Newsletters

April 2010

Sustainability to bolster the bottom line

My industry is quite abuzz with talk about how to improve bottom lines. It became even more evident in our most recent TCREW (Triangle Commercial Real Estate Women) meeting that focused on a topic to which we should all starting giving serious consideration: sustainability.

Sustainability is about helping our environment, and our communities, prepare for the future and thrive in the present. Our meeting included a panel of experts that understand how focusing on sustainability can strengthen business.

Panel moderator Evelyn Contre, Founder and Managing Director of Springleaf Strategies,discussed how companies can realize significant financial advantages and increased brand recognition by implementing a few sustainability initiatives.

Springleaf Strategies is a consulting firm that assists its clients with executing sustainability-focused marketing plans.

Evelyn discussed client success that stemmed from improving building energy efficiency, resource conservation efforts, local purchasing and community reinvestment projects.

She also delved into the value of employee engagement, showing us how her clients realized increased productivity, fewer absences and a bolstered sense of community within the company simply by committing to sustainable causes, giving employees a greater sense of purpose beyond their daily responsibilities.

Panelist Beth Richardson, Director of Financial Services for B Lab, discussed her firm’s efforts in the establishment of B Corporations, which are 501(c)3 organizations in business to primarily benefit environmental or social causes.

B Corporations stand out from other “green-minded” companies because they meet a set of strict standards that legally hold them to their causes. Transparency and shareholder interests are critical facets of a certified B Corp.

I encourage highly that you visit www.bcorporation.net to take B Lab’s impact rating survey to determine your company’s social and environmental impact.

Alyssa Farrell, another panelist and Manager of Strategic and Sustainable Solutions for SAS Worldwide Marketing, referred us to a couple of helpful Web sites, namely www.globalreporting.org, the Web site for the Global Reporting Initiative, which created the most widely used framework for analyzing sustainability efforts; and www.ghgprotocol.org, the Web site of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative, a highly reputable accounting tool by which companies quantify and administer greenhouse gas emissions. She also shared how SAS has become a leader in this endeavor through their wind farm and making modifications to the buildings they own.  She urged the importance of the buy-in by the employees by getting them involved in the process.

Follow Alyssa’s bog on sustainability and strategy issues at http://blogs.sas.com/sascom/index.php?/authors/44-Alyssa-Farrell

Earth Day is April 22. It’s no longer a day just for environmentalists but a day for businesses to strive to make changes that will better where we live, work and play. Make a commitment to see how your company can make a difference in its carbon footprint.  Together we can make a huge difference in the sustainability of our planet. 

It’s time to connect with a cause that will benefit everyone.