Sustainability: business, life, environment

Are you embracing sustainability as a way to gain a long-term competitive market advantage or just as a marketing strategy?  Does your definition of sustainability only include the environment?  The answers to these basic questions often compartmentalize business strategies and set varying business sustainability efforts apart.  Leading companies are adopting more comprehensive definitions and business sustainability strategies that run consistently through all core functions. 

In a recent Grist Profile of Adam Werbach, thought by many to be a thought leader in sustainability, he discusses his struggles with sustainability in the business world.  His comments align with our sustainability consulting experience in that businesses often fail to make sustainability an engrained part of their business operations.

“The battle I’m trying to fight in the business world is to adopt a broader definition of sustainability that is not just about environmental sustainability.  That’s a limiting factor to sustainability. What are the tools you need to be around for the long term? What is your long-haul strategy?”  Adam Werbach author of Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto.

His book defines seven principle of sustainability that will ultimately impact business:

•    Natural resources will become increasingly scarce and expense.
•    Massive demographic change is coming.
•    People are the most important renewable resource.
•    Cash flow matters more than quarterly earnings.
•    Every organization’s operating environment will change as dramatically in the next three to five years as it has in the past five.
•    A chaotic external world requires internal cohesion and flexibility.
•    Only the transparent will survive.

In Adam Werbach’s approach called “STaR mapping,” company’s analyze their strategies in terms of social, technological, and resource changes. The idea is to identify a “North Star goal”.  This is the strategic direction toward which an organization drives to reach greater sustainability. 

Similarly at Taiga Company, our sustainability consulting practice works with clients to build a focused business sustainability plan which incorporates sustainability concepts into business core practices.  We work with business leaders, work groups, and stakeholders to recognize the importance of business sustainability as a critical value driver for the company’s growth and success.