Sustainability in Business: Why It Matters and How to Achieve It

All businesses today have a corporate and social responsibility to reduce their impact on the environment. By embracing sustainable practices, your local business can make a difference. Sustainable business practices help businesses become more eco-friendly and, reduce their carbon footprint.

This investment is worthwhile—here’s why.

Benefits of Sustainable Business Practices

Apart from the need to preserve the planet for future generations, there are plenty of good reasons to follow through with a sustainability strategy for one-man-band entrepreneurs and large organizations alike. Here are just a few incentives.

1. Positive impact on brand reputation.

Consumers are becoming more and more aware of the importance of sustainability efforts and prefer spending their money with companies that prove they care about environmental protection. It’s almost guaranteed that your customers are looking for sustainable companies to buy from which could turn them away from your business. You can attract new customers, improve customer retention and build a good brand reputation by taking sustainability initiatives seriously. 

2. Reduce business costs.

Waste isn’t only bad for the environment but bad financially too. The more efficient you can make your business processes, the better for everyone. For example, becoming more energy-efficient has a positive environmental impact and saves the business money. In the long term, solar power can be more cost-efficient than non-renewable energy sources. Especially with cost rises for gas, heating, electricity and other key bills businesses have to pay on a large scale.

3. Increased profits.

Simply put, embracing sustainable practices affects your bottom line – in a good way! Increasing your attractiveness to potential customers and reducing your costs already has a positive impact on profit. There are other factors of sustainability programs that improve profitability as well. Many workers are looking for green organizations to work for. Attracting and retaining top talent is always good for business. The same can be said for potential investors. Additionally, integrating sustainable practices requires innovation. An innovative culture is a powerful one that can foster all kinds of positive and profitable changes.

4. Complying with regulations.

Increasingly, governmental bodies are introducing legislation requiring businesses to become more sustainable. For others, it’s an industry expectation. Therefore, coming up with a sustainable business strategy will soon, if not already for some countries and industries, be a necessity. Minimizing carbon emissions, ensuring the supply chain is sustainable and engaging in sustainable reporting among other practices will become commonplace. 

8 Sustainable Business Practices

There are various different ways you can make your business greener depending on your industry, size and goals. Here are some sustainable business practices to consider including in your sustainability strategy.

1. Partner with nonprofit organizations.

Business leaders can’t be expected to be experts in sustainability initiatives. So partnering with a nonprofit organization is a great idea. The organization will share its expertise on how to improve the business’ environmental sustainability. The business will also benefit from the good reputation of the nonprofit and any recognition it may receive from the non-profit for its sustainability efforts. It’s a win-win situation as the nonprofit furthers its cause and the business receives support while transitioning to sustainability. 

2. Avoid paper usage. 

In the digital age, paper is rarely necessary. Ensuring the workforce has the digital tools needed to communicate without extensive paper usage is an easy change businesses can make. Online invoicing, e-signatures for contracts and email updates make paper usage unnecessary in the majority of business transactions. These digital tools are accessible even to small businesses. 

3. Educate employees.

The only way businesses can make a meaningful impact and create a truly sustainable future is with company buy-in. This can be particularly challenging in larger organizations. Unless the employees are behind any suggested sustainability programs results will be minimal. So educate employees on the changes being made and why. It may even inspire them to make changes in their personal lives, expanding the positive impact made by the business.

4. Recycle and reuse.

Introduce a recycling program to reduce the waste the business creates. This could be in a factory to make production more efficient or in a shop or office. Whatever the scale and size of your business, you can introduce a recycling program. For example, initiatives could involve donating old equipment and ensuring packaging in the canteen is biodegradable.

5. Develop green products.

Consumers are looking for green products to reduce their own environmental impact so green product development should be a priority for the R&D department. A key part of green products is their packaging. It should be recyclable or at least biodegradable. How about the lifespan of the product itself? Is it reusable or will it soon end up in landfill? Another factor in the development of sustainable products is the environmental impact of the product when it is being used. Products that require fossil fuels to run aren’t environmentally friendly so alternatives should be looked into.

