How to Integrate Sustainability Into Your Business: Defining Sustainability Goals
Sustainability goals should align with your company’s core values
Reports have stated that the earth is at risk of a major ecological breakdown. These findings have been validated by the myriads of physical evidence of climate emergencies such as wildfires, flooding, chaotic extreme weather event increases, pandemics, heatwaves, ocean acidification, and warming. The current environmental and climate situations are a significant concern for all, from individuals to large business corporations.
These present climate conditions are increasing business risks by a significant margin. Today, businesses face risks on all sides, from resource extraction, product development, customer satisfaction, competition, and even risk of business continuity. In our world today, debating whether to incorporate sustainability into your business strategy is no longer an option.
It is more critical than ever that businesses in the 21st century are focused on generating long-term value for all stakeholders and addressing the challenges we face, which will result in shared prosperity and sustainability for both business and society. Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation
On the other hand, climate change and the associated environmental challenges have presented opportunities for business success, saving the cost of operation, employee retention, and providing opportunities for innovation. See the reasons why companies should embrace sustainability. Many business owners and company leaders are now finding ways to adopt sustainable business strategies in response to social and environmental issues affecting their business operations.
According to Rebecca Henderson from Harvard Business School, You can’t use business to do good in the world if you’re not doing well financially. Doing well and doing good are intertwined, and successful business strategies include both
Knowing the present climate and environment situation, the threats and opportunities to business are not enough to drive business success. A solid grasp of the strategies for integrating and implementing this change in your business makes the difference.
This topic will be a four-part series on the strategies to integrate sustainability into your business. It will cover defining sustainability goals, employee engagement, reviewing your business value chain, and engaging clients/ customers in your sustainability journey.
This article will be on defining sustainability goals.
Goal setting is a crucial step when undertaking any venture. It is a powerful planning process for defining your destination. It helps define what you want to achieve, why you want it, and when and how you plan to achieve it
Defining your sustainability goal requires a complete understanding and honest acceptance of where your company is in the sustainability journey. Are you just starting? Have you been carrying out some initiatives within the company but not yet defined? Do you have an already established sustainability team and looking at how to upscale initiatives in your organization?
One typical example is the UN sustainable development goals and targets. These goals encompass a broad spectrum of environmental, social, and economic objectives.
In defining sustainability goals, most companies often start from the basics, using the triple bottom line; environmental, social, and governance.
Below are a few things to consider while defining your goals
Sustainability goals should align with your company’s core values
Your sustainability goals should represent your business risk and show the desire to lower impact; for example, the fashion industry impacts the environment in terms of carbon emission and toxic releases into the atmosphere. You can define your sustainability goal toward reducing this impact. A food packaging company can define its goals to develop a more sustainable form of packaging or use eco-friendly packaging. This can be applied to all industries.
Goals must reflect core business processes
Understanding your business operation is very important. Your goal should align with your business operation. You can look at actions around sourcing raw materials, packaging, product development, disposal, and recycling.
Understand trends and statistics
The cliché “you can only manage what you can measure” comes in handy here. It is essential to understand trends and statistics to define a realistic goal. Organizations such as Science Based Target Network help companies develop strategies for greenhouse gas reduction. Other tools include Terrapass.
Align sustainability goals with local and global priorities
Most countries and regions have their goals and targets around different sustainability issues. Identify the goals that align with your business and define your goals around that. This can be done at the industry, regional, or national levels.
