Aberdeen Report Reveals That Sustainability Is Becoming a Business Imperative
If you weren’t persuaded by yesterday’s video of Ray Anderson outlining the business benefits of sustainability , then I encourage you to read “Sustainability Matters: The Corporate Executive’s Strategic Agenda,” a new report from the Aberdeen Group.
Findings from this 39-page report demonstrate that sustainability continues to gain importance among shareholders, customers, trading partners, and regulators. As a result, an increasing number of companies worldwide are working toward integrating sustainability criteria into their overall business strategy. The research is especially compelling when you look at Best-in-Class performance.
- 73% of the Best-in-Class have executive-level leadership of company-wide sustainability initiatives.
- "Best-in-class" companies are three times as likely as "laggards" to have real-time visibility into sustainability conformance across the value chain.
- The "best-in-class" are 2.5 times as likely as all others to use sustainability and Corporate Responsibility (CR) performance management solutions.
In addition to a summary of the research, the report also includes chapters about: 1) benchmarking requirements for success and 2) specific recommendations to help you acquire Best-in-Class performance. Among the required actions, Aberdeen suggests you:
- Assign executive-level leadership and set policy so that you can establish baseline performance and then track and communicate progress.
- Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders. In fact, the report identifies responsible sourcing and procurement as the number one strategic action that Laggards can enact to support a sustainability platform.
- Integrate sustainability criteria into your overall business strategy.
"We believe that interest in this report is especially strong because companies recognize that sustainability is now a business imperative. The most successful sustainability initiatives are driven by visionary strategies and result in activities that enhance organizational performance, culture, and processes — as well as society and the environment," says David Hatch, VP, Group Director at Aberdeen Group, in a press release.
The full report is available for download at www.aberdeen.com/includes/asp/sponsored_registration.asp?ci=/launch/report/benchmark/5671-RA-sustainability-executive-agenda.asp&spid= (registration required).
There is certainly much interest in the area and much postering – but little tangible action thus far as far as I can see. Generally, sustainable procurement is being implemented on a commodity-based way: procuring sustainable paper, computers, etc., etc. Which is a bit of a shame because: 1) being sustainable is not just about buying, it’s about not buying and finding alternatives; and 2) it’s about linkages to higher-order CSR goals. This secondary point is often lost. Procurement is often tasked with “implementing sustainable procurement” rather than figuring out how procurement can achieve the organization’s CSR objectives. But, I guess this is the common challenge of procurement…
1Regards, Ben Sorensen
President
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