The primary goal of businesses has historically been to make a profit. Today, however, the world is highly complex, and businesses’ goals have changed. Leaders and purpose-driven professionals are starting to value far more than just their companies’ economic responsibilities; they also value their ethical, philanthropic, and environmental responsibilities.
These contributions to the greater good make up a concept known as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and demonstrate a business’s role in making the world a better place. Sustainability is one such aspect that’s become critical to how companies operate and impact society.
Related: Why You Need Sustainability in Your Business Strategy
Here’s a primer on what sustainability in business is, along with the key sustainability skills every professional should have and how to develop them.
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Business sustainability refers to an organization’s impact on the environment and its local and global society. In other words, a sustainable company seeks to improve—or at least not worsen—the environment or the rights, health, and happiness of the people in its community.
To keep these goals at the forefront of strategic planning, many sustainable organizations opt to track progress using the triple bottom line instead of the classic bottom line.
The triple bottom line is also referred to as the “Three Ps": people, planet, and profit. By keeping these three factors in mind, a business can measure how well it’s doing in its sustainability efforts and ensure they don’t get overshadowed by profit.
Let there be no mistake: Sustainability offers ample opportunity for profit. Once thought of as separate goals, many businesses now find that employing sustainable practices saves them money in the long run and attracts new, sustainably-minded customers interested in supporting companies that contribute to environmental and social good.
“You don’t have to leave your values at the door when you come to work,” says Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson in the online course Sustainable Business Strategy. “Solving the big problems opens up opportunities that can enable you to have a successful and rewarding business career, while also helping to build a just and sustainable world.”
Related: 5 Examples of Successful Sustainability Initiatives
The Emergence of Sustainability in Business
Against the backdrop of turbulence in 2020 from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, social and political unrest, and economic downturn, one field emerged stronger than before: sustainability.
According to S&P Global and GreenBiz Group’s State of Green Business 2021 report, more organizational leaders are taking action as the need for sustainable business practices becomes increasingly urgent.
This year, 64 percent of major global companies publicly disclosed their carbon targets, up seven percent. In addition, 90 percent of US companies published a sustainability report in 2019—up from 20 percent in 2011—and, for the first time ever, major global and US companies reported year-over-year declines in water use. The business world is mobilizing around sustainability, but not without reason.
The report also highlights that, despite great progress in the last year, major global companies are on track to fall 72 percent short of the emissions reductions necessary to achieve the Paris Agreement. Carbon pricing costs are predicted to reach 13 percent of a business’s total earnings by 2025, and, perhaps most sobering, nearly 95 percent of major US companies are predicted to face moderate physical risk due to climate change by 2050.
The time to get involved in business sustainability has never been more pressing. With so many businesses prioritizing sustainability in hopes of a brighter future, the time has also never been more convenient. If you’re starting from square one, embarking on sustainability can be a challenge. Here are eight skills you should build to meaningfully contribute to sustainability practices in your organization.
Sustainability Skills to Make a Difference
1. Foundational Knowledge
Before you can implement sustainable practices at your organization, ensure you have a basic understanding of environmental science and climate change. You should also know the social issues most prevalent in your industry and community and the systemic nature of both.
The next step is to learn how your business is impacting each of those areas. For instance, what’s your organization’s carbon emission level? Does your entire supply chain support fair labor rights? What does your business contribute to the communities it resides in? This part of the process may take a while and require a formal sustainability audit.
Although different for every company, some factors to consider when conducting a sustainability audit include:
- Current employees’ happiness, rights, representation, and quality of life
- Waste produced annually
- Carbon emission levels
- Toxins used in the manufacturing process
- Volunteerism and civic engagement
- Waste and toxins created in the product life cycle
- Required infrastructure to support sustainable practices
Finally, reflect on what drives you to implement sustainability practices in your organization. With a clear “why” behind your purpose, you can lead a team with both logic and passion.
“Adopting a purpose will not hurt your performance if you do it authentically and well,” Henderson said in a previous Facebook Live event. “If you’re able to link your purpose to the strategic vision of the company in a way that really gets people aligned and facing in the right direction, then you have the possibility of outperforming your competitors.”
2. Strong Leadership
Especially if your organization isn’t currently engaged in sustainability efforts, you need strong leadership skills to enter the field.
These include knowing how to delegate tasks and empower others to take them on, maintaining team resilience when circumstances change, communicating organizational change effectively, and remaining authentic and in tune with your team.
Strong leaders are sometimes required to make difficult decisions based only on available information and current circumstances, and the field of sustainability is no exception. As the climate crisis heats up, you need the skills to think quickly, take all perspectives into account, and make decisions with the community and environment’s best interests in mind.
3. An Ability to Identify Strategic Opportunities
Developing your knowledge of sustainable business practices can enable you to spot opportunities, make impactful changes, positively contribute to sustainability efforts, and improve your organization’s results.
Consider energy efficiency, for example. With a clear understanding of sustainable business practices, you may find an opportunity to reduce energy consumption significantly. The benefits of such a change are twofold: First, conserving electricity reduces your carbon footprint and benefits the environment. Second, lowering electricity costs saves money that can be more effectively spent elsewhere.
Knowing where sustainability intersects with your company’s profitability and overall success is key to identifying those opportunities.
