Unloading the baggage of sustainability.

• Author: Dignan, Pete
• Position: Column

"Make 'sustainability' less annoying!"

Among the dozens of creative ideas that were scrawled on a big sheet of butcher paper during the Statewide Sustainability Roundtable in November, this one stood out.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Attendees were people whose jobs involve managing sustainability initiatives for companies and government agencies. Participants had been asked to post their best ideas for solving several daunting problems.

I think the author of this quip was implying that sustainability has become a pervasive but loaded term. To some, it is almost synonymous with avoiding climate change or promoting renewable energy. To others, it means recycling and reducing material waste. Maybe for you it's about buying locally, greening your supply chain or encouraging volunteerism in the community where your business operates.

As the executive director of CORE, a nonprofit association that promotes sustainable business practices, my challenge is to make sustainability more comprehensible and actionable for a large number of businesses.

One way to explain why business sustainability is necessary would be to focus on threats like climate change, loss of topsoil, draw-down of aquifers and accelerating species extinction. We could talk about how these are likely to lead to local and global energy, food and water shortages with accompanying price spikes, even triggering geopolitical instability.

But this sort of apocalyptic forecasting has been used by the environmental movement for many years without much effect.

CORK would rather focus on the opportunity for value creation--and communicate this value in understandable business language. In the 21st century, businesses that incorporate sustainability thinking in their strategies will benefit from increased revenue and brand value, lower operating costs, increased innovation and more resilience than those that take a more traditional approach.

Smart businesses begin by educating and engaging employees and suppliers. And they make deep commitments to the communities where they operate. Investing in people reduces employee turnover, drives customer retention and generates goodwill in the community.

The next step is to reframe our business processes from "take-make-waste" to "nothing wasted." My father, who grew up in the Great Depression, folded up used aluminum foil and put it back in the drawer to be used again. As kids, we would laugh at him, but he would just smile and say "waste not, want not."...