Beth Heider, the chief sustainability officer at Skanska USA, laid out three corporate sustainability strategies in a feature at Fast Company.
She suggests that companies focus on the business case for sustainability. She cites Siemens, which is cutting carbon footprint but doing so in the context of creating profit from the move. The second idea is to build coalitions across “as diverse a range of stakeholders as possible.” Finally, Heider said that complacency should not be tolerated. The point is that if the process of creating sustainable organizations has upsides independent of improving the environment. Uniformed opinions about climate change should be allowed to stand in the way of positive steps.
A study released in September by the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions found that 79 percent of businesses view reducing electricity costs as an essential element of creating and maintaining a competitive edge and that 57 percent have energy reduction goals. That is an11 percent increase compared to 2014.
