Sustainable Business Strategies

In the corporate world, most business leaders agree that achieving real bottom line improvements, whether through cost savings or elevated revenues, is critical to business sustainability.  However, these bottom line achievements are not a one-way street.  Our sustainability consulting experience tells us that success is the result of close collaboration with key stakeholders committed to the business’s success. 

Referring back to the post, Long Term Supplier Partnerships Key to Unilever’s Sustainable Growth, we build upon this concept though the eyes of a business sustainability leader.  As the article explains, focusing on increased collaboration and integration with key suppliers has proved to be a win-win for Unilever and its supply chain.

“Most companies want to collaborate with key suppliers but fail because they try to work with too many or focus on projects that are untimely or irrelevant to their partners. Progressive organizations choose only a few projects that both parties consider urgent and important for their overall business strategy.” –Procurement Strategy Council

At Taiga Company, our professional consulting works with clients to build a long term business sustainability plan that adds value by identifying critical relationships and taking proactive steps to engage those stakeholders in the process.  Through collaborative stakeholder engagement, a company can promote engagement, create alignment, and ensure the most effective results.  Some of the specific benefits include:

• The supply chain working together under aligned sustainability goals. 
• Business responsiveness to the expectations of the consumer.
• Business practices designed for minimal environmental impact.
• Realized benefits of a supportive local community.

Whether incorporating individual sustainability concepts or creating a sustainability plan for the entire business, the ability to effectively engage the outside world in the process is critical to success.  Because ultimate success relies heavily on the effective stakeholder engagement with the company’s internal and external business resource, our sustainability consulting focuses heavily upon social media engagement strategies  to optimize the communication gateway within the supply chain.

We all know that riding a bike is good for the environment, our health, and our pocketbooks, but here’s one more way it pays to bike – The Bicycle Commuter Tax Benefit.  You can get paid to bike to work. 

Well, hop in the saddle because  that is what many sustainable businesses across the nation are doing – becoming bike friendly businesses and paying their employees to commute by bicycle.  More than 500,000 American employees now work at a Bicycle Friendly Business (BFB), thanks to visionary leadership in the private and public sector. Just recently, the League of American Bicyclist announced 67 new Bike Friendly Businesses, who joined the ranks of the 412 local businesses, government agencies and Fortune 500 companies that are transforming the American workplace.

“These leaders are at the forefront of a movement to make American businesses more competitive, sustainable and attractive to the best and brightest employees,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “An investment in bicycling enhances employee health, increases sustainability and improves the bottom line.”

Your two wheels are recognized by the IRS as a “qualified transportation fringe benefit” More specifically, the Bicycle Commuter Tax Benefit has been on the books of the Internal Revenue Service for the past three years, but it still goes quite under used. Any employer, if they chose to do so, may provide a reimbursement of up to $20 per month for bike-related expenses incurred by the employee. That’s an extra $20 in your paycheck.   Explained in our eco friendly consulting, that things like spare tubes, bar tape, riding gloves, eye wear, cycling clothes, commuter bags, rain gear, lights, gloves, helmet, cost of maintenance, even the cost of a new commuter bike, basically anything you can purchase at a bike shop qualifies for reimbursement. One point of discinction: this is a benefit offered by your employer, not something you can claim on your personal taxes. 

What are the benefits of bike commuting programs for businesses?   Aside from being part of a sustainable business strategy, there are countless benefits to employers in adopting a bike commuting program: 

• Increase worker productivity: Fit employees are more alert, more productive, perform better and more efficiently.
• Improve employee health.
• Lower health care costs: healthier employees can reduce health insurance costs.
• Reduce parking cost.
• Reduced carbon emissions.
• Reduce turnover: Employers who appreciate workers' personal needs have less employee turnover.
• Supporting bike commuting is less expensive than an in-office fitness facility.
• Improve work/ life balance: Bike commuting can be substituted for the gym, saving employee’s personal time.
• Community engagement: Bicycles can be produced and maintained locally by local bike shops contributing to local job opportunities as part of a sustainable economy.
• Improve company image.
• Expand eco awareness within the organization and community.
• Link wellness programs with the corporate sustainability plan.

Becoming a bike friendly office is easy. Click here for a list of frequently asked questions on the benefit. To learn more about green cycling and sustainability, visit us at Taiga Company. 

