SUSTAINABILITY INSIGHTS BLOG
Sustainability resource planning platform delivers a powerful set of process automation and operations management products for facilities & buildings, the assets located at those locations, and the people who manage and maintain them.
Corporate Sustainability Planning
From Boardroom to Government Agencies, Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Protection is now front and center.
As our environmental clock ticks and some of us are dragged kicking and screaming into a world where what we do can have significant implications for our future, so the words “corporate sustainability” are discussed on many a board room floor. While environmentalists can still not believe that government and big business took so long to understand the implications of environmental mismanagement, the wheels are certainly turning now with various rafts of legislation set to challenge the very way that we exist.
In the business world, corporate sustainability is front and center. By its very definition, we can see that enterprises around the developed world must pay particular attention to environmental and social developments in addition to their core economic needs. Now, rather than “adding on” policies that give a nod to the environment, business practices must be built on sustainable social and environmental considerations.
The Bruntland Commission probably put it most simply when they said that sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In other words grow, but do so without damaging future prospects.
More succinctly, John Elkington, in 1994, advocated the “triple bottom line” to ingrain the philosophy within corporate culture. We should expand our traditional reporting framework to include ecological and social performance in addition to financial performance. Recently, public sector full cost accounting has included the triple bottom line standard, as ratified by the United Nations. “People, planet, profits” captures the imagination.
A corporate framework these days should include the position of Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), whose goal is to effectively help steer the company in a new, socio-economic direction. The corporate sustainability officer and his department must proactively develop and maintain a strategy and all other departments must be on board.
Talking of Sustainability without True Action Will No Longer Work
It is no longer acceptable to simply talk of carbon emissions reductions. Organizations of all sizes, starting with the largest emitters, will be voluntarily or mandated by law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The premise of corporate sustainability need not be all negative, as there will surely be many opportunities to be derived from the correct application of environmental and social responsibility. Indeed, from a purely monetary point of view recent government legislation suggests that those corporations that actively reduce their reliance on damaging greenhouse gases may profit from the sale of unwanted and unused allocations and through the publication of performance charts, be viewed favorably in the public eye.
Corporate Sustainability Provides Measurable Return on Investment (ROI)
Further, the extended concept of “sustainable value” seeks to determine the financial return that could be generated through a successful “re-investment” in alternative social and environmental activities. Good public relations value can be achieved should an enterprise engage, with positive results, in a project to determine sustainable value, as shown by British Petroleum several years ago.
About Verisae
Verisae helps measure, manage and reduce equipment and energy costs including the related business and environmental impacts of carbon emissions. The Sustainability Resource Planning (“SRP”) software platform improves operational efficiency, protects brand integrity and helps ensure regulatory compliance for distributed enterprises across many industries. Verisae delivers a broad range of sustainability solutions to dozens of clients globally with thousands of daily users including an extended network of third-party suppliers. Verisae’s integrated sustainability platform actively tracks millions of assets across thousands of sites worldwide.
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