Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Sustainability on Sep 6th, 2011
In my last blog, we outlined how companies can gain more Business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) revenue from a more responsible company brand. This week we will look at a second way that sustainability strategies bolster revenue: the green attributes of the company’s products and services become differentiators.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Sustainability on Aug 23rd, 2011
People buy from companies they trust. More and more, customers prefer to do business with companies that are doing good things and are responsible. The responsible image of the company builds loyalty with customers who identify with the values of the company – their loyalty is more to the company than to its products. Even [...]
Posted in Business, Environment, Finance, Sustainability on Aug 9th, 2011
We want leading sustainable companies to win. We want them to take market share away from unsustainable competitors — to take a bigger slice of the existing market pie. The payoff to a company for featuring the reduction of its product’s energy requirements and environmental impacts is improved brand image and reputation. This increased mind share is furthered by endorsements by external environmental agencies, generating beneficial “noise” around the products attributes and free publicity. That contributes more momentum to the revenue gains.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Sustainability on Jun 28th, 2011
There are only two reasons a company changes: to avoid risks and / or to capture opportunities. They go for the upside, and / or run from the downside. They are attracted to the carrot, and / or want to duck the stick; the yin and / or the yang. Trying to convince a company to fully embed sustainability into its strategies and operations requires a very compelling business case. The standard business case is made up of these same two parts, shown in the figure below.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Finance, Sustainability on May 29th, 2011
We need to make it easy for CEOs, CFOs, and others in the C-suite to see how embedding sustainability strategies into the company’s strategies and operations will contribute to the firm’s success. That is, we need to connect the dots between typical financial statements and the benefits that can be realized from smart environmental, social, and governance (ESG) approaches and programs. Aligning ESG benefits with income statement elements helps executives see the relevance of sustainability initiatives to their current financial priorities.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Sustainability on Mar 22nd, 2011
So when corporate executives pretend that they would like to embrace sustainability initiatives more aggressively but that their charters or pressure from the investment community prevents them from doing so, they are just pretending to be asleep. They know that the opposite is true. Or they do now, if they didn’t before. It’s time to wake-up and get on with it.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Sustainability on Mar 8th, 2011
Economists deny that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was ever intended as a metric of overall country progress or well-being. However, that’s how it is being used. Leaders express alarm if the GDP—the value of all goods and services produced within a nation in a given year—falls. Countries are ranked by GPD or GDP per citizen, implying that countries with higher rankings are doing better overall than countries with lower rankings. What nonsense. We need a better metric for improved quality of life and progress. We need a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) that accounts for not only monetized economic wealth but, more importantly, includes vital environmental and social factors. Here are five reasons why it’s time we replaced the GDP with a GPI.
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Sustainability on Feb 22nd, 2011
Three recent reports provide positive reinforcement that traction on sustainability is building in the private and public sector. This news reenergizes our efforts. We live on hope that our combined efforts as sustainability champions will accelerate the take-up of environmentally, socially, and economically responsible strategies. Usually, during economic recessions, we lose ground. Strangely, in the current recession, the opposite has happened: sustainability-related strategies have been embraced more strongly.
I recently saw the new movie, “Inside Job.” It is a shocking documentary about the $20 trillion global financial meltdown in 2008. As movie reviewers Mary and Richard Corliss said in TIME magazine, “If you are not outraged by the end of this movie, you weren’t paying attention.”
Posted in Business, Eco-friendly, Environment, Sustainability on Nov 30th, 2010
Sustainability issues can be overwhelming, depressing, and almost traumatizing. At times we may feel powerless to make a difference. In The Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy, author Linda McQuaig provocatively suggests that helplessness is exactly what some large institutions want us to feel, so that they can get away with
solutions that are more in their interests than ours. She encourages us to take more personal responsibility for global sustainability challenges. The following three videos strongly support our capitalizing on our ripple effect.
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