Attempting to seize new opportunities and improve business sustainability, corporate leaders are looking for innovative solutions.   In fact, research shows that innovation will be essential to both short-tem opportunistic value capture and longer-term business sustainability. Curiously, from where should these new ideas and innovative solutions originate?  Who needs to be engaged in the process?

Most often the individuals and groups that are targeted for stakeholder engagement are those who have a passion for a positive outcome.  However, there is another group that must be considered.  These are the potential disrupters toward your goal.

Corporate antibodies are not just naysayers; they are necessary to protect the company from risk. When they attack an idea, it's because they perceive that idea to be a foreign object trying to harm the stability of the organization. But that doesn't mean innovation can't happen, even in the biggest, most entrenched firm. It simply means that senior leaders need to prepare their antibody system not only to identify ideas that are too risky but to recognize the ones that will strengthen and grow the company. 

This passage taken from the HBR Blog, Get the Corporate Antibodies on Your Side, addresses one of the often overlooked stakeholder groups in project implementation.   While most people tend to steer clear of negativity, this contrary perspective can play a valuable role in enhancing the overall deliverable.  Some of the typical ‘corporate antibodies’ include:

• Legal
• Risk management
• Finance
• IT
• Marketing

An open innovation approach to business sustainability offers stakeholders the opportunity to become engaged in the future of a business.  Recognizing that key stakeholders have a vested interest the success of the company, creates openness to new ideas that promote business success and innovative ideas.  In addition, the inclusion of counter perspectives from ‘corporate antibodies’ can enrich the business sustainability discussion.  Visit us at Taiga Company  to learn how your company can build stakeholder engagement strategies to capture all voices.

Sustainability has been described as a continuous improvement process that challenges business to balance and align the shifting expectations of stakeholders with their optimal business sustainability direction.  While sometimes seen as an overwhelming landscape of potential improvement, a common thread of ‘collaboration’ can be seen through just about every potential business sustainability action.  

Expanding upon this thought, our sustainability consulting refers back to the post which appeared on GreenBiz earlier this month, M&A: How to Find a Sustainability Strategy that Works. This article posed an interesting and pressing question for many of today’s executives.  

While GreenBiz focused on corporate cultures that facilitate a strategy, our sustainability consulting reminds readers that internal resources are not the only stakeholders with a vested interest.  We offer some points of consideration in building business sustainability alignment with all key business stakeholders.

• Initiate innovative idea generation and grass-roots business sustainability action.

• Seek-out opportunities to lower costs, initiate process improvements, and stimulate mitigate risk.

• Establish internal and external expectations for redefining products and service attributes.

• Align business sustainability expectations with supply chain partners. 

A defining characteristic of this mindset is a recognition that stakeholders play a key role in defining and executing long-term business sustainability success.  Our sustainability consulting is a strong advocate for the value opportunity in managing key business relationships, and we view sustainability alignment as a "must have" strategy for long term business viability and success.  However, at what level are stakeholders involved in the ‘decision-making’ process of a business?

Since the introduction of the concept of the triple bottom line, supporters and critics have debated the ability to link business sustainability actions to business profitability.  Without a definitive financial incentive, companies have traditionally not been receptive to the idea of integrating sustainability concepts into core business practices.  Recent trends tends to indicate that the business world may be changing their view, but what are the results saying?

The GreenBiz article, What Puts Companies on Top of the Sustainability Leadership List, explores the criteria that define today’s business sustainability elite.  Originally intended to define the business leaders who excel at integrating sustainability into their business strategies, the post instead brings to light a concerning divergence in economic performance and sustainability action.  Leveraging the results from a 2012 GlobeScan/SustainAbility Survey, the post finds some gaps between performance and recognition.  

“Some of our clients get excited when they see the results of The Sustainability Leaders Survey. But others may be worried. In this year's survey, GE was one of a number of companies that saw a decline in the proportion of mentions, from 12 percent in 2011 to 7 percent this year. Walmart, the top-rated company in 2010, saw its proportion fall from 11 percent to 7 percent, while mentions of Marks & Spencer declined marginally from 8 percent to 5 percent. What do these falls mean, though -- are these companies standing still or headed backward on sustainability?”

