Being immersed in the field of sustainability as a business owner, salesperson, consultant, speaker and author for years, I find the word “sustainability” is met with three general reactions. My amateur non-verbal people reading skills aside, I see wide eyed enthusiasts (“You go — I feel the same way”), contemplative look (“I’m interested and digesting the information”), and you lost me at sustainability (“I’m not feeling it”).
Maybe this helps those latter two groups: You don’t have to call it sustainability.
You can make your product or deliver your service using existing or renewable sources to sell to new markets looking for alternatives. You don’t have to call it a sustainable product or service.
You can reduce your internal waste and reap the benefits of needing less material, saving energy and using less labor. You don’t have to qualify it as a sustainability initiative.
You can change the chemicals you use from those creating hazardous waste to something that results in something more benign. You don’t have to call it a sustainable chemical policy.
You can survey the company stakeholders to determine the issues most material to the business. You don’t have to call it a sustainability questionnaire.
You can invest in the training of employees, in holding company events and in making safety a priority to reduce employee turnover. You don’t have to call it a social objective to your sustainability program.
You can engage with the community to build employee culture and your brand’s reputation. You don’t have to call it a sustainability action.
You can track progress on all the above. You don’t have to call it governing the company’s sustainability efforts.
You can measure a portion of your success by striving for longer term goals like reducing carbon emissions, diverting waste from landfills, raising employee happiness, and introducing new more sustainable products into the marketplace. You don’t have to call it meeting your sustainability goals.
You can call it a good business decision, a way to reduce risk, a means to find new opportunities, a way to attract and keep talent, and a vehicle to drive innovation. You can call it engaging in authentic actions to address the issues most important to the business and its stakeholders. You can call it a strategic plan to help the company sustain itself into the future.
You don’t have to call it sustainability but if you are asked “do you have a sustainability program?” and you are doing some of the above, you can simply say “yes.”