Corporate sustainability continues to evolve

July 31st, 2015 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

Corporate sustainability is a continually evolving concept, as indicated by the growing scope of such efforts and their increasing popularity. Advances seen in 2015, such as the White House's recent collection of a pledge from 13 major companies - and $140 billion in funding - for various sustainability and social responsibility initiatives, are telling. Sustainability efforts have started to integrate more fully into the entirety of a company's operations instead of remaining set off from the majority of a business. All these improvements have also driven changes in the scope and practice of sustainability efforts.

A few coming changes
While there are no sure things in terms of industry trends, Business Day pointed to some likely changes coming for corporate social responsibility and sustainability in the near future. One of the most interesting concepts is increasing stakeholder relevance. In practical terms, that means building a greater connection between employees, customers, partners and stock owners and the sustainability efforts of a company. The answer to this need doesn't likely include new and different sustainability programs, but changes to the way information is collected and reported.

Organizations need sustainability software that can accurately collect in-depth information and faithfully report it. It's likely that improvements in the way information is communicated are needed in some fashion. More focus on not only the accuracy of statistics but the language, narrative and presentation used to communicate with stakeholders is needed as well. As the scope of reporting has to include people who aren't interacting with the company on a daily basis, be they customers or stock owners, the way stories are told has to change when interacting with those stakeholders.

Different strategies
Steve Schein, author of "A New Psychology for Sustainability Leadership," mentioned two important, rising aspects of sustainability efforts. The first was the role of executives in such efforts. Schein noted that while sustainability efforts are more popular now than in the past, there's plenty of room left for increased executive involvement. More needs to be learned about what makes execs already involved in such efforts successful as well. The second aspect was the limits of sustainability practices and resistance from some corners to these efforts. Schein argued that more knowledge is needed about the disconnect between science and some executives, as well as how positive change can be found.