Knowledge Centre

Sustainability is not a Charity Agenda

Sustainability as Charity disrespects the recipients, wastes money and should get you fired. Your business, and your career, cannot afford to simply disburse charity without considering the full 360 degree of value propositions.

▶This doesn’t mean you put on your Scrooge hat and greedy industrialist grin and try to profit from charity. Not at all. But, it does mean that you recognize that sustainability, charity, ESG, CSR, SDG impact are all about value and should not be seen as a zero sum project.

▶Too many businesses and too many leaders approach sustainability as a cost, an increasingly necessary cost, but still a cost.

▶While they realize that some value may flow back to the business from sustainability spending [which includes ESG, CSR, SDG and whatever else you want to add], the primary focus is social impact and/or environmental stewardship.

▶This isn’t to imply that social impact and environmental stewardship are unimportant or that they are unworthy targets of sustainability spending. It is simply that there is much more value that is too often left on the table. Value for the business and the organization itself, and oftentimes value for the target beneficiaries

Even the projects that seem like pure charity, like a school feeding program, or a community cleanup offer opportunities for 360o value creation. But, it doesn’t happen automatically and too often businesses and leaders don’t systematically analyze value opportunities on sustainability investments. They simply focus on the primary social and/or environmental target and forget that the overarching strategic objective should be to optimize value across social, environmental AND BUSINESS dimensions.

When budgets are presented, or it is time for projects to be evaluated for ongoing financing the more value the project creates, including value for the business itself, the stronger its case for continued corporate investment. Budget crunches will happen and a solid 360 degree value creation framework will strengthen your project’s chances of staying off the budget chopping block.

A healthy dose of What’s In It For Me will make sustainability projects more financially sustainable. And, ironically, better able to produce long term social and environmental impact.

So, how do we make sure that we are maximizing 360 degrees of value with our projects? We can generally assume that beneficiary value (social and environmental impact) has been hard-wired in at the planning stage, so leave that for last on your value optimization analysis.

Start your value optimization analysis with self interest. Yes, it is OK to look at your sustainability spending through a What’s In It For Me lens. In fact, it is foolish to not do that. It should be a standard part of project development. If not, I guarantee that you are leaving money on the table.

Get your team together and ask yourselves how this project can create value for your business?

For your employees?
Can it it help solve problems and issues for any of your colleagues?
How can it do more for the community and local beneficiaries?
How can it help with environmental stewardship and ecosystem management?
Is there any way it could be helpful to any of your suppliers? (and, if so, is that monetizable as a contribution towards the budget?)
Is there any way it can be valuable for your customers and other stakeholders?
Where else might incremental value be hiding?

When you finish this you will find yourself with some good ideas (and some not so good). Evaluate them and see how you can incorporate them and turn zero-sum sustainability spending into a value creation investment

Do this for your existing projects, and for all new ones. Your management team and CFO should actually require it. There is no way they should let sustainability investments get by with less.

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If you found this interesting, be sure you are signed up to receive future Sustainability Insights as they are published. (sign up here). You can also check out other resources in our Sustainability Knowledge Centre and see if any of our upcoming programs might be interesting for you or your colleagues.

And, please, let us know what your biggest sustainability challenge is (click here). We will try to respond and may even write a Sustainability Insight on it.

Wayne Dunn

President & Founder

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Prof. Wayne Dunn

Wayne Dunn is an award-winning global sustainability expert with extensive teaching, writing, lecturing and advisory service experience. He is supported by an extensive faculty and advisory team.