6. Transition to renewable energy.

One of the most effective ways for a business to reduce its carbon footprint is by moving to renewable energy. Investing in solar power or moving to an energy provider that uses wind power will make a real difference. Another way to maximize renewable energy is to transition to an electric vehicle fleet to avoid sending harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere through gas-powered vehicles.

7. Review your supply chain.

How do you source or produce your product? Could it be more sustainable? Whether you manufacture products or buy stock from a supplier, these partnerships could be adding to the environmental impact of the business due to the greenhouse gases released in its processes. Where possible source materials responsibly, minimize the use of natural resources and reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels by changing suppliers, changing transport practices or changing production processes.

8. Invest in water conservation devices. 

The advanced technology we now have access to supports eco-friendly efforts. One area where technology enables efficiency and therefore sustainability is water conservation. Water is a natural resource we don’t want to waste. So installing devices that limit its usage to only what is necessary is a great cost-saving and planet-preserving measure.

FAQs

While we as a society are becoming more aware of the importance of protecting the environment for future generations, it’s still a relatively new principle for businesses meaning it hasn’t yet made it into many business models. So here are some common questions you may be wondering.

What are the principles of business sustainability?

The driving principle is to put the planet before profit. Sustainable businesses won’t cut corners (and costs) to the detriment of the environment. This requires a long-term perspective because investment in sustainability initiatives like moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy has significant long-term costs. However, it will pay off in the future due to the environmental protection these efforts achieve. Green businesses also embrace the principle of innovation because many traditional business practices rely on damaging operational methods like overusing raw materials.

How do you ensure sustainability in a business?

Turning a business into a sustainable organization isn’t an overnight transformation. It requires major changes in how the business operates. Sustainability initiatives are successful when they are planned out with realistic timelines, budgets and resource allocation, explained to employees to ensure company buy-in and then tracked. Sustainability reporting is essential to ensuring a positive environmental impact. Following through on sustainability goals does take commitment but it is well worth it.

What’s an example of sustainability in business?

With an increased awareness of the detrimental impact of climate change and the dire need for sustainability practices in business, there are plenty of good examples of businesses doing sustainability right.

IKEA is known for selling affordable products but that hasn’t stopped the business from investing in multiple environmental initiatives. IKEA is very conscious of where they source their materials from. Due to their efforts almost half of the wood for their furniture comes from sustainable forests. The business is also committed to being fully powered by renewable energy.

As another example, a car brand is not the first business that would come to mind when looking for instances of sustainability practices as the carbon emissions vehicles produce is a key factor in the state of the environment. BMW has taken responsibility for its environmental impact and is making changes. From a consumer perspective, they are introducing more hybrid and electric-powered vehicles to reduce carbon emissions. Internally, they have appointed an environmental officer who can guide them through the transition to becoming a green business. They have also reconsidered where they source their materials from and evaluated their supply chain for sustainability opportunities.

How do you set sustainability goals?

Sustainability goals help to direct business strategy towards sustainable practices. From becoming carbon zero, or even carbon negative, to introducing green product alternatives, many green businesses have sustainability goals.

Start by analyzing the environmental impact of the business currently. This will highlight areas for improvement. Then look into the technological and scientific breakthroughs that could support your business in reducing its negative impact. With that in mind, outline what a sustainable business would look like for you. What changes will be made and what is the timeline for these changes?

Don’t be afraid to be ambitious. We are running out of time to combat climate change and the technology needed is advancing to support even the most ambitious initiatives. With your goals set, come up with metrics that can be measured in the short and long term so the progress being made is apparent and adjustments can be made sooner rather than later.

Go Paperless With Podium

We’re all about efficiency at Podium, providing digital tools that remove the need for paper usage and that streamline processes. Use our tools to engage in sustainable business practices through improving customer communication, collecting and analyzing customer feedback, and automating customer communication.