4. Forward-Thinking
As businesses and the world evolve, it’s important to be forward-thinking to identify opportunities for change and plan for long-term success. In addition to having strong knowledge of sustainability best practices, it’s essential to keep your eye on the horizon as new situations arise.
Creating a business strategy that incorporates your commitment to sustainability requires foresight and planning. Think about the long-term payoff of your efforts. Educating employees on the importance of sustainability and the various initiatives you plan to implement may require an initial investment of time and resources, but it can create a company culture centered on sustainability that will continue to have a positive impact in the future. As environmental issues and your industry evolve, your organization can evolve with them and be ready to act and adjust as needed.
5. Creative Problem-Solving
Professionals who find answers and develop creative solutions to new and complex challenges are likely to succeed in a world where sustainability is increasingly important. It can be easy to get stuck in the ways your company has always done things, but pivoting to sustainable practices requires innovative ideas and a willingness to try them.
To cultivate innovation within your organization, hold brainstorming sessions in which every idea is written down without judgment. A supportive culture around idea-sharing enables people to feel comfortable expressing less mainstream thoughts, which may help your company move forward into sustainability.
6. Calculate and Pitch Potential Value
Once potential project ideas have emerged, you need to prove their value to stakeholders and decision-makers.
One way to do so is by calculating the anticipated return on investment (ROI) using this formula:
ROI = (Net Profit / Cost of Investment) x 100
If the ROI calculation yields a positive percentage, the project is financially worth pursuing. If it yields a negative percentage, the project isn’t predicted to bring in more money than it costs to deploy. If the ROI is equal to zero, it means the project is expected to draw in as much money as it costs, and it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the effort.
Consider what the ROI will be for projects that impact the environment and society, and use that information to make the case that sustainability can be a wise, profitable decision.
In addition to calculating ROI, pitching your case to stakeholders in a clear, compelling way is an important skill to have. Consider creating a slide deck with key points, practicing in advance, and providing concrete examples of the value sustainability can bring to your firm.
Related: Making the Business Case for Sustainability
7. Basic Data Skills
Other important skills to have before diving into sustainability include collecting, analyzing, and reporting on data.
Being able to track and analyze the results of sustainability efforts over time—along with their effect on various parts of your business—can enable you to prove their impact and communicate it through data visualization.
This information can influence business strategy moving forward. For instance, if your initiative to decrease carbon emissions isn’t producing results as quickly as anticipated, perhaps your team will decide to pivot to a new method to see if the rate of change increases.
8. Effective Communication of Purpose
A strong sense of purpose is essential for committing to sustainability work—but it’s not a skill that can be taught. In a business setting, your sense of purpose is only as effective as your ability to communicate it to others. Effective communication skills can be strengthened through preparation and practice.
Return to your “why.” Consider the perspectives of your team members or stakeholders in your organization. What do they need to hear to understand why sustainability is important to you and is a worthwhile investment for the organization? How will you encourage them to gain a sense of purpose around sustainability?
Consider using communication tactics, such as:
- Storytelling: Tell people a true story that illustrates your point.
- Self-disclosure: Describe your “aha” moment. When did you first begin to care about sustainability in business?
- Statistics: Share statistics that communicate the urgency and timeliness of sustainability.
- Data visualization: Present compelling data trends in a clear, visually appealing way.
- Personal reflection questions: Ask people questions that spark reflection on their connection to a sustainable future. For instance, “How do you want to contribute to the world your children will inherit?” or “What role do you want to play in redefining the future of our industry?”
Who Needs Sustainability Skills?
Sustainability shouldn’t just be left to those with “CSR” in their job titles. Instead, business professionals at all levels can benefit from developing sustainability and social responsibility knowledge and skills, including:
- Purpose-driven professionals: Those at every level of an organization—from individual contributors to managers and leaders—who want to make a positive impact in their careers
- CSR and consulting professionals: Those whose job functions are focused on sustainability and corporate social responsibility
- Leaders and entrepreneurs: Those who want to use business to create change and inspire those around them
Developing Your Sustainability Skills
The skills needed to succeed in sustainability can serve you well in your efforts to lead any business initiative. Because sustainability is such a large-scale undertaking, the ability to lead with purpose, communicate and prove value, analyze and use data, and maintain a big-picture mindset can take you far.
To get started, practice these skills in your daily work. Reflect on an initiative's purpose and communicate it to a peer. Calculate the anticipated ROI of a potential project and leverage basic data skills with any dataset you have access to.
There are many ways to continue developing your business sustainability knowledge from there, including reading books and articles, attending conferences and webinars, and completing formal CSR training. One of the most effective ways is enrolling in an online course, such as Sustainable Business Strategy.
Related: What You’ll Learn in an Online Sustainability Course
Sustainable Business Strategy learners leave the course able to identify strategic opportunities and clearly articulate the business case for sustainability initiatives within their organizations. In addition to gaining buy-in from key stakeholders, this enables them to effectively influence others and organize for change.
The course not only helps learners understand how to drive change at the organizational level but also teaches them what they can do to make a difference as individuals.
Are you interested in learning more about corporate sustainability? Explore our three-week online course Sustainable Business Strategy and other business in society courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.
This post was updated on October 7, 2021. It was originally published on June 3, 2021.
