BASDA talks to Accountancy Age on why developing a green strategy is vital to your business.
There has been vigorous debate about whether green topics will slip off the corporate agenda in these troubled economic times much of it stirred up by Prince Charles’ ‘Accounting for sustainability’ initiative.
A board must work out the position it wishes to adopt and develop plans accordingly. Organisations appear to fall into four broad categories.
Green leaders - organisations embedding environmental concerns into their brand and using this as a business differentiator Marks & Spencer, for example. The focus here is to create a competitive-edge to win more business and to drive revenues.
Supply chain followers - often suppliers to the leaders, their actions are driven by the green promises of major customers or by the green demands of doing business with the public sector. The focus here is to keep clients and, over time, win more business.
Cost savers - these organisations may present themselves as leaders, they may even win green awards, but the real focus is cost reduction. This sells the green initiative to the board. I’d put the Post Office in this category. It achieved significant fuel and cost savings by improving transport efficiency there was less emphasis on reducing the amount of junk mail which they had to deliver in the first place.
Legislation-driven organisations - these companies act when legal changes force their hand. The speed of reaction required depends on the industry for example, power generators face more pressing green demands than financial services. Unless a company decides to become a leader then the focus here is the cost of staying in business.
These strategies have direct impact on revenue, cost, reputation, supply chains and business continuity. No business can afford to ignore this emerging source of risk and reward.