At Taiga Company, we find highly effective organizations are creating business sustainability cultures to drive performance.  Rather than focusing on short-term metrics, our sustainability consulting encourages companies to drive true business sustainability through continuous communication and stakeholder engagement strategies.  In doing so, these organizations are creating a direct link to the company’s business sustainability plan and stable long-term and lasting performance.

“In addition to attracting and retaining talented category managers to identify new savings areas, leading Procurement organizations also unpack complex spend categories into more manageable subcategories. Keep in mind that the highest return opportunities are not necessarily the projects with the highest amount of spend or those that are easiest to implement.”  –CEB Views

Following in these footsteps, a recent Spend Management post chronicles one organization’s efforts to make its procurement more effective.  Rather than focusing on reducing its direct spend, thereby increasing tension in its supply chain, the BBC has instead chose to expand its view of traditional cost control.  The company now works with key suppliers to collaboratively increase efficiencies and reduce process cost.

Our sustainability consulting experiences have revealed that business sustainability mindset shifts have resulted in strategic sourcing and procurement guidelines to align suppliers with defined business sustainability strategies.  We believe that just within the last year the business community at large has seen a monumental shift.

Moving forward in the next few years, our business sustainability consulting subscribes to the idea that the next generation of sustainable category management will continue to evolve.  Focused on a new level of responsibility across all supply chain activities, like those demonstrated by the BBC, will drive deeper into category value by addressing more pointed supply questions.

An emphasis on environmental awareness, social responsibility, and business sustainability actions within the supply chain has incentivized more progressive companies to begin to evaluate more than just their inbound supply.  Our sustainability consulting finds the once limited procurement functions are now expanding their organizational reach to a variety of business sustainability stakeholders.  Visit with us at Taiga Company to learn more.

Did you know? Just one tradeshow can have the same C02 footprint as one year of powering everyday office equipment and supplies? 

We all know that too much C02 in the environment is bad, how do we find out how much carbon dioxide we produce? 

Benchmarking success in green living or business starts with closing the gap between awareness and action.  Here's where the tried and true adage applies: "What gets measured, gets managed." While expressed more frequently in a business setting, it applies to our personal lives as well.  For instance, if you want to lose weight, first you have to know how much you weigh to benchmark your success.  Similarly, in living a sustainable lifestyle, you first need to know the areas of your environmental impacts to measure your success.  

Carbon calculators offer visibility to reduce emissions, but consistently taking eco action to reduce impacts can be overwhelming.  What if there was a quick, easy and long-lasting way to make a difference?  Is offsetting the answer?  From our sustainability consulting perspective, offsetting is not a substitute for reducing or eliminating emissions or other environmental impacts.  However, there is a time and a place for carbon offsetting.  

• Offsetting can be a partial solution that complements other approaches,
• Offsetting can be seen as part of maintaining the balance of life,
• Carbon offsets offers a path to eco action and raises eco awareness,
• Offsetting schemes can be used as an interim measure until other solutions are developed – efficient emission-free fuels and renewable energy sources.

What options are available for offsetting?  Introducing the Green Air Project.  GAP is a social enterprise that helps individuals and businesses offset their carbon footprints in the most sustainable and positive way- by planting trees.  As you know, at Taiga Company, we love trees!  

Why choose Green Air Project? 

• Business Sustainability: Green Air Project's offsetting of carbon dioxide by planting large numbers of trees is a viable option to a businesses' corporate sustainability plan. The program can also aid in increasing employee engagement and retention with employee participation. 
• Transparency:  Clients and other stakeholders have access to a businesses' sustainability strategies with a company-specific website and code to track how many trees have planted.
• Affordable: Businesses, individuals and families can all participate and benefit.  At $10.00/ tree, enough to offset the average American’s CO2 emissions for a month, the trees are professionally cared for including: tree- Lease and preparation of the land, professionally planting the trees, maintenance/weed control, making fire lines and maintaining them on the property, security, boundary maintenance, surveying of land and forestry service to manage the land. 

Green Air Project's offsetting of carbon dioxide by planting large numbers of trees is an easy to grasp sustainability concept for eco curious individuals and stakeholders.  Demonstrate your commitment to sustainability by taking sustainable leadership and eco action.  Visit Green Air Project website today to get started. 

