12 Essential Steps to Becoming a Sustainable Business
To help you understand the crucial steps toward becoming a sustainable business, we've gathered insights from twelve industry leaders and sustainability experts. From integrating sustainability holistically to building a business on integrity, these CEOs, directors, and other professionals share their top strategies for sustainability. Dive into their wisdom and learn how to make your business more sustainable.
Integrate Sustainability Holistically
Improve Your Supply Chain
Cultivate a Collective Commitment
Embrace System Life Cycle Thinking
Prioritize People and Value Your People
Genuinely Connect With a Cause
Focus On Major Environmental Impacts
Make Incremental Improvements
Redesign Packaging for Environmental Focus
Design Tech Products for Longevity
Aim for Zero Waste
Build Your Business on Integrity
Integrate Sustainability Holistically
Sustainability must be part of every aspect of the business, not a bolt-on. Both strategic and tactical perspectives are prerequisites.
Sustainability requires a broader and longer time-horizon view, coupled with a bias for action today. Such a focus is critical to unlocking value for the company while creating a positive impact for generations to come.
Adam Muellerweiss, Chief Sustainability Officer, Clarios
Improve Your Supply Chain
As a sustainability consultant, it's been observed that improving the supply chain can significantly contribute to a business's sustainability. This is because it affects every aspect of a business, from procurement of raw materials to shipping and waste management.
Consider IKEA, the company has integrated “Democratic Design” into its supply chain, a unique blend of aesthetics, intelligent design, quality, environmental consciousness, and affordability. As a result, since 2015, all the cotton used for IKEA products has been sourced sustainably. These modifications are not only commendable but also economically beneficial. According to research from the Carbon Disclosure Project, businesses could save up to $120 billion annually by making their supply chains more environmentally friendly.
Therefore, a sustainable supply chain not only reduces costs and increases efficiency, but it also appeals to environmentally conscious consumers and benefits the planet. It starts a chain reaction of eco-friendly practices throughout a business.
Josh Prigge, Company Owner, Sustridge
Cultivate a Collective Commitment
True sustainability needs to come from every part of the business, no matter what department you work in. Sustainability should form part of your thinking. Therefore, it's vital to get the buy-in from everyone, from top to bottom, within the business. Often, businesses will start with "what" they're going to do. However, to get support across the business, you need to figure out "why" you're doing it.
The "what" answers are usually quite functional by their nature, but the "why" answers are usually more emotive. These more emotive answers help to galvanize people to make more and better lasting change.
A while ago, we used the documentary "A Plastic Ocean." It's quite hard-hitting and leaves everyone with no room for doubt about why we should do things differently. If you can figure out the "why" and communicate this throughout the business, then you have a significant chance of getting everyone involved in "what" you're going to do about it.
John Aylott, Managing Director, Fourleaf
Embrace System Life Cycle Thinking
One of the most important steps to becoming a sustainable business is to embrace system life cycle thinking. Look beyond the here and now, and consider your product or service as the total of every stage of its existence.
Are your source materials sustainably harvested? If they aren't, when will that affect your business? Is your product discarded after each use? Will that tarnish your brand or make your product more expensive to produce?
Taking the full system into consideration is definitely challenging, but it may also produce strategic advantages your competitors won't have.
Nathan Gustafson, Staff Software Engineer and Founder, GiveMore
Prioritize and Value Your People
One of the most important steps to becoming a sustainable business is prioritizing your people. At Nonprofit Professionals Now, this means our internal teams, external clients, and the candidates we recruit and support through the hiring process.
When the people who interact with your business feel valued and believe their work has meaning, the impact can be profound. By focusing on people first and living by your values, you'll see less turnover, engaged staff, and dedicated clients, and feel prepared to face even the most challenging of situations.
Agnes Zach, Owner and CEO, Nonprofit Professionals Now
Genuinely Connect With a Cause
The first step is asking yourself what you care about and why. You need to have a personal, genuine link with the sustainability causes you're supporting.
Maybe the CEO comes from a disadvantaged immigrant background. If so, then advocate for NGOs and communities in this area. The relationship needs to be genuine, backed up by a story.
Anton Levytskyi, Communications Consultant, Self-employed
Focus On Major Environmental Impacts
The path to becoming a sustainable business lies in knowing what truly matters. More often than not, it's not about the plastic cups in your break room. Instead, it's about how you work with suppliers, particularly those in emerging markets who might not follow the same strict rules as you do.
Here's an example: It's good if we all reduce our use of disposable plastics, but unless we construct more eco-friendly buildings, the problem of pollution will remain.
Think about your company's environmental impact like a pie chart. Always aim to reduce the largest slice first—this will make the biggest difference in your journey to becoming a more sustainable business and stop you from chasing vanity metrics.
Rafael Sarim Özdemir, Founder and CEO, Zendog Labs
Make Incremental Sustainability Improvements
Creating a sustainable business seems like a humongous task only until you get to it. On the ground, minor changes and improvements make all the difference. In the home-improvement business, for example, even a slight change in being aware of our water consumption and committing to reduce it each day helps conserve this essential resource.
When we optimize our schedules and work structures, we can save on energy. Planning the transport of material saves fuel and emissions. Additional measures, like convincing our clients to adopt sustainable designs, further help us amplify our sustainability goals. Even the smallest changes make an impact.
Neil Platt, Director, Emerald Home Improvements
Redesign Packaging for Environmental Focus
We've helped many brands redesign their packaging to put forward their new focus on sustainability. In the early years, using sustainability as a purchase driver would lead to moderate increases in purchase intent.
Now, with consumers more aware of the need to be eco-friendly, brands that are not focused on sustainability feel it in their pockets as consumers continue to shift over to brands with an environmental focus.
Jason Vaught, Director of Content, SmashBrand
Design Tech Products for Longevity
Unfortunately, the tech industry is notorious for producing massive amounts of electronic waste. One way manufacturers can combat this wasteful trend is by designing products to last longer, making them easily repairable or upgradable—thus delaying replacement needs as much as possible.
Take-back programs allow manufacturers to dispose of old or obsolete products responsibly, instead of sending them straight into landfills. Recycling companies should also try to recover components that may be reused.
Karl Robinson, CEO, Logicata
Aim for Zero Waste
Aim for zero waste. You may not always be able to achieve perfect parity on this, but one key to moving toward sustainability is to cut down on the number of unnecessary things you use.
Whether that's pointless print-outs, wasted energy consumption, or extra packaging, these things add up. To become sustainable, try to decrease these excesses one by one.
Max Ade, CEO, Pickleheads
Build Your Business on Integrity
Integrity is an essential component of building a sustainable business. Many entrepreneurs fail because their businesses are built on a weak foundation. Decisions were made based on what they thought others were doing, rather than on their true values.
Inject your natural spirit and foster a culture of trust, companionship, diversity, and authenticity, and lead with integrity—this is how to become a sustainable business.
Saad Alam, Co-Founder and CEO, Hone Health
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