10 ways to successfully avoid sustainability entirely

Weird title I know. Why would we want to avoid being sustainable? To be honest, the chances are you’re already successfully doing it, but let me walk you through how.

If you want to be unsuccessful in running a sustainable company, there are so many different ways of achieving that. Here are some of the most common; I’ll let you take score.

Photo by fikry anshor on Unsplash

Give sustainability a tiny section at the end of your business strategy & leave it out of your mission statement.

You’d be shocked at the number of larger companies who preach to really care about the planet and its people, but never really include why or how in any of their core company statements.

You’re probably already bored of me using the term ‘sustainability’, get used to it. In order for you to really take this seriously, that word should be showing up everywhere you look. It should follow you like your shadow.

Reduce sustainability to be only about reducing emissions/carbon footprint.

For such a broad term, we have a knack of associating ‘sustainability’ with very few specific topics; mainly plastic pollution, or greenhouse gases.

If, for some reason, you want to improve your sustainability credentials throughout your company, then you’ll want to be expanding your horizons a little.

I tend to revert back to what’s known as the ‘Triple Bottom Line’, which includes of course the financials (economic); but also, social & environmental factors. We begin with economic, because, well, at the end of the day we need a functioning business model whilst exploring this new adventure.

‘Social’ brings into play a category of factors that are often completely ignored. This includes the treatment and engagement of people. You may believe you treat your employees well, but do you? Have you taken real time to engage employees on their CURRENT feelings/experiences working with you? Or did you provide a few great perks to employees 10 years ago and very much still riding that wave?