Many CEOs and senior business leaders have used the COVID-19 and economic crisis as an opportunity to focus on redesigning their business. Like others, they’ve felt compelled to re-examine their business and operational models, driven by the internal necessity for digital transformation, as well as external consumer and regulatory pressures to advance sustainability efforts. By Kristen Hicks.
The pandemic has also elevated the priority of social issues among executives, with consumers and employees alike granting greater credibility to corporate transparency in shareholder disclosures and the environmental impact of global operations.
The first step towards building an effective sustainability strategy is to define it for your business. Establish a shared understanding of what sustainability looks like across your organization, and how each department contributes to the overarching goal.
Lucas Joppa, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Officer, shared Microsoft’s sustainability report outlining how we’re making steps towards sustainability in our own businesses, working toward being carbon negative by 2030 and removing historic emissions by 2050. Gartner refers to sustainability as a “mission-critical priority,” and with good reason. With the growing risk that climate events pose to financial assets and global supply chains, and the weight of consumer social sentiment, to not take action on sustainability efforts would mean to increase the risk of both business disruption and customer churn. Rather than overlooking or minimalizing this effort, consider how adopting a sustainability strategy can accelerate your business growth and generate new opportunities. Good insights!
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