Sustainability is more than a page full of alphabet soup! It is more than strings of Acronyms, held together with academic lingo and, what seems to be intentionally confusing rhetoric.
Yet, unfortunately, that is too often what you find when you start reading about sustainability, especially if it is penned by an academic.
CSR, SDG, ESG, Stewardship, Community Impact, Shared Value, Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development Goals, Impact Investing, Sustainable Development, Triple Bottom Line, etc.
So, what is sustainability then?
Sustainability is about Value, not Acronyms and Alphabet Soup
I like to work from a value-centric perspective. To me, the concept of sustainability in business means:
A business action or program that produces business value and social impact and/or environmental stewardship.
It could be called any of the alphabet list above. But the real criteria is about value, that there is both corporate value and sustainability value.
Sustainability investments are not corporate actions that happen at the expense of corporate value. It doesn’t simply produce social or community benefit, or environmental value without business value.
That isn’t to say that this is wrong, but simply that it should be called what it is; philanthropy or charity.
Sustainability investments are not zero-sum propositions where increasing one impact comes at the expense of other impacts.
Strategic sustainability investments find ways to align and integrate business value, social value and environmental stewardship.
They are not zero-sum propositions.
ESG, Sustainability & CSR should be as much a business value driver as it is a social and environmental value driver. If it gets out of balance it creates risk and makes the CSR and indeed, even the business itself, potentially less sustainable.
Business is about creating value. CSR is also about creating value; value for society, for
environment and for shareholders.
Thanks for reading
Wayne Dunn
Founder and President
