ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY ADVANTAGE

As a sole proprietorship, Sustainability Advantage’s purpose, vision, mission and values are aligned with Bob’s.

Purpose

To ensure future generations have the opportunity for at least the quality of life that we have enjoyed.

SA strives to maximize stakeholder wellbeing – all stakeholders, including contractors / suppliers, customers, communities, the environment and society-at-large. Because SA is a sole proprietorship, this purpose is personal. Bob is the 11th generation of Willard’s in North America. His purpose is to ensure the next 11 generations have the opportunity to enjoy as good, or better, quality of life on our finite planet.

Vision

A sustainable world, in which people and businesses flourish within nature’s limits.

This relates to the nested interdependencies model and John Ehrenfeld’s use of flourishing as a synonym for sustainable living. A sustainable world is defined by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and SA resources help companies assess how they are contributing to, or inhibiting, those goals.

Mission

To provide resources to sustainability champions to help accelerate our sustainability journey, before it is too late.

SA resources enable sustainability champions to help organizations assess their sustainability performance, justify improvements in priority areas, and become a market force for improvements in suppliers’ sustainability performance. This uses the influence-the-influencers strategy to accomplish the vision through, and with, others. It also acknowledges the urgency of our quest for a sustainable society nested in a sustainable environment.

Values

These values underpin all policies.

  • Trustworthiness―character (integrity, ethics, and honesty) and competence (quality and excellence)
    This is from Steven Covey’s book, Principle-Centered Leadership. For example, to trust auto mechanics with a car problem, you need to know that they will not rip you off and that they know how to fix your car. To build trust with stakeholders, they need to trust your motives and your capabilities.
  • Respect―fairness and compassion
    This the equivalent of the Golden Rule for how to treat stakeholders. It includes leading by example and using SA’s tools to manage, track and assess SA’s own sustainability performance.

Policies

As a Certified B Corp, Sustainability Advantage (SA) has an “Designed to give” impact business model. That is, SA has an aggressive “25% for People and Planet” policy. It makes monetary donations amounting to at least 25% of SA’s annual profit to worthy efforts to address pressing social and environmental (people and planet) issues. In addition, SA makes non-monetary / in-kind donations to registered charities, non-charity NGOs, and individuals doing worthy social and environmental work. To learn more about this and other SA policies on business practices / code of ethics, procurement, taxes, and lobbying, see Sustainability Advantage Policies.

Net-Zero GHG Policy

Included in the above SA Policies document is a Net-Zero GHG Policy. SA is committed to science-based net-zero GHG targets. By 2020, SA reduced its total (Scope 1, 2, and 3) absolute GHG emissions by 99.96% from a baseline year of 2005. It accomplished its GHG reductions by adopting a no-fly policy, using Bullfrog Green Natural Gas and Bullfrog Green Electricity for all its energy needs, and driving a Nissan Leaf EV that is recharged using Bullfrog Power Green Electricity.

SA has an annual target of maintaining net-zero emissions, regardless of company growth and without purchasing offsets. See the Carbon Footprint Calculator for detailed calculations behind this graph that shows SA’s journey to net-zero for Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. In 2023, SA earned the highest Diamond tier in Canada’s Net-Zero Challenge.

2023 Annual Integrated Report

Sustainability Advantage uses an Integrated Report to describes how its contributions to the environment and society provided the foundation for its success in 2021.  SA uses its own resource ‒ Basic Sustainability Assessment Tool (BSAT) ‒ to assess its performance, including its impacts on SDGs and capitals. Templates for all dashboards, models, and figures used in the report are available in the Sustainability Frameworks Master Slide Deck.

Enjoy! … and your feedback and suggestions are welcome.

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