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Imagine a sustainable business as a business that increases its profits, reduces its risks, and reduces its costs. Now imagine thousands of businesses, from small start-ups to industry giants, doing just that, with thousands more on the way. That’s what’s happening in the emerging new energy economy, which is bringing with it a whole new era for business.
As such, the first section of Sustainable Enterprise deals with introducing some of the changes on the horizon, or already underway. You’ll read about energy efficiency and climate protection programs, which can offer better access to insurance, stronger management of risk, and the chance to evolve alongside higher carbon costs. You’ll also read about icebergs of value, which can help smart companies capture profitable, and often overlooked, opportunities.
Many brands and businesses are finding a portfolio approach to brands and businesses essential for the success of a sustainable operation. You’ll read about that in papers that also discuss short-term and long-term goals and get you thinking about entire value chains, not just sales numbers and finished products as they leave the store shelf.
Given the challenges of attracting and retaining talented employees and sustainable customers, a competitive advantage is crucial. The purest form of reaching that advantage could well come from making sustainability everybody’s job.
Now that the foundations of sustainable enterprise have been poured, we’ll shift our attention to building on top of them. Literally. This section explores the LEED® Green Building Rating System™, a system developed in 2000 by the U.S. Green Building Council as a way to encourage adoption of sustainable building practices and universal tools and performance criteria.
Buildings generate nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions. For most corporations and federal agencies, they’re the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, the average LEED certified building uses 32 percent less electricity, consumes 30 to 50 percent less energy, and draws 40 percent less potable water than a standard building.
As such, even modest investment in energy-saving, sustainable construction technologies can yield environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy buildings and communities. Here, you’ll read about regulatory codes, rising energy costs, carbon tax issues, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, the innovation and design process itself, and the importance of analysis and evaluation of energy efficiency measures.
This section expands on the topics of analysis and evaluation of energy efficiency by discussing the shifting roles of risk managers, who must suddenly address risks they have never before been responsible for. The evidence that sustainability can significantly improve corporate performance continues to grow and risk managers must now be ready to devise strategies protecting supply-chain integrity, brand value, or even the reputation of the company. And, given the lack of policies on these risks, they’re on their own.
You’ll also read about the benefits of a triple-bottom-line approach, weighted average costs of carbon, and an educated executive and about the rapid evolution of the voluntary carbon offset market from an unregulated sector toward one governed by universal standards and influenced by the moves of business leaders in the new green economy.
And let’s not forget standards and guidelines. After all, it’s impossible to reach global consensus on anything without a universal set of rules. Here, we offer practical help for organizations looking to achieve sustainability and social responsibility, including invaluable tools from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
This section casts a different light on previously missed opportunities. After all, becoming sustainable, if done right, can increases profits, while reducing risks and costs. The concept of the cradle-to-cradle economy follows products through their entire life cycles and minimizes problems of resource extraction and waste management.
Finally, this section will warn about the dangers of greenwashing. Many profit-oriented corporations will strive to appear sustainable through marketing and public relations techniques, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are sustainable.
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