Growth

The Growing Role of Corporate Sustainability in Business: Demonstrating the Growing Demand and Why You Cannot be Left Behind

Matters of the environment have become the defining pillars for business operations. Every other day news headlines are awash with reports on challenges, such as global warming and loss of biodiversity, which are threatening to tear apart the planet into pieces. It is sad that most efforts, from corporate social responsibility to the Kyoto Protocol, have not achieved much, and scientists are warning us of imminent danger if we fail to reduce global warming to at least two degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial levels. It is time for action. 

One of the latest moves, which appear to be yielding results, is corporate sustainability. Because companies emit more emissions, release more pollution, and have a bigger impact on the environment, this is why they are required to shoulder a bigger burden compared to individuals. In this post, we take a closer look at the growing role of corporate sustainability to demonstrate why you should not be left behind. 

What is Corporate Sustainability?

Sustainability is a broad term used to refer to an approach for creating long-term stakeholder value via business strategies that focus on its environmental, social, and governance impacts. The whole idea is to ensure that companies are operating in a manner that does not cause harm to the planet and its systems. Initially, the idea of sustainability was considered to be only about the environment, but that is not correct.

The welfare of your staff, the relationship with others in the supply chain, and strategies used for operations are also part. 

Benefits of Corporate Sustainability for Your Company

The primary benefit of corporate sustainability is that you become part of the society that is helping to address the global challenges. For example, if you adopt a new system to help cut down emissions, the effort will go a long way in reducing the challenge of global warming. Other benefits of corporate sustainability include: 

  • It is an excellent way to improve your company’s brand both locally and globally. 
  • Corporate sustainability includes improving the working conditions at work, which is crucial in reducing staff turnover. It also makes them work harder and improve productivity. 
  • Implementing corporate sustainability helps to make it easy for your company to comply with local laws and policies in the country of operations. 
  • You are sure of winning more customers because they want to be associated with responsible and ethical companies. 
  • More investors will want to get associated with your company. 
  • Corporate sustainability is central in long-term planning, which you can employ for better planning. 

Focus on sustainability is now becoming a central thing in business operations as governments, regional authorities, and capital markets embrace it. For example, only companies that are sustainable and regularly produce sustainability reports are allowed to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) and London Stock Exchange (LSE).

According to Adrian Cheng, your company needs to be innovative and focused on long-term growth. Therefore, you should not be left behind in adopting corporate sustainability to enjoy the benefits we have listed above.