Can a Business be Sustainable and Profitable?

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

In short, yes; and those two attributes MUST be able to co-exist in order for a more sustainable future to be possible. This is one of the greatest concerns I see as a consultant for sustainability in business. Some entrepreneurs want to grow a Fortune 500 company and others want to build an NGO or non-profit and focus on meaningful change. Regardless of the ambition, a business requires growth and funding to be functional.

In order to make ‘Sustainability’ the norm, we need to develop it into a money making machine.

One of the big misconceptions and barriers to the two co-existing is a deeply entrenched idea that any business focused around sustainability, whether it be environmental or social, cannot be profitable. The idea being that costs are too high and demand is too low.

That notion is false and it’s becoming more inaccurate by the day. Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that sustainability and profit actually co-exist pretty well. 37% of businesses are reporting profit from sustainability and as many as one in two companies have adapted their business model to take advantage of sustainability opportunities.

Yes, a lot of customers are now placing more emphasis on social and environmental values when choosing which companies to support and that consumer…