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Ten steps you can start today to get your business on the pathway to sustainability
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10 steps in PDF format (54KB).
1. Think about the 'job' customers want done by purchasing your products
Consider your role as an organisation. Ask what it is that customers are looking to get done when they purchase your product. Imagine new ways of reaching the same end goals that involve fewer inputs, less waste and more positive social outcomes.
2. Review your product offering
Look at what you currently produce and provide to your customers. If you produce a range of products, do you also provide services that go along with these products?
Analyse how effectively the goals of your business align with the long term goals of society and the natural environment. Your business depends on these things for its success.
3. Identify the sustainability challenges impacting your products
Identify the short and long term sustainability issues that impact (or could impact) your products and services.
Review whether your products and services are contributing to increased environmental damage and whether their production and delivery is generating waste and pollution. Look at the social challenges facing your industry and how your direct and indirect social impacts can be reduced or reversed.
By identifying and tracking these sustainability challenges, you may ultimately discover ways to turn them into opportunities that benefit your business.
4. Measure the sustainability impact of the manufacture and distribution of your products
Ascertain where and how your products and services are manufactured and how they are distributed. Measure the social and environmental impacts associated with these processes.
If the manufacture and distribution of your products and services is not contributing to sustainability, look for ways that you can redesign the manufacturing and distribution process.
Each step of the way, there are opportunities to make choices that can help align environmental and social responsibility with business success.
5. Measure the sustainability impact of the use of your products
Measure what happens to your products and services once they leave your office, shop, showroom or factory. Analyse how they are used and what happens to any unused components of your products (including packaging materials) after use.
This can reveal hidden costs and opportunities associated with the supply chain. There may be hidden impacts that your business is not aware of. There may also be useful and valuable materials that can be reused in the production process.
6. Redesign the manufacturing and distribution process
Redesign your business processes to improve your use of resources and minimise your generation of waste. Increasing efficiency will reduce your impacts and help bring about productivity gains.
You should also redesign to reduce negative impacts on individuals and society that occur as a result of the manufacturing and distribution process.
7. Redesign or replace your products with sustainable products
Enhancing your products and services for sustainability will lead to innovation and open up new markets. It will also lead to efficiency gains throughout your business.
Your supply chain is central to this process. You can work with your suppliers to identify their willingness to support your approach, seeking out alternative suppliers and materials where necessary.
8. Develop a sustainability roadmap for your business and products
Businesses of any size can create a vision for moving towards sustainability.
By envisioning how you will improve the sustainability of your business, you can align the goals of your staff, customers and other stakeholders.
Start with the easy wins. Get some runs on the board and build momentum within your organisation. This is just good management and can help ensure long-term acceptance and support throughout the business.
And remember that sustainability is a journey, not a destination. This roadmap should be revisited regularly to ensure that it remains relevant.
9. Rally your team and engage with stakeholders
Engage your stakeholders on your sustainability vision and report to them on your progress.
Get managers, staff and directors on board. Engagement and participation at all levels of the organisation is essential to a successful sustainability initiative. The more staff are aware of, and understand, your company's approach, the easier it will be to bring about change.
Stakeholders outside the business are also vital to your performance. Identify your key stakeholders from all sectors and engage with them to determine what is important to them. They will help you to identify potential sustainability opportunities and challenges that would otherwise have gone undetected.
10. Integrate sustainability into your soul, re-imagine your business and seize the opportunities
By taking the above steps, your organisation will be well on the way to changing how you think about its role and sustainability impacts.
Make this a process of continuous improvement and ongoing enhancement.
