Trending: Sustainability Within Business

Businesses today have a tendency to avoid the topic sustainability, claiming that it is not their responsibility, that it will negatively effect their bottom line, or that their investors don't care. Yet there is overwhelming evidence to refute all of these claims.

First of all, the WRI and the UNEP Finance Initiative have created a "discussion framework for investors to weigh exposure to the risks of climate change." This framework allows investors to "evaluate a company based on climate-risk factors not directly related to physical risk." Historically, investors may have only cared about a company's book value when evaluating whether or not to invest. But the reality is that investors today care about a lot more, and now they have the framework to analyze company practices based on intangibles such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns - the Triple Bottom Line. Although this tool is designed for investors, it can also be used by businesses to perform their own risk-assessment and analyses. So why not get a leg-up? To start auditing your own performance means avoiding the loss of your investors to more ESG-conscious competitors. More information can be found in this article, "If Your Investors are Assessing Your Climate Risk, Shouldn't You Be?"

To further make the business case for sustainability, this article from Triple Pundit describes how "Target Rock found that the 16 High Sustainability Index companies as a group outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 for the ten-year period ending Dec. 31, 2011." The performance is depicted in this graph, where the green line represents the Sustainability Index.



In conclusion, sustainability within businesses is not only growing in popularity, it is becoming an expectation. But there is no reason to be afraid. Many companies such as GE, REI, General Mills, Apple, Starbucks, Walmart, PUMA, Timberland, and even Nike have taken on strong sustainability initiatives and seen improvement to all three areas of their triple bottom line. Sustainability is not a burden, it is an opportunity!