“Sports equipment and clothing retailer Adidas managed rapid improvement among its suppliers in India. In 2010, about 80% of the vendors didn’t meet the company’s social compliance standards; in 2011, more than 80% met those performance goals. The company says the achievement resulted from working directly with the suppliers and setting strong targets.”

Taken from the Supply Management article, Adidas Turns Indian Supplier Performance Around, our sustainability consulting gathers valuable insight from the company’s success.  Turning the performance of supply chain around in a very short time, Adidas realized an almost unbelievable improvement in their corporate social responsibility in just one year.  The company monitored and realized significant improvement in the following six areas of improvement:

• Management Commitment and Responsiveness
• Management Systems
• Worker-Management Communication and Industrial Relations
• Compliance Training for Workers and Management
• Transparency in Communication and Reporting
• Compliance Performance

The above example along with our sustainability consulting experiences reveal that today’s sustainable supply chain organizations are focused on integrating sustainability concepts directly into their purchasing processes.  These efforts are designed to not only improve supply chain performance but to establish the next-generation sustainable supply chain management. 

Further research reveals that success relies heavily on the effective stakeholder engagement with the company’s internal and external business resource.  Taiga Company  offers social media engagement strategies to improve performance through optimized communication within the supply chain.

Business implementations over the last few years has revealed that many executives and their procurement organizations now view environmental and social responsibility actions within in the supply chain to be both a risk mitigating strategy and a business opportunity. These corporate actions are taking strategic sourcing and supplier relations to another level of supply chain sustainability. Our sustainability consulting asks: What is the next step in Sustainable Supply Chain Management? 

The CSR Digest recently released a post  which examines today’s value drivers of sustainable supply chain collaboration.  The article describes how long term supplier partnerships at Unilever have become critical to the company’s sustainable growth. 

“Unilever has a bold ambition to double the size of its business whilst halving the environmental impact of its products…t is vital that we work in closer partnership with our strategic suppliers to ensure faster innovations and invest sustainably throughout our value chain.”  -Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Chief Supply Chain Officer Unilever.

Having worked within some of the world’s leading supply chains, our sustainability consulting supports the direction of Unilever.  Similar to the company’s efforts, we recall the comments of the Procurement Strategy Council when enabling suppliers.  To effectively capture supplier innovation, PSC advises companies to focus on three priorities: 

• Provide suppliers with the right amount of direction
• Involve business partners in the ideation process 
• Enable effective IP sharing

By engaging  the knowledge of key supply stakeholders, your business can make significant gains over the competition, which may be unwilling to share information. Our sustainability consulting stresses the importance of a sustainable supply chain management philosophy as part of a larger business sustainability plan.  Visit with us at Taiga Company for more information and business resources to unlock the strategic value of a sustainable supply chain.

Most business leaders would probably agree that achieving real bottom line improvements, whether in cost savings or improved revenues, is critical to business sustainability.  These same executives might further comment that the concept of business sustainability is not new, and in fact, has been around for a long time.  As sustainability consultant, we agree that maintaining business operations has always been the goal of business. 

Business sustainability concepts today that are required for continued operations into the future are quite different than they were just 10years ago.  Our sustainability consulting would contend that business sustainability is now a more encompassing and continuous improvement process enabled by other business improvement efforts.  But what are others saying?

The Harvard Business Review post, It's Time to Rethink Continuous Improvement, questions the effectiveness of traditional efficiently driven strategies.  Arguing that innovation is much larger driver of business today, HBR encourages a collaborative balance between creativity and efficiency.

• Customize how and where continuous improvement is applied.

• Question whether processes should be improved, eliminated, or disrupted

• Assess the impact on company culture.

The implementation of efforts to improve business operations that are aligned with sustainability concepts is part of the larger continuous pursuit of business sustainability.  Our experience has revealed that business sustainability leaders today are looking to the triple bottom line  and the importance of continuous economic, social and environmental progress to be the mark progress.  Our sustainability consulting works with businesses to understand the value of having an evolved understanding of continuous improvement within all aspects of a company’s operations.

Over the last few years, our sustainability consulting has probed the broad question: can social media save  the world?   Today, we narrow that inquiry and ask: How could social interactions make or break your business.  Social media success is no longer defined by how well your company communicates its message to the external world.  It is rapidly becoming a critical business sustainability skill and a business sustainability catalyst.  

