PUBLISHED 04/2021
BLOG - 5 KEYS FOR BUSINESS TO BUILD SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
We are at a tipping point, there is a profound disruption happening in our society. Did you know that:
– 72% of CEOs say citizen trust will be critical to their competitiveness in the next 5 years.
– 70% of people are looking for brands that are doing good to society.
– 61% of emerging leaders say business models should pursue profitable growth and societal outcomes at the same time.
What would it take for leaders to build more sustainable and inclusive businesses?
1. Imagine your company acting as a force for good
It is now becoming very clear that there are increased expectations to companies to demonstrate their use to society. Businesses need to reinvent their business model to ensure their full contribution to society. As a business leader, you can choose to embrace this revolution happening or to pause and may be left behind. There is no trade off between doing good business and doing good to society. Understand better why you need to make your business become sustainable. Identify the issues that matters most to your business and to your stakeholders, build on your DNA, listen up to peers, competitors, disruptors in your industry and beyond. Ask yourself 3 questions:
– What are the most significant societal issues? What matters to the citizens, to your employees, your consumers, your stakeholders, and their importance to them?
– What are your business opportunities? What trends are they in areas where you operate, what are the products and services growing categories in your environment, what are the emerging habits of early makers around you?
– Where do you believe your organization can best impact? Where can you make a meaningful difference based on your heritage, your assets, your expertise, your DNA, where you are legitimate?
As leader, you are fully conscious that pursuing profitable growth and societal outcomes at the same time has now become mandatory. You will be hold to higher standards. What if courageous leadership was about reaffirming the company purpose, with clear actions?
2. Empower people around you
There is a shift happening not just from consumers, tension is growing with employees. Employees care not only about the commitments of their company, but it is now the moments of truth: the consistency, the corporate behaviors, the actions. We know that companies that are taking care of their employees succeed better. More than ever before, what will make the meaningful difference will be to unleash people power around you, to unlock their creativity, showing passion and openness will be essential. People, your employees, will be the change agents of this revolution. How? Some guiding principles:
– Your people above all are citizens. They care as individuals, as citizens. Your people can make sustainability become the way you work in all you do. They can help you identify the relevant causes, make meaningful choices, ensure local relevancy. Your employees can be fully engaged in the pace and scale of your transformation.
– Your employees need to be from the start part of the journey to reinvent your company model. How do you empower people around you, the leaders across your organization, the change makers, the activists in your business, the young generation eager to drive change and impact? Creating a culture of purpose driven company and fostering collective capabilities will make the meaningful difference to build competitive edge.
– Encourage your employees to learn and to grow. Build your people’s skills and ensure capabilities building. As organizations put sustainability at the core of their business model, new leadership skills and attributes are required. Mastering mission & purpose, tech & innovation, collaborative approaches with stakeholders must become a second nature to leaders.
– Connect with your people, share their stories. Voice up to what matters for you, dare to have your people share their stories.
What if you harness the power of your own people to achieve genuine transformation?
3. Act & Innovate
It is time to turn words into actions. The goal is not only to deliver products and services that deliver high performance, but that are also made in sustainable ways, making progress on the positive footprint of your company. It is time to reinvent economies of the future, to build new growth and innovation paths, to take actions, to track progress and to transform the world. People do care more about what they consume. A majority of consumers are now looking for brands that are doing good to society. They value honesty and authenticity in companies’ responses. They understand better the interconnection of a healthy planet with their own health and the importance of their consumption choices. People are asking for a more holistic solution. If we don’t connect the dots, they do. It is time now for purpose-led innovations, they are winning consumer’s hearts.
Most of the time, you don’t start from scratch. The key to the transformation would be to build from your assets, best understand people’s behavior and choose a relevant cause to pursue. I have always believed that the embracing a cause that is bigger than current capabilities would encourage teams to think big, to push the boundaries and embrace fully the journey. Technologies and data became critical enablers, especially for the scale.
Innovation is a learning journey, we learn by doing, it is not static. Define clear objectives and hypothesis while allowing room for reiteration. Bring on board the communities you serve from the very beginning, with partners and friends. Localize the approach when possible. Innovation is more about business models, products and services, anchored in the ecosystem to ensure the positive environmental and social impact. And remember to brand the change. What if your brand was moving the needle on a chosen cause of society?
4. Invest in economies of the future
Investment towards greener economy is on the raise. We need to unleash the power of the capital for good. Intention is to generate positive social and environmental impact alongside financial return. In the world major societal challenges, we acknowledge a growing interest of investment towards regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, healthcare and education, access to services to better quality of life, electric mobility and many other tech services that will contribute to better futures. We know that now is the time when the power of investors collaboration will be key to ensure a sustainable recovery in the wake of the pandemic. “Companies that fulfill their purpose and responsibilities to stakeholders are rewarded over the long term while companies that ignore them stumble and fail” shared Larry Fink as Chairman and CEO of Blackrock.
New financial mechanisms are being set up to encourage a more sustainable and inclusive economy. Half of the governments in the world are starting to revisit their strategies to build back better. Stronger support from investors is coming, renewable sustainable finance strategies are in progress to encourage businesses to take a holistic approach to sustainability to ensure social and environmental impact. What if new mechanisms were introduced to ensure that most of the investments would go towards a greener and more inclusive economy?
5. Embrace the power of the collective
Our society is facing unprecedented challenges regarding health and wellbeing of individuals, our planet and social justice. No one can solve these problems alone. The scale of the challenges is too big for companies to succeed on their own. At the times of COVID 19, the level of collaboration across industry has never been so high. Many brands have gone the extra mile to ensure solidarity. Cooperation with partners and friends is essential to solve the challenges of our society. There will be an increasing role of stakeholders such as governments, local authorities, NGOs, communities for business to thrive. If we collectively join forces to adjust and preempt some of the major challenges happening; not only we will go in the right direction; but it will be easier to implement at the pace needed. We need to build economies where everyone succeeds, not stand alone businesses, but businesses within their ecosystem that convene, connect, align and generate the power of the collective to make it happen.
Collaboration across companies and beyond is needed to drive positive change. This does require a shift of mindset, a new form of conscious leadership, defining on common ambition for speed and scale. Alignment on how we will measure progress, governance set up and phasing are keys to successful collaboration. The collective is needed to best impact, but also to de-risk investments, to leverage skills and expertise from partners, and to learn together how to drive real life initiative to transform the system. What if by acting together, you could go further in the scale of your impact?
USING BUSINESS AS A FORCE FOR GOOD
