Sustainability – has the dog had its day?
Recent months have seen Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility (CR) budgets slashed and projects mothballed across all sectors and industries. So sharp have been the knives that many have actually been proclaiming the "death" of CR as we know it. But are these rumours based on fact or fiction - and is it in fact an opportunity to really do more with less?
At Tripos, we are finding that Sustainability is becoming more - not less – important to our Clients in the downturn, especially when incorporated into their long-term strategic planning. We regularly hear how, even today, when delivered in a pragmatic and material way, sustainability is helping businesses cut costs (eg by reducing energy and/or waste) identify new opportunities and enhance corporate loyalty at both the employee and the customer/supplier levels.
Many organisations are also aware that when the recession ends, those that have reneged on their CR promises, will find it hard to re-establish their reputations. The key for the short-term is therefore all about doing more with less, providing demonstrable returns on investments, and using experience to implement change in the most effective way possible - exactly the kind of support that Tripos excels in.
In the longer-term, we believe that Sustainability will become just "the way we do business". As such the current "pruning of the Green Industry" is long overdue, and it is only now when less effective CR managers are no longer able to access funds that the importance of experience, pragmatism and delivery is really appreciated. This is exactly the kind of support that Tripos is providing right now to organisations such as The Crown Estate to help them truly embed Sustainability into their business processes.
For further information on embedding sustainability and corporate responsibility please contact Rob Evans at [email protected].
The Tripos team is running a series of training courses, together with the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield and Business in the Community (BITC), on delivering organisational change for sustainability. These are aimed at CR and sustainability managers.
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