbon emissions also include those attributable to energy use, travel, waste disposal and supply chains? • Where is the data collected from? • How, and how often, is it collected?
“Use your marketing skills to create consumer demand for sustainable and profi table products”
• Exactly what parts of your business does it apply to? • Does it include suppliers, contractors, freelancers, franchises and sub- contractors? You should also think about who you’re accountable to in terms of the sustainability or environmental report. You may want to consider: • The extent of stakeholder engagement • Who are your stakeholders e.g. customers, clients, investors, employees, contractors • Feedback from stakeholders • Tailoring your report to the needs of your stakeholders • Incorporating a third party assurance statement. An environmental or sustainability
Unlock | your global potential by trying to be sustainable & promoting your eff orts
report is most valuable when it is an integral part of an environmental management system (EMS). This demonstrates to stakeholders that the report is not just for show, but clearly acknowledges and addresses society’s growing awareness and concern for sustainable development (of businesses as
Gordon Miller is the Co- founder and Sustainability & Communications Director of membership organisation Sustain Worldwide (
www.sustainworldwide. com). He is a licensed BREEAM International Assessor and consults to housebuilders and developers on sustainability matters. Gordon writes for national newspapers including the Financial Times and The Guardian.
well as infrastructure and buildings). An EMS is similar to other management systems, such as those that manage quality or safety. It assesses your business’s strengths and weaknesses, helps you identify and manage signifi cant environmental impacts, saves you money by increasing effi ciency, ensures you comply with environmental legislation and provides benchmarks for improvements. You can prove to customers that you are committed to meeting your environmental responsibilities by getting your EMS certifi ed, such as through ISO 14001, BS 8555, the Seren Scheme or the Eco- Management and Audit Scheme. Gilberto Jordan, CEO of the André Jordan Group, who is developing Belas Clube de Campo, outside Lisbon, Portugal, said: “Usually one works with monetary units. With an EMS you start measuring physical units as well. And that is how ‘suddenly’ one starts to see things differently and question these quantities and types of resources. And that is when one can fi gure out using less of them. This is for the bottom line.” “For the top line it is much more
diffi cult to quantify the benefi t of having an EMS. Many factors exist that make your product attractive and one can’t really assess to a reasonable detail the reasons and weight of those for each and every buyer’s purchasing decision. [But] having an EMS in place always pushes you forward to improve your performance at every level.”
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