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How Can You Encourage Your Employer to Engage in Sustainability?

Caterina Sullivan

Jul 24, 2017
2 min

How Can You Encourage Your Employer to Engage in Sustainability?

There are so many reasons for a business to engage in sustainability practices. Sometimes the people at the top cannot always see these reasons. If you are passionate about sustainability, this does not mean that you are unable to do anything to create purpose in the business for which you work. It merely means you must come up with a plan of action! 1. Come up with a list of ways the business is already involved with sustainability Many businesses are already working towards

How Retailers & Shoppers Can Contribute to the Global Goals

Caterina Sullivan

Jul 20, 2017
3 min

How Retailers & Shoppers Can Contribute to the Global Goals

The action needed to make the Global Goals a reality is not all in the hands of governments and the most powerful corporations; ordinary retailers and shoppers can make their contribution in surprisingly simple ways. A smaller carbon footprint for climate action Aside from being fresher and tasting better, local produce has a far smaller carbon footprint than imports. After a recent food poisoning scandal in Australia, the affected produce was tracked back to China, where the

What are the Most Common Misconceptions about Sustainability?

Caterina Sullivan

Jul 13, 2017
2 min

What are the Most Common Misconceptions about Sustainability?

How well do you understand sustainability? Answer the questions to find out! Is sustainability about the environment? When I talk about business sustainability, often people say to me, "Oh, yes, I care about climate change." While climate change is an important aspect of sustainability, it is not the only challenge which needs to be addressed in order to achieve sustainability. The key to understanding sustainability is acknowledging that sustainability encompasses economic,

How Can Your Business Achieve Purpose?

Caterina Sullivan

Jul 10, 2017
3 min

How Can Your Business Achieve Purpose?

Over the past few years, a number of organisations have conducted research into the growing business case for 'purpose', including Ernst & Young, Deloitte, Harvard and Oxford Business School. Their research demonstrates that businesses who are pursuing the achievement of 'purpose' have more competitive advantage, increased customer loyalty, greater employee engagement and better agility when it comes to innovation. What is 'purpose' in business? Purpose in business, as define

What Can Businesses do for Sustainability Around the End of Financial Year?

Caterina Sullivan

Jun 29, 2017
1 min

What Can Businesses do for Sustainability Around the End of Financial Year?

It is that time of the year again - that's right; it's tax time. This can be an incredibly busy time of year for many businesses. What should your business do around the end of financial year for sustainability? Reflect This is a great time to reflect on the impact of your sustainability commitments on the local and global economy, society and environment. It is important to take your business' financial success into account when assessing your impact of your sustainability c

How Can You Leverage Your Business' Supply Chain for Your Sustainability Commitment?

Caterina Sullivan

Jun 19, 2017
3 min

How Can You Leverage Your Business' Supply Chain for Your Sustainability Commitment?

Not all small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can afford to invest time and money into sustainability practices within their own businesses. However, this does not mean that these SMEs are unable to commit to sustainability at all. It just needs a different approach. Supply chain sustainability is a fantastic way for SMEs to make a commitment to sustainability without breaking the bank and consuming hundreds of hours. What is supply chain sustainability? Supply chain susta

What Does it Mean to Travel Sustainably for Business?

Caterina Sullivan

Jun 13, 2017
2 min

What Does it Mean to Travel Sustainably for Business?

Sustainability isn't just about day-to-day operations; it is also important to consider how practices outside of the office can impact your business' sustainability. Corporate travel is a fantastic example of this. According to a recent study by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), a mere one in six travel management professionals incentivise travellers to book hotels with sustainable practices during business trips, even though over half of these travel management

What Can We Learn from India's Model of Corporate Sustainability?

Caterina Sullivan

Jun 5, 2017
3 min

What Can We Learn from India's Model of Corporate Sustainability?

In 2014, the Indian government passed a law under section 135 of the Companies Act that businesses with annual revenues over 10 billion rupees (approx AU$204 million) must give away 2% of their net profit to charity each year. This law has sparked some debate. While company contributions to charity have increased by over 7-fold since the law was introduced, there are many companies who are not adhering to the requirements set by the government. Bimal Arora, chairperson of the

How Can Your Business Embrace Diversity and Inclusion as Part of Your Sustainability Commitment?

Caterina Sullivan

Jun 1, 2017
3 min

How Can Your Business Embrace Diversity and Inclusion as Part of Your Sustainability Commitment?

According to the 2011 Census, one in four Australians was born overseas. Australia is an incredibly diverse country with people coming from different cultural background, speaking different languages, following different religions, identifying as different genders and experiencing different physical and mental boundaries. By including people of varying backgrounds in your business, not only will you be showing your commitment to reducing inequalities and promoting tolerance,

Why is Sustainability Important for Agri-Business?

Caterina Sullivan