To aid in this discussion, we leverage the Harvard Business Review post, Collaboration Will Drive the Next Wave of Productivity Gains.  This article discusses the basic building blocks of business success and progression.  Focusing on technology, the author demonstrates how companies must move beyond abortion and implement sustainable business change with their technological advancement.

“Ineffective capture and transfer mechanisms hinder most companies' ability to capitalize on creative concepts and solutions. Deploy knowledge-management metrics to effectively measure the capture of innovative ideas and build systems to disseminate these ideas broadly across the enterprise.”  -Corporate Executive Board Views

In addition to the tradition business value drivers of out-bound communication, our sustainability consulting also encourages the equally viable social avenues to value.  An effective should communicated and align with the organization’s business objectives and resources, specifically the interests of its key stakeholders.  We find the leading “socially-geared” companies are responding and creating sustainability advocates by:

• Cascading business sustainability strategies down through organizational and individual performance goals.

• Informing, motivating, and actively engaging employees in the company’s business sustainability programs. 

• Integrating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) into the business processes, corporate performance, and employee recognition.

• Actively engaged with key stakeholders on sustainability issues, including employees to understand how sustainability issues are affecting the business. 

• Performing transparent reporting on sustainability concepts and sensitive issues, with both positive and negative results.

Sustainability and social media together offer a refreshing and innovative approach to business.  Our sustainability consulting offers information and access to resources that can help your business discover the value of social media for sustainability.  Visit with us at Taiga Company  to learn more.

April showers bring May flowers and…National Bike Month!  May is recognized as National Bike Month and as sustainability consultants, we couldn't be happier!  Bike commuting, or green cycling as we call it at Taiga Company, is part of a sustainable lifestyle, alternative transportation, helps the environment, and also raises eco awareness.   It seems that most people think of bikes as recreation but in our sustainability consulting with business and individuals, we encourage employers and workers to consider cycling as alternative transportation as well as part of a sustainable business strategy.  Cycling to work is an easy way to integrate sustainability concepts into the workplace.  

Kicking off National Bike Month we will be posting educational resources on bikes, cycling, and gear as well as sharing mountain bike race photos from our Taiga Cycling team exploring the great outdoors in Colorado.  

Here’s how you can participate in National Bike Month. 

Begin by marking your calendar:

• Bike-to-Work Week 2012 from May 14-18
• Bike-to-Work Day on Friday, May 18.
• Do you want to know how many people ride bikes in America , who's riding, and how many miles of bike lanes there are? The Census Bureau collects American Community Survey (ACS) data from a sample of the population in the United States and gives us this insight. Find out who's riding bikes  in the largest 244 cities in the U.S.

Resources and worthwhile reading: For Business/ employees:

• Bike Commuting Trends are UP: Here's Why
• 10 Reasons to Bike Commute to Work
• Easy Ways to Become a Bike Friendly Office
• Top 10 Benefits of Bicycle Commuting Programs for Businesses

For Commuters:

• The Bike Commuter's Guide to Stay Fresh and Clean at Work
• Get Paid to Bike to Work
• Green Resources for Bike to Work Week
• Live Green! Ride a bike!

Want to get more involved?  Get Up & Ride- Take the National Bike Challenge!  Launched  by a powerful alliance between Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the League of American Bicyclists, Bikes Belong and Endomondo, the National Bike Challenge aims to inspire and empower millions of Americans to ride their bikes for transportation, recreation and better health.  The Challenge is simple: Sign up as an individual or as a team, log your miles, share your stories and encourage others to join you. Riders will compete for prizes and awards on the local and national level, including a Grand Prize trip through California wine country from Trek Travel.  

What are you waiting for?  Pump up your tires, lube your chain, and put your pedal power to good use!  Ride ON! 

With the shift in consumer preferences over the past few years, companies have been aggressive to respond to the growing ‘green’ value opportunity.  However, lifecycle questions remain on company responsibilities once the products are in the hands of the consumer.   Does a sustainable business need to market and sell to a responsible consumer to be sustainable?  Do customers respond to a product or should products arise from the needs of the customer?  Our sustainability consulting explores.

