When you’re looking to bring sustainability into your business—or to maintain an existing program—there are essentially three stages you will likely go through that could threaten the longevity of your program. But with sustainability as your mindset—rather than as an add-on—ultimate success can be achieved through a few key actions.

Why it’s not easy to be sustainable

Much of how we operate any business in these times is more-or-less directly influenced by the industrial revolution. The efficiencies discovered at that time—that we lean on for cost-effective production—were directly opposed to sustainability; purely linear economies designed to create products out of unnatural materials that consumers will eventually throw away.

Because of this, running a business today is naturally going to move toward unsustainable processes. And if you’re sustainable, there’s a good chance few others in your supply chain are—it’s just not profitable for some businesses to be green. For this reason, then, going sustainable has to be for reasons beyond profit. Also, with climate change and environmental concerns continuing to grow, many businesses are caught between what is right and what is easy.

By truly changing the mindset of your business and its employees, sustainability begins to become an extension of how you operate, rather than just something you heard in a presentation once. Simply presenting the myriad reasons to be sustainable (or Framing, as Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg described it in their recent study) might gain some interest, but will likely not bring true change to a business.

The alternative, however, is to not just explain how environmental responsibility could benefit your bottom line, but to decide that sustainability is the only way to operate a viable business. With this all-or-nothing outlook, your options are either to be green or to die trying. And with stakes that high, the buy-in is far more meaningful.  

With the right mindset, innovation becomes automatic

Why commit to this degree with your Environmental Social Governance (ESG) approach? The short answer, of course, is because our world won’t last much longer if you don’t. But, without getting overly dramatic (even though, to say that, it’s not), the tangibles are: commitment that brings results and desperation that brings innovation. In short, if your survival depends on it, you start thinking differently.

And the different thinking is what is necessary to bring ultimate success for your business. What this looks like is best described in another article mapping out successful green programs: “when sustainability is so embedded in the company's mission, strategy and business that it can be considered part of their DNA.”

As a company whose DNA began in sustainability, we see the evidence of this “go green or go home” mindset every day. It fuels much of the innovative changes we continue to make as we grow, and the more we grow, the better we get at being sustainable.  

5 Key Items for Saving a Stalling Sustainability Program

• Determine a place to start: So, what do you do if you’ve got an environmental program in place, but there is lagging involvement and general disinterest? Consider what degree of involvement you are unwilling to drop below—put a stake in the ground. Are you okay with using a polluting shipping company but unyielding on the paper-recycling program? If so, own it. Any hill you can take for sustainability is another example of commitment to your employees.
• Reevaluate the return: Any relationship goes through stages of disenchantment, but when it does, the best way to rekindle passion is to recommit to the original message. Take time to reinstate the returns expected from being sustainable, and evaluate how those returns could be achieved. This reminder might be enough to get employees reengaged in the program.  
• Celebrate successes: No matter how “light your color green may be,” there are examples of what your sustainable actions have produced that can be applauded and showcased. By taking the time to celebrate the results of successful sustainability, you show the rest of the business that there is progress to the process. The more these stories circulate, the more environmental responsibility becomes part of your business DNA.
• Partner with sustainable vendors: The company you keep is just as important as the company you run. Business partnerships speak volumes to what the company really thinks is important. But more than that, choosing the right partner for the processes you outsource can make your business more green by proxy. Some great places to find sustainable partners are: Food and Vending services, Logistics and Shipping, IT Asset Management companies, Document Destruction vendors, and your Utilities.
• Chase down others’ successes: Another great way to recapture the vision for sustainability that your business might be losing, is to compile examples of other companies who are successful at being environmentally responsible.Or, if you have a group of interested employees, you can create a peer group within your own company to share stories and create a unified voice.

Regardless of industry—although, those within your own industry might be double inspiring—there are hundreds of examples of companies who have successfully made ESG part of their DNA. With these action items, and a commitment to making sustainable business choices, you can keep your environmental-responsibility program sharp and active.

No matter where you are on your journey toward sustainability, there are things you can do to reinvest in the vision, inspire your employees, and officially change your business DNA to something more environmentally responsible. And, from experience, we can say, it truly is the best way to do business.