For businesses, sustainability is more than just a fad or a buzzword. Recent studies revealed that corporate sustainability has fantastic business benefits when diligently integrated into business operations.
Here are some major advantages for practicing sustainability in a business:
Enhanced brand image and competitive advantage.
The Natural Marketing Institute discovered that in more than 53,000 U.S. consumers, 58 percent consider a company’s environmental impact in considering where to get their goods and services. Furthermore, they are more likely to acquire from companies with good sustainable habits. All of these translates into a client base of 68 million who favor companies that show positive track records in social, personal, and environmental values. Consumers also prefer companies that proactively support their communities – in short, businesses do well by doing good.
The boosted brand awareness via “doing good” has become a cornerstone of advertising campaigns. The practice and encouragement to conserve resources boost brand awareness and breaches at a deeper level to employees, their families, and beyond. The prospect to increase brand image is lost if the company doesn’t make good on its promises.
Improve productivity and reduce costs
Critics of sustainability presume that sustainable business practices negatively affect corporate profit. The growth of sustainable business practices also leads to a more efficient operation that streamlines effort and resource conservation, increasing employee productivity and cutting costs.
Reducing cost involves energy conservation strategies that can be as simple as insulating walls and turning off unnecessary machines to more sophisticated efforts like installing cooling systems and geothermal heating. Those efforts provide better overall impact, and while it can be more expensive to implement, the long-term results often justify the initial investment.
Easier compliance with the regulation
With all the hype and consideration regarding climate change, coupled with environmental impact and dwindling energy resources, it’s no surprise that state and federal government agencies are implementing regulations to defend the environment. Applying sustainability to your business will position you to meet the ever-changing regulations more efficiently.
Attract quality hires and more investors
People enjoy being associated with the positive, younger generations exposed to steady environmental protection practices. They don’t go with companies implicated in ecological issues and those involved in social welfare scandals. Place your company in the light as a corporate sustainability champion, and you’ll tend to attract the caliber of people you prefer to employ.
Lessen waste
This is lauded as the most basic and simplest way to engage your business in sustainable practices. Starting in the 1990s with offices collecting empty cans to be recycled, the effort has now grown to include waste mitigation in paper, value re-engineering of products that use less raw materials, and changing out fixtures like incandescent lights for LED lights with better efficiency.
Corporate sustainability will require dedication, commitment, and follow-through from your business. From C-suite to rank-and-file employees, everyone needs to jump on board the sustainability goal to make it succeed. If your business can successfully apply it, morale and productivity will improve while sales increase and costs decrease. It’s a win-win achievement for the owners, your consumers, the employees, and e Anything that comes easy isn’t worthwhile.
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