Why You Need to Build a Sustainable Business

Getting Started
So where do you begin? The first step is to define sustainability for your firm. A good working definition of sustainability from the International Institute for Sustainable Development is, “…adopting business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders today while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future.”

As part of this first step, taking an assessment of your environmental and social impacts, such as energy use, paper consumption, purchasing decisions, mailing, couriering and overnight delivery use, water utilization, e-waste generation, air and car travel, commuting activities and the like are all good places to start.

Once you have an understanding of your consumption and impact, including your carbon footprint, putting in place conservation measures, employee incentives, and policies and procedures to lower your use of resources and conserve energy can become the foundation of your sustainability strategy.

One example is shutting down PCs at night. According to Verdiem Corporation, 15 PCs generate as much carbon emissions as a midsized car each year. Leveraging technology to streamline business processes through business process management (BPM) can help reduce energy consumption, enhance operational efficiencies and reduce your carbon footprint.

[Read about steps to establish a sustainability communication plan.]

Other examples include using document management software to create a “paperless” office. With the average document copied 22 times, hours are spent filing and retrieving endless paper files and cabinets. Investment advisors have excellent opportunities to harvest savings and reduce carbon generating activities by automating their workflows through document management systems and applying BPM to simplify the time, labor and energy use activities.
Once you have your sustainability strategy in place, an important step is to document it so you can easily share it with your key stakeholders, employees, clients, centers of influence, vendors and others you come in contact with on a daily basis.

A popular way to document your approach to sustainability is to get outside “certification” for your business. One approach includes leveraging your community Green Certification, such as working with your local green business authority.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Key to your sustainability strategy is to create a communication plan to raise awareness of what you are doing so the marketplace, your key stakeholders and clients can gain an understanding of how your firm is different and demonstrate your commitment to sustainability, as well as to provide you with brand building, PR and marketing opportunities.

One method is sustainability reporting. Sustainability reporting can be used to benchmark your performance against international standards, communicate your voluntary initiatives, and showcase your commitment to corporate responsibility and sustainability over time.

When you are ready to externally report on your corporate responsibility and sustainability, one good place to start is to do it in a way that follows established standards, such as The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The GRI is quickly becoming the de facto reporting framework that is used globally to report on overall corporate responsibility. It provides steps, principles, international standards and protocols for reporting on metrics, and an overall framework for structuring your report.

Additionally, you’ll want to create a comprehensive communication plan to effectively and broadly spread the word about your dedication, commitment and success. You can easily do this by taking into account all of the communication channels available to you.

The ideas and strategies detailed here are just a partial list of what is available to financial advisors. One clear and simple step is to develop a sustainability strategy, document it, become certified and communicate it broadly. The time to act is now—advisors owe it to themselves, their firms, employees, clients and future generations to learn ways to build a sustainable business.    

Louise Barnes is principal of Tred-Lite Consulting and holds LEED AP, ISO 14001 Provisional Environmental Auditor designations and is GRI Certified. Louise can be reached at [email protected].

Timothy D. Welsh is president and founder of Nexus Strategy LLC, a leading consulting firm to the wealth management industry. Tim can be reached at [email protected].