As a professional consultant and an advocate for sustainable change in business, I express to clients, peers, and friends that everything we buy is an expression of consumer preference.  This purchase choice tells the business world that we approve of the product and service they are providing.  On the flip-side, businesses also have a responsibility to position their products and services in a way to attract the right consumers.

“Companies struggle to create products that consistently satisfy customer needs. Focus insight generation on the ultimate benefits that customers derive from a product or service. This helps guide technology project selection towards the highest-value opportunities.”  -CEB Views

The good news for business is there seems to be a general trend towards increasing eco awareness and a decreasing resistance for more sustainable products.  In fact, a 2009 consumer survey  indicated that 34 percent of American consumers are more likely to buy environmentally responsible products today, and another 44 percent indicate their environmental shopping habits have not changed as a result of the economy.  For this reason, we ask: How can a company effectively engage the shifting dynamics of the market and the ever changing expectations of the consumer.

“Progressive companies focus on understanding customer needs at the earliest stages. They continuously integrate knowledge outside the gate review process to execute faster without wasting resources.” –Procurement Strategy Council

Our sustainability consulting is mindful of the voice of the consumer as a key business sustainability influencer.  In fact, we view the expanding eco awareness of the global consumer to be a driving change in business.  For the companies sensitive to this change, there is a tremendous opportunity in managing the many voices of business sustainability.  Visit us at Taiga Company to learn more about this concept and how social media engagement strategies for key business sustainability stakeholders can transform your organization.

Developing a comprehensive business sustainability plan includes incorporating sustainability concepts across the entire supply chain.  A major part of this strategy is the need to facilitate an open two-way dialog with key business sustainability stakeholders to ensure alignment.  Armed with direction, our sustainability consulting asks: What are the likely next steps to initiate action?

“As Procurement's opportunity set fluctuates, periodic reviews are necessary to ensure that resources are allocated appropriately. To preserve enough time for staff to work on the most important projects, leading procurement organizations regularly and transparently assess the relative value of their activity mix, and reset priorities accordingly.” –Procurement Strategy Council

A sustainable supply chain management plan is viewed as an all encompassing analysis and management profile of spend with several major components.  Our sustainability consulting considers risk along with other evaluation methodologies, including spend classification and functional categorization, to be a framework from which an organization can create sustainable value deep within the supply chain.  

• Bring down costs whilst delivering sustainability  
• Develop an effective sustainable procurement strategy aligned to your organizational goals  
• Align your procurement processes to ensure engagement from your suppliers  
• Effectively monitor the sustainability progress and competence of your supply chain  
• Understand how much you can expect from your suppliers and ensure it works for them too 
• Create a team of sustainability champions from your procurement team

Our sustainability consulting research and experiences show that today’s sustainable supply chain organizations are focused on integrating sustainability concepts directly into their purchasing processes.  These efforts are designed to not only improve supply chain performance but to establish the next-generation sustainable supply chain management. This success relies heavily on the effective stakeholder engagement with the company’s internal and external business resource.  Taiga Company  offers social media engagement strategies to businesses seeking to optimize this communication gateway within the supply chain.

“Many companies suffer from disproportionately high breakthrough project failure rates because they find it hard to balance execution discipline with flexibility to respond to changing technical and market realities. When executing on breakthrough projects, use detailed maturity checklists to establish flexible yet guard-railed execution paths.”  -CEB Views

The Harvard Business Review post, Innovators, Are You Applying the Wrong Lessons from Manufacturing?, examines two often diverging processes in product development.  The article distinguishes between product development and product delivery.

• Manufacturing produces physical objects; product developers produce information.
• Manufacturing produces things; product developers produce the recipes for making things.
• Manufacturing deals with stationary targets; product developers deal with moving targets.

Clients in our sustainability consulting practice often ask, “What circumstances, frameworks or parameters need to be in place to spark creativity, ideas, and innovation in my business?".  For the most part, markets tend to respond much more quickly to meet desires than respond to resistance.  We believe that sustainability concepts are brining many diverging forces into alignment. 

An open innovation approach fosters an environment for creative ideas and inspired actions from both internal and external stakeholders.   Our sustainability consulting promotes social media engagement strategies as an avenue to align creativity and efficiency across the value chain.

