7 Steps towards Increasing Your Market Value by Integrating Sustainability into Your Business Strategy.

If you are a Consultant, a Business Developer, a Change Leader or even a Board Member at a company, knowing how to integrate sustainability into business strategy, will change your professional circumstances.

Why?

Because the know-how to combine business strategy with sustainability is very rare. I tend to call it; connect your business brain with your sustainability heart :-)

By gaining this knowledge and knowhow you’ll be better positioned as a Consultant, or as a Business Strategist, or even as a Sustainability Manager catalyzing the sustainability work. You will most probably become part of the management team and even (in most cases) increase your salary or assignment fee.

But how then?

Let me just reflect back a little bit with you before we head into the "how"-part.

 COVID-19 has impacted business at all levels around the world, and has developed pitfalls and inconsistencies in supply chains and other business practices.

It’s now clearer than ever that system change is needed and brands, investors and consumers are waking up to the fact that for companies to stay in business and become even more competitive – they will need to integrate sustainability into business strategy!

A couple of days ago I wrote an article about 3 Levels of ambition companies could choose between and the respons on the article was overwhelming! Thank you for commenting and asking questions on my post.

I am so excited by your questions and I can feel your excitment and willingess to create a better world by doing good business. That is so awasome. Today we are more than 100+ Certified Change Leaders and companies in 12 countries making an impact for a better world.

Just imagine what would happen if 15 000 dedicated followers in our community would follow and lead the mission of Doing Well By Doing Good Business… wow…

A short recap from the article is that we talked about that we need to find a new way of doing business and not go back to business-as-usual. And the solution is to integrate sustainability into business strategy. But how do we do that? Sustainability is broad and complex, Where one does start?

In the article I mentioned a story about Anna Johansson – Sustainability Manager working at a medium sized Swedish company, Granuldisk – how she worked with her company’s strategy and how she embedded sustainability into the company’s processes and day-to-day work.

To integrate Sustainability into Business Strategy is what I’ve been teaching and certifying professionals and companies over a decade.

Since I started my company VATI of Sweden in january 2019 - I’ve taught 100+ professionals and companies on how to integrate sustainability in business strategy through the online certification course, Business4SDGs. We are now a community of over 15,000 people who are committed to creating a better world by running businesses that promote sustainability, equality, and diversity.

So how can companies in a concrete way, step by step integrate sustainability into their business, whether it is a Large, Medium or Small Enterprise?

What are the steps and methodology to integrate sustainability into business strategy? This is the question most professionals ask me.  

1.      To start with, your company may have a positive or negative impact on some of the goals and virtually no impact on others. I personally don't believe in working with all 17 SDGs initially. I think it's more beneficial for you and your business to find focus and start with the SDGs that are core to your business. The 2030 Agenda needs to be customized based on the context and the needs around you. 

Meaningful interaction with a few of the goals will have more impact than an attempt at shallow engagement with all 17.

2.      To find focus you need to define your priorities by mapping your value chain. Your value chain could, for example, consist of raw material, suppliers, logistics, operations, distribution, product use and product end life. 

When analysing your value chain, consider any negative impacts that result from you company’s operational footprint, as well as positive impacts such as CSR programs.

3.      To decide which SDGs that matters most to you and your business, you will have to do two things:

• Connect with your stakeholders 
• Use a materiality assessment to determine which SDGs that matters most to you

Before you get started on your SDG journey, read the goals and targets and ask how they apply to your business.

4.      So which stakeholders should you engage with?

I think it varies from company to company, so I would suggest you to ask these questions;

• Who is the best sounding board for your ideas?
• Who will engage and be involved with your SDG roadmap most often?
• What is the best way to start a conversation with those groups?

A materiality assessment allows you and your company to define and determine which topics that matters most to your stakeholders.

5.      The next step is defining specific goals to guide your progress. Set time-bound goals that reflect your priorities and define your level of ambition.

Use the SMART goal-setting method.

Specific, 

Measurable, 

Attainable, 

Results-focused and 

Time-bound.

My advice is to START WHERE YOU ARE. Depending on your priorities and your company’s overall experience with social and environmental sustainability, you might not feel ready to set long-term goals right away.

The most important thing is just to get started! That may mean setting short-term goals and building from there. 

Once you have established your goals, identify indicators to measure progress and collect quantitative and qualitative data on a regular basis.

6.      Reporting is important because it creates trust and supports value creation – and it can be a powerful tool to stimulate internal changes and drive integration of sustainability within the company’s strategy.

7. Connectivity is key

Clearly, the ambitious social agenda embodied within the SDGs has the potential to influence the way companies do business. Working toward the agenda will bring teams together from all corners of a business — plant operators with employees, suppliers with sustainability teams, CSR heads with executives — and connect them with public- and private-sector partners. This offers an opportunity to break sustainability and CSR from their “silos” and integrate them into the overall mission, vision and day-to-day operations of a Company – and this will lead to innovative business models and earnings.

There is only one way we can become the masters of our collective destiny. We need to work together to create a new "normal". We need to recalibrate our business models, our financial systems, our incentive structures and our way of collaborating — all to become future-fit for meeting the 2030 Agenda.

I would like to show you a great example cas of how you can integrate the SDGs into business strategy.

Emma Estborn, Innovation Leader & Change Maker, one of the course participants for the certification course, Business4SDGs TM program who piloted her knowledge and helped a Gaming Enterprise, First & Ten, to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into their business strategy. Watch this short film clip how she took on the assignment.

This example shows how you can apply your newly earned knowledge directly to a case and pilot your knowledge directly. This solution is a win-win-win. For you, for the client and for the world. By piloting your knowledge you are helping a company in parallel to get started with their sustainability work and they will receive a roadmap for how to integrate sustainability into their business strategy.

If you are a Consultant or a Business Developer or a Change Leader or employed at company. This way of learning and applying your knowledge directly to a case will change your professional circumstances.

Why?

Because the know-how to combine business strategy with sustainability is very rare.

By gaining this knowledge and knowhow you’ll be better positioned as a Consultant, or as a Business Strategist, or even as a Sustainability Manager catalyzing the sustainability work.

You will learn the craft of combining business strategy with sustainability and change management and you will most probably become part of the management team and even (in most cases) increase your salary or assignment fee. 

So, now reading all this, what actions will you take to create good business?

What will you do differently based on what you have learned?

I would love to have your thoughts and insights on this topic!

Eva Vati is an Entrepreneur and Business Strategist who helps executives, businesses, and entrepreneurs future-proof their companies.

She is the CEO and founder of VATI of Sweden, which is one of the first companies in the world giving certification on integrating sustainability into business strategy. She has a loyal community of over 15,000 people who are committed to creating a better world by running businesses that promote sustainability, equality, and diversity.

Eva is also Board Member for several listed companies, and is is on the Fairforce 100 Green Board Members-list and Chamber of Commerce of Southern Sweden Top 100 Board Member-list

She recently won a prize for Innovative Startups 2020 by Vinnova – Sweden’s Innovation Agency.

In July 2020 Eva was a key speaker at the United Nations (High Level Political Forum) Global Compact Russian network’s first Russian Voluntary Review of the Sustainable Development Goals.