INDUSTRY COMMENT
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Dr. Ilham Kadri, President at Sealed Air’s Diversey Care division, looks at the increasing importance of having a truly sustainable business, and discusses Sealed Air’s own sustainability initiatives.
Do you consider your business to be a sustainable one? How do you measure its sustainability? And what are the reasons behind its implementation of sustainability goals?
For many businesses, sustainability is merely a buzzword. A ‘sustainability agenda’ may take pride of place on your website – yet behind the strong words, the touting of sustainability credentials, and assurances of commitments to meet further sustainability goals, ask yourself: is your company truly invested in its sustainability initiative? Sometimes, the honest answer is “no”.
The reason for this lack of investment often lays in the outdated notion that business and sustainability is not always a good, or even possible, match. More specifically, in some minds there is the lurking suspicion that sustainability measures will take resources away from other areas of the business and even negatively impact shareholder value.
However, this thinking is rapidly being disproven for the sham it is, as can clearly be seen when comparing the financial performances of those companies considered ‘high-
sustainability organisations’ to those classified as ‘low-sustainability’. In one report, a case group of high- sustainability companies dramatically outperformed low-sustainability ones over an 18-year period, both in terms of stock market and accounting measure, and performed much better as measured by return on equity and return on assets.
These results will come as no surprise to those of us who have long been prioritising sustainability as a core value of their business, and championing its importance. It has been demonstrated to us time and time again that customers are increasingly seeking out more sustainable partners – who now have a considerable competitive advantage. The reasons for this are twofold: not only is it considered morally important for many – if not most – businesses today to work with those who consider the ethical and environmental impact of their solutions; but there is also growing recognition that sustainable
solutions can result in more efficient, customer-centric solutions, and significant long-term cost savings.
This is especially true in the world of cleaning. Consider this very simplified example: a cleaning solution containing a highly effective, concentrated solution, which has been fitted with an automatic dosing pump – less packaging is used, and less product is wasted. This means that not only is there less impact upon the environment, but also that cleaning is made much more efficient – driving increased value for customers, and resulting in quantifiable benefits. Such solutions can only be created by cleaning companies which are fully committed to sustainability, and which consider this from the earliest stages of product development.
THE NEXT GENERATION
OF TALENT Of course, there are other reasons for pursuing a strong sustainability agenda, many of which include improving internal processes. One hugely important example of this is the impact it has upon talent attraction and retention, and employee engagement. The rise of ‘Gen Y’, or Millennials, who
10 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning Sustainability Supplement 2015
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