Most Companies Now See Sustainability as a Promising Profit Driver
Stephen Ashkin
Father of Green Cleaning | Influencer | Thought Leader | Green Cleaning and Sustainability Expert
Companies are now seeing sustainability factors as integral to a company's long-term value creation.
A recent study, "Sustainable Signals: Understanding Corporate Sustainability Priorities and Challenges" by the Morgan Stanley Institute, finds that overwhelmingly, companies view sustainability as a profit generator and a way to lower the cost of capital.
With the global participation of more than three hundred public and private companies from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, the findings reveal a strong consensus among key decision-makers that sustainability is not only a profit generator but essential to their company's long-term value-creation efforts.
According to Jessica Alsford, Chief Sustainability Officer at Morgan Stanley, the convergence of sustainability strategies and core business strategies is becoming increasingly apparent.
Companies are now seeing sustainability factors as integral to a company's long-term value creation.
More specifically, why companies view pursuing sustainability as necessary, the respondents answered:
? Fifty percent viewed it as a value-creation opportunity.
? Forty-eight percent said it helps them comply with government regulations.
? Forty-seven percent view it as doing the right thing for people and the planet.
? Forty-five percent said their customers expect them to be sustainability-focused in their business operations.
However, the study also pointed out that some companies believe adopting sustainability practices could be challenging. Among their reasons were the following:
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Costs. Three-quarters believe the required investment and access to capital to adopt sustainability practices could be very high.
Lack of Leadership. More than 30 percent believed their companies lacked the corporate leadership to make it happen.
Training. Twenty percent indicated it would require considerable training of employees in new skills.
I believe that while costs and financing can be a concern, increasingly, companies view sustainability as an investment in their business operations and not a cost.
Further, often these "costs" are less than expected. And when compared to the potential value creation of sustainability, those costs drop even further.
It's my hope that studies like this will inspire and motivate more organizations, including those in the jan/san industry, to view sustainability as an investment and implement sustainability strategies into their business operations.
Let me know if you agree.
-Steve
Growing Your Retail Gross Profit with Power BI
4 个月The only way to go. Tx for this post. My Thoughts (on cleaning Industry). There is the corporate world and there is the rest. True sustainability was and probably still is often the last question or topic on the table (for most non corporate informal and even more substantial organisations). Lots of window dressing. Little true understanding. Few viable incentives or drivers. Profit, which is the driver of all industry, and often has a short-term view, trumps anything that does not have a clear, proven direct link to it. Luckily there are those with wider, all-inclusive vision and accountability. It's a flywheel that started moving. Let's do it!!
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4 个月It's absolutely the right way to go, no question! But how many companies have bodged together environmental policies and statements so as not to be excluded from tendering opportunities, in their efforts to remain commercially viable, but not on a position to take the necessary steps to improve on their footprint? Is there enough scrutiny, and more importantly support, for those businesses that genuinely want to do better but are desperately trying to survive and balance the books today while teetering between prioritising on sustainability, profitability or even just survival?