You don’t want to be a company that fails to keep its sustainability promises.
Not only will it affect your brand reputation, but it will also disrupt the morale of your internal teams, assuming they’re relying on you to stay true to your promises and genuine about achieving your goals. Not fulfilling your sustainability promises also hurts the environment, which is probably the most important part.
Staying faithful to your sustainability goals and promises is a must. But how do you do it? Here are seven aspects of sustainability that companies should consider, and how to dive deep into them to ensure your company lives up to its sustainability goals and promises.
Is Your Company Trustworthy?
Well, is it? Of course, you’re going to say yes. But the real question is, do you mean it? Whether you live up to your sustainability promises or not is reliant on how genuine you are about the trustworthiness of your business.
More and more businesses and executives are being exposed as unethical and untrustworthy. As a result, their reputations are ruined if they aren’t taken down altogether.
To avoid this fate, be an ethical leader who lives and dies by the trustworthiness of their business. Keeping your sustainability promises and actively pursuing your goals to save the planet will help you settle into this type of leadership. It also shows consumers they can trust you and your company.
Establishing company values will also help your company live up to its sustainability promises.
Establish Company Values
Companies that live up to their sustainability goals and promises acknowledge that their company values have a lot to do with it.
Be sure to establish your company values. Sustainability can and should be one of your company’s core values, along with others that assure your internal teams and external audiences that you’re serious about achieving your sustainability goals. Those core values can include:
- Trustworthiness
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Accountability
- Respect
- Innovation
- Passion
- Responsibility
- Leadership
- Service
Furthermore, don’t just list your core values. Instead, define why your company holds these values and provide examples of how they’re carried out each day.
Another way to ensure you’re achieving your sustainability goals is to actually set them.
Set Measurable Sustainability Goals for Your Company
A huge part of achieving your sustainability goals is defining them. You won’t be nearly as successful as you can be keeping your sustainability promises if you neglect to write down your goals and a plan for achieving them.
Your sustainability goals should be measurable and realistic. You should also set clear targets for each goal and choose KPIs to monitor your progress. Examples of KPIs that help you measure sustainability are:
- Carbon footprint
- Energy consumption
- Water footprint
- Waste rate
- Recycling rate
- Social impact
After setting your sustainability goals, start with environmental remediation.
Start With Environmental Remediation
Environmental remediation is defined as “The removal of environmental contaminants. The law requires companies or organizations that are guilty of contaminating the environment to rectify the issue.”
By conducting a remediation process, you can determine which of your company’s processes negatively impact the environment and how to make them better. You can also make what you learn in this process public to show your dedication to long-term sustainability solutions.
Considering how your digital presence impacts the environment is another tip for living up to your sustainability promises.
Consider the Environmental Impact of Your Digital Presence
Although many people think making everything digital will only help the environment, this argument has another side. Your digital presence can negatively impact the environment if you aren’t careful. For instance, using technology more often can lead to higher energy consumption and a high carbon footprint.
It’s crucial to take an in-depth look at how your company’s digital presence impacts the environment. For example, take a look at how you design the user experience on your website. Implementing sustainable UX design practices can help further your sustainability efforts by reducing data use on your site, implementing digital touchpoints responsibly, and contributing to the overall goal of reducing carbon footprint.
In addition to the environmental impact of your digital presence, review your in-office sustainability practices.
Explore In-Office Sustainability
Achieving your sustainability goals can start with small steps in the office. Unfortunately, many business owners think they have to make sustainability promises they can’t keep to prove that they’re committed to making this world a healthier place. But when they do this, it’s more discouraging than encouraging because they never meet these goals, and people notice.
Instead of making your sustainability goals too big, start with small actions you can take in the office that contribute to your progress. For instance, you could replace all of your cleaning products with environmentally-friendly ones. Or you could use LED lightbulbs throughout your office and implement a recycling routine.
Also, If you implement the accountability partner concept, your company is more likely to live up to its sustainability goals and promises.
Get an Accountability Partner
An accountability partner can be helpful for more than achieving fitness goals or learning a new skill. Even though it isn’t discussed often, an accountability partner can do wonders for your business, particularly living up to your sustainability goals. In fact, you have many people to rely on that can hold your company accountable to its promises and goals, including sustainability initiatives.
Think about it, every day, you’re working with your internal teams, customers, stakeholders, peers, industry and sector organizations, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, investors, partners, and society. Some of which are specifically there to help with your sustainability efforts.
When you choose the right people to work with, they naturally act as your accountability partners. As a result, you can feed off each other’s passion for sustainability and make genuine strides in the movement.
Publicly committing to your sustainability goals can also help you remain accountable to them. Furthermore, creating an internal team dedicated to sustainability goals can also keep you accountable and inspired to own your sustainability promises.
Conclusion
Ensuring your company is living up to its sustainability goals and promises is one of the best things you can do to save the planet and attract loyal customers, build a trustworthy brand, and solidify your company culture. Use the above tips as a guide to living up to your sustainability goals and promises.
About the Author
Amanda Winstead is a writer focusing on many topics including technology and digital marketing. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.