Implementing the pillars of sustainable development within your company is a highly beneficial approach to ensure the sustainability of your business model and assert yourself as an employer concerned with contributing to the progress of society at large.
The social pillar: ensuring the well-being of your employees
A governance program imbued with social and humanistic values is conducive to your employees’ and collaborators’ well-being and health.
Let’s be clear: a company is more likely to prosper if its employees feel good. Lower turnover, better team cohesion, increased motivation… The virtues of sustainable development are numerous. We naturally feel more invested and committed within a structure that respects its teams by ensuring they can fully develop. Such a model is generally synonymous with a tenfold increase in productivity.
For a company, being part of a sustainable development logic means diversifying the nature of its objectives, which are no longer solely concerned with profitability.
The economic pillar: easily optimize your expenses and your budget
Contrary to a widespread idea, investing in sustainable development is not necessarily synonymous with astronomical expenses.
By changing your business model, your company will likely make gains… And not just in terms of the image!
Producing more responsibly often implies reviewing the very functioning of your business. It is not only a question of investing in renewable energies or better quality raw materials: it is also a question of cutting unnecessary or optional expenses, for example. In this sense, many savings must be made in a transition process towards sustainability.
The environmental pillar: sustain your business
Acting in favor of sustainable development implies being concerned about your business’s viability concerning climate change.
Whether or not you are sensitive to the ethical dimension of this issue, it is impossible to ignore the pragmatism it requires.
Translation: Can your company deal with the risks of climate change? Far from being theoretical, they are illustrated almost daily by the news. And the least we can say is that the disruptions or natural disasters caused by climate change call into question the viability of certain activities.
Moreover, investors are no longer mistaken: climate change has become a risk in its own right, likely to influence their decision to support the development of a particular company.
In concrete terms, if your company does not consider this risk, does not anticipate it, or does nothing to protect itself, it could see its financing evaporate literally.
Similarly, legislation is becoming increasingly tough on companies that persistently ignore their environmental impact. Already, some of them are required by law to carry out their carbon footprint.
Conclusion? Don’t wait until you are up against the wall: anticipate!
The cultural pillar: unite your employees around a common identity
The road to sustainable development is not a long one. As it is, making changes as crucial as those necessary for a company’s transition necessarily implies efforts… And from everyone.
An example? Adopting eco-actions in a company requires the participation of each employee. Everyone must agree to review their habits – which have often been ingrained for years. Let’s face it: if you don’t get them on board, you may have to sweat it out to make the changes you want.
Consider the best way to present the transition to your teams in this context. There are many ways to do this. The idea is not to introduce your objectives at the sound of the funeral march. Try to make the transition as fun and engaging as possible.
For example, some companies that track their CO2 emissions daily unite their teams by presenting the process as a game between departments. At the end of the week, the team with the lowest CO2 emissions wins a prize.
Did you get the idea? It’s about finding a cultural element consistent with the spirit of your company and likely to consolidate the links between the structure and its employees.