Are You Enabling Sustainability in Your Business?

Our sustainability consulting interacts with a wide variety of clients and peers, many of whom are already implementing sustainability concepts into their core businesses operations. At some point in the conversation, we end up discussing how their performance compares to other businesses, specifically in relation to sustainability leaders. The answer to this comparative question may appear to be straight forward but really is not.   We feel the more important question to be: How is your business enabling sustainability in comparison to others?

Because not all businesses and individuals are at the same level of sustainability understanding or implementation, the progressive characteristics chosen to create a comparison can lead to different conclusions. In our own comparisons, we tend to focus less on levels of implementation stages and more on the quality of the business sustainability direction. We view leading organizations, at any level of understanding or implementation, as those looking to engage and enable business sustainability stakeholders in the pursuit of business sustainability. These companies often:

•    Defined relationships between sustainability, brand and reputation.

•    Promote consumer engagement in product development and innovation.

•    Establish close relationships with aligned business partners to create efficient environmentally conscious and ethically responsible supply.

•    Create transparent governance structures are in place that facilitate effective stakeholder engagement and reporting.

As part of an overall business sustainability plan, many of organizations are creating greater transparency in their traditionally internalized operations. Driven by stakeholder expectations, companies are placing an emphasis on environmental and social responsibility actions across the entire value chain.   These companies are going beyond policies and guidelines to create stakeholder alignment with business sustainability strategies.

At Taiga Company, our professional consulting provides information and resources to clients interested in integrating stakeholder engagement and transparency into business sustainability programs.