Shareholders and consumers now place the climate crisis high on their agenda, increasingly holding corporations accountable for many of the environmental challenges confronting our society. As a result, businesses now face a new challenge and responsibility: to minimize their environmental impact while they maximize profitability. The standard guidelines for success in the marketplace are shifting and corporations must find new ways to adapt before they are displaced.
Alex Steffen in his recent article in Worldchanging outlines the ensuing climate for businesses with two very clear choices: “Good companies are getting better at telling the 'backstories' or product life cycle of the things they make. Other companies -- the ones who can’t figure out how to tell their backstories, or whose backstories are shameful -- are sailing into the storm.” Indeed, the way in which companies reflect and demonstrate their value will be increasingly critical to their success and “green washers” will be cast overboard. Public outcry has recently berated Mattel and their Chinese producers for toys containing lead and products containing phthalates and bisphenol A, two hazardous substances found in plastics, including baby bottles, that have become the target of municipalities and health groups.
The future strategy for any successful business must therefore concentrate on a redesign of current practices, incorporating a higher degree of responsibility for its practices, materials, and reporting. The EU has already taken the first step in this direction. It has successfully implemented programs that force manufacturers and suppliers to document all substances in their products, to remove any materials that are hazardous, and to implement end-of-life systems. This program has showed great success and will begin to influence policy and practice beyond the EU.
Sustainnovation Consulting understands that a huge market opportunity exists for those businesses that can adapt and shift in the turning tide. Companies addressing climate change proactively do tend to make more money--according to a new report from Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. The 'Carbon Beta' study shows that companies minimizing risks and seizing opportunities associated with climate change financially out-performed their same sector peers over the past three years--with the premium growing over time as carbon regulations tighten around the world.
Sustainnovation Consulting focuses on a business model of continuous improvement and does not approach business from a divisional or linear perspective. Rather it utilizes a cross-functional perspective to connect the corporate strategy with the core principles of sustainability. The objective is to retain the customer’s “secret sauce” while building a bridge to sustainability. In applying sustainable principles, the core values of a business need to be revisited including: reason for doing business, deliverable products and services, operating methodologies, supply chain and logistics, its value and benefit to customers, employees, community, and society. Sustainnovation Consulting uses this holistic approach with an eye on how to connect the inputs and outputs of a certain business with those of another in order to create “industrial symbiosis.” In so doing, potential unrealized benefits include additional opportunities for new products, waste-as-resource, and most importantly, increased revenues to name a few. This symbiosis is modeled on Biomimicry, a new study and practice of nature’s best ideas for the purpose of using these designs and processes to solve human problems. Sustainnovation Consulting develops sustainable business solutions beneficial for and interconnected with people, profits, and the planet.
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