Creating a sustainable business involves more than defining a vision, building a consumer forecast, and bringing a green product or service to market. Business sustainability is a commitment to the social, environmental, and economic impacts of your business.  It includes a commitment to improving business process that challenges the internal capabilities of a company towards business innovation as it strives to meet the changing needs of the external business environment.

That sounds great. But so frequently, within our business sustainability consulting, we are asked, “How do you make that happen?"  Answer: Innovation, Leadership, and stakeholder engagement.

A common misconception is that innovative ideas generate from a select few; however, innovative ideas can spring up from multiple sources.  They can generate from within the company at the ground level, from the customers you service, or your suppliers.  

While management is ultimately responsible for creating corporate direction, business sustainability minded executives now realize that their stakeholders have an equally important leadership role to play.  Recognizing this shift, many companies are seeking to refine their business sustainability strategies, improve internal and external communication, and bring cohesiveness to their organization by promoting greater stakeholder engagement.

Within business sustainability programs, engagement is a critical focus.  What is engagement really?  Ultimately, it is value alignment.  Alignment of the corporate sustainability plan with key stakeholders.   The GreenBiz article, Why Corporate Boards Should Listen to Investors on Sustainability, explores the numerous factors affecting today’s bottom lines.  Leveraging a recent Ernst and Young whitepaper on the topic, the post highlights the influence investors have on critical business sustainability decision making.

“In 2012, investors will continue to spotlight sustainability issues in connection with corporate growth opportunities and risk management efforts.  A confluence of factors – investors seeking greater corporate accountability, particularly at the board level; growing attention paid by regulators to environmental and social topics; and heightened public scrutiny of corporation following recent financial, economic, political and environmental-related developments – are working to sharpen attention on the ‘triple bottom line’ of environmental, social and economic performance.” - Ernst and Young

Our sustainability consulting works with business leaders to define the unique links between sustainability concepts and business value drivers.  We provide information and professional consulting services which assist companies in building a strong platform for sustainable stakeholder engagement.  What form is sustainability taking in your business?

“In today's economic environment, companies are continuously pressured to reduce costs in order to combat slower growth and offset commodity price increases, rising costs of energy and transportation, and various other pressures. Despite these issues and the economic instability worldwide, companies must continue to find growth opportunities to compete in the global marketplace. The question I keep returning to is, why don't more CFOs turn to indirect procurement as a significant source of savings to create a competitive advantage and fuel this growth?”  - Robert Brust former CFO for Sprint

Following on this same line of thinking the Huffington Post article, The New Procurement, examines the characteristics of an evolving and strategic function within today’s business.  Leveraging the advancements in manufacturing as a foretelling for change in other industries, the post highlights the opportunities for comprehensive sustainable supply chain reform.  Areas of note include:

• Raising revenues
• Improving margins and reducing costs
• Expanding globally through export and foreign country platforms
• Product and process innovation
• Raising productivity
• Better training and use of human capital 

Our sustainability consulting considers risk along with other categorization methodologies, including spend classification and functional categorization, to be a framework from which an organization can create sustainable value deep within the supply chain.  A traditional category plan is viewed as an all encompassing analysis and management profile of spend with several major components:

• Commercial Strategy 
• Supplier/Contract Management Plans 
• Demand Management Plan 
• Communication/Change Management Plan 
• Continuous Improvement Process

Building a strong business sustainability plan usually requires a company to incorporate sustainability concepts across the entire supply chain.  Our sustainability consulting provides information and tools to clients seeking to develop successful business sustainability strategies to drive sustainable value beyond their direct spend.  We leverage social media engagement strategies and tools to communicate across the entire value chain.

What is Karma?   Karma is a Sanskrit word that means "action." Karma has commonly been considered a punishment for past bad actions, but karma is neither judge nor jury. Rather, it is simply the universal law of cause and effect that says every thought, word and act carries energy into the world and affects our present reality. From a sustainability viewpoint, how does karma apply?  Many argue that business is best used as a vehicle to not only aid in solving today's environmental challenges, but also to help create a better world.

If so, then How do business leaders walk the delicate art of transitioning to more sustainable business strategies?  When you think about it, the requirements to maintain a sustainable business today are quite different than they were just ten years ago.   Companies on the leading edge are evaluating the economic, social and environmental impacts that will ultimately affect profitability.  Green business practices are becoming more and more the norm, as companies both large and small realize the value of integrating eco awareness and sustainability concepts into their operations and business strategies.   

