Business Sustainability

Business sustainability refers to conducting business operations in a manner that addresses the organization’s environmental, social, and economic impacts while ensuring long-term viability and success. It involves integrating responsible and ethical practices into a business’s core strategies and operations to minimize negative impacts and create positive outcomes for various stakeholders.

There are three key pillars of business sustainability:

Environmental sustainability is about ensuring that business actions have less of an impact on the environment by saving resources, cutting trash and pollution, and promoting sustainable practices. It means taking steps to lower energy use, support green energy, make good use of water resources, and use manufacturing and production methods that are good for the environment.
Social sustainability focuses on how a business’s actions affect the well-being and rights of workers, neighborhoods, and other partners and how they affect the social environment. It means promoting fair labor practices, ensuring the workplace is safe, supporting diversity and inclusion, respecting human rights, and participating in projects to improve the community.
Economic sustainability means keeping a business financially healthy and staying in business over the long run. It includes getting money, controlling dangers, and making good financial choices looking at short-term and long-term gains. It also means encouraging creativity and the ability to react to changing market conditions and meeting the financial needs of stockholders, workers, and sellers.

Businesses can benefit by putting sustainable practices into their plans and processes. These include a better image for the business, more loyal customers, higher employee happiness and productivity, lower running costs, entry to new markets, following the rules, and being able to handle environmental and social challenges.

Business sustainability understands that companies have more responsibilities than making as much money as possible. It tries to balance economic growth, social well-being, and environmental care so businesses can be around for a long time and have a good effect on society and the environment.

General Concept

The main idea behind a sustainable business is to avoid damage to:
(1) the environment
(2) society
(3) future generations

This sustainability is possible by making positive changes in how they conduct business. Unfortunately, not all companies are willing to make positive changes towards a more conscious company. Some companies continue in the same routine of social and environmental dislocation. On the other hand, sustainable business causes changes, studies its actions, and minimizes its negative impact.

Every sustainable business develops its unique strategies to stay sustainable and profitable. However, being sustainable does not mean that it will not be profitable.

Small businesses can significantly impact everything related to the environment and e-commerce. As a result, small business sustainability is becoming more entrenched among buyers.

Consumers are willing to pay more if the product is designed to protect the environment and themselves. As a result, more and more small businesses are turning to sustainable practices in response to new customer trends.

Here is an example of the 2021 sustainability changes made by US and UK small businesses:

According to Perillon.com:

“Companies are becoming more aware of environmental risks. As a result, more companies assess and disclose risks, with 33% more companies disclosing GHG emissions in some part of their value chain from 2012 to 2016.

In addition to monitoring and reporting environmental risks, nearly 50% of top US companies and 60% of global companies reported proactively investing in strategies to reduce their ecological impacts — a 7% increase since 2012. “

A study conducted by Cone Communications CSR in 2017 revealed that:

- 68% of millennials bought a social or environmental benefit product in the past 12 months.
- 87% of consumers will have a more positive image of a company that supports social or environmental issues.
- 88% will be more loyal to a company that supports social or environmental issues.
- 87% would buy a product with a social and ecological benefit if given the opportunity.
- 92% will be more likely to trust a company that supports social or environmental issues.

Customers want to see more than just words. They want to see actions from all businesses, no matter their sizes. Here is a list of activities you can take to start making changes to a more sustainable business:

- Using sustainable resources in the production process
- Improving supply chain to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Depending on renewable energy sources to power facilities
- Sponsoring education funds for youth in the local community
- Use of reusable packaging
- Use of wind or solar power
- Eco-friendly educational resources
- Waste reduction policies
- Energy conservation policies

Nowadays, individuals are better-informed customers and better aware of the impact of consumerism on the environment. This, in time, will increase the efforts of businesses to become more sustainable conscious regarding all their activities. This is because customers are demanding better practices and social responsibilities. Each new generation cares for the environment and the use of natural resources.