In this second article about sustainability transformation, we look at how your business can become a Sustainability Change Maker and unlock all the benefits of SX. (You can read part one of the series here).
A recent Fujitsu study found that while 70 per cent of executives say sustainability is a top priority, only 26 per cent of organisations report concrete outcomes from their sustainability strategies. This “sustainability gap” between intentions and impact presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Sustainability leaders, also known as “Change Makers,” are maximising this opportunity.
According to Fujitsu, Change Makers are more than four times as likely as their peers to deliver tangible benefits from sustainability efforts. By studying what these sustainability leaders do differently, they have identified four key steps that can help any organisation accelerate their sustainability journey:
1. What is your corporate purpose and what are your goals?
Sustainability Change Makers have a well-defined organisational purpose that looks beyond short-term financial gains. Change Makers take a long-term, holistic view of value creation that encompasses positive impacts on society and the environment as well as financial growth.
To become a Change Maker:
- Clearly define your company’s role, value, and contributions to society
- Provide training for employees, encouraging them to embrace this purpose
- Set goals that are intended to add societal value
Meaningful goals will help counterarguments about high investment costs or poor ROI for sustainability projects. Change Makers have facts on their side; organisations that take a meaningful approach are more likely to report improved financial performance and link their sustainability initiatives directly to business growth.
2. Create and execute an end-to-end SX strategy
With a clear purpose established, the next step is defining how you will deliver. Your SX strategy must include:
- Plans that align sustainability goals with business objectives – the bottom line does still matter
- A focus on longer-term positive impacts rather than short-term business cycles
- Both financial and non-financial perspectives
- Consideration of impacts across business domains like IT, R&D, and human resources
- Targeted, non-financial outcomes such as reduced environmental footprint, enhanced brand reputation, and improved employee wellbeing
An end-to-end strategy ensures that you can deliver against sustainability goals without sacrificing business value. It also provides a clear roadmap for implementation.
3. Upgrade your own data maturity
Like virtually every other transformative effort, data lies at the heart of effective sustainability transformation. Change Makers adopt a mature approach to leveraging data internally. To follow their lead, you must:
- Commit to collecting high-quality, relevant sustainability data
- Conduct regular data hygiene audits to maintain quality
- Implement quality control measures for data formatting, standardisation, and security
- Develop the ability to generate detailed insights from your data
- Use advanced technologies like AI to create predictive models and simulations
- Apply data insights to refine processes and monitor progress against sustainability goals
With a strong internal data foundation, you gain more accurate visibility into your sustainability efforts. And your leaders are empowered to make data-driven decisions and adjustments that maximise impact.
4. Develop data-centric collaborations
The final, crucial step is extending data-driven approaches outside your company through strategic collaborations. High-performance Change Makers are 26 per cent more likely than other organisations to share sustainability data with external partners.
To foster effective data-centric collaborations:
- Participate in sustainability-focused partnerships and ecosystems
- Share data and insights with partners to generate mutual benefits
- Use a common data framework to track success across collaborations
- Leverage advanced technologies to analyse larger, combined datasets
By pooling resources, expertise, and data through collaborations, organisations can accelerate progress on complex sustainability challenges. The cumulative effect of organisations working together will have a far greater positive effect on the wider community and the planet.
Four steps to sustainability success
The path to becoming a Sustainability Change Maker may seem daunting. But by following these four steps, organisations can chart a course towards creating a meaningful impact for the community and stakeholders. As the Fujitsu survey demonstrates, those who successfully make this journey stand to benefit not just in terms of sustainability outcomes, but also in overall business performance and value creation.
To learn more about sustainability and to get your business on the road to becoming a Sustainability Change Maker, please get in touch.