For example, many organizations are developing strategies to reduce emissions.  These organizations are proactively implementing process improvements and new technologies to add value and reduce risk.  By focusing on and applying resources to a broad concept, a company can drill-down to more detailed sustainable actions to address:

•    Office Building Energy Consumption – evaluating the average energy use per square foot of office space and implementing best practices to reduce: energy consumption studies, efficiency practices, equipment modifications, etc.

•    Operations Efficiency – incorporating energy efficient process into their daily operations, evaluating peak hour consumption, and decreasing off-hour usage.

•    Supply Chain Efficiency: creating integrated processes with suppliers to improve communication, ensure common sustainable processes, and increase energy efficiency.

Masterful companies recognize that business sustainability is a mind-set change that should be consistent and in alignment with organizational commitment and continuous improvement efforts already in place within the company.  The critical elements to affective implementation include: executive leadership, consistent action, clear communication, and stakeholder engagement.

While eco awareness is important, demonstrating sustainability values through eco action is key.  "Like a beautiful flower that is colorful but has no fragrance, even well spoken words bear no fruit in one who does not put them into practice."  ~ Dhammapada, Sayings of the Buddha, Pali Cannon

Experience and recent business results demonstrate that innovation will be essential to success over the next decade as companies continue to recover from recent economic downturn.  Our sustainability consulting has worked with companies who are seeking to seize new opportunities and improve competitive positions through refined evolved business plans and innovative solutions.  But these efforts are not always tuned-in through the traditional channels.

Our sustainability consulting recognizes the innovative ideas do not have to come from any one, single source.  They can generate from within the company at the ground level, from the customers you service, or your suppliers.  In fact, a definable key to success is to create a corporate culture that encourages and rewards innovation at all levels internal to the organization as well as external to the company.

Leveraging this concept, we turn our attention to the Innovation Excellence post, Follow the Leaders of Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing – Part Two.  This article offers insight into the characteristics of today’s leading business sustainability and open innovation cultures.

• They build a solid foundation: Seek to understand where the challenges will lie in the transformation.

• They get strategic: Communicate the goals of the strategy and measure goal achievement.

• They focus on communications and ownership: Create guidelines for when and how to use different external talent sources.

• They continuously reinforce their efforts: Weave external focus into internal systems

An open innovation approach to business sustainability offers stakeholders the opportunity to become engaged in the future of a business.  Recognizing that key stakeholders have a vested interest the success of the company, creates openness to new ideas that promote business success and innovative ideas. 

In today’s global business environment, it is rare for a company to own an entire product or service value chain.  Business operations rely heavily on external sources exposing the supply chain as a critical component of business success.   Leading organizations are using the procurement function as a means to move towards a more sustainable business by forming "strategic relationships" with companies, large and small, who demonstrate leadership.  

With that being said,misconceptions of business sustainability as a passing trend are quickly falling by the wayside.  Larger organizations, traditionally mistaken as burdened with a primary responsibility as change agents in the water, carbon, environment and climate change solutions are now shifting the burden to include suppliers.  Walmart is one example.

Recently, Walmart announced that it will broaden its initial 15-question scorecard to 100 major categories, with category-specific questions, by the end of this year.   As the post, Why Walmart's better supplier scorecard is a big deal states, " When Walmart introduced its initial scorecard, tens of thousands of suppliers increased their investments in sustainability. This expanded scorecard promises to have an even bigger impact. Not only will it shift the landscape for Walmart suppliers, but it also could greatly influence supplier scorecard programs at many other companies.'  

To unprepared organizations, the business risks of carbon, water, and climate change disclosure takes many forms:

•    Potential increase in operating cost

•    Potential increase in supply costs

•    Potential disruptions to supply or loss of supplier relationships

•    Potential loss of revenue or market share

•    Potential to business reputation 

•    Potential inability to secure investment dollars or capital

Water, carbon, waste, and energy management is becoming a critical sustainable business strategy to address internal and external supply issues.  Creating supply chain management alignment through increased eco awareness, cooperative business relationships, and applied sustainability concepts can have immediate business impacts and reduce business sustainability risk.  Taiga Company provides professional consulting and business resources to business leaders seeking to make significant and sustainable improvements in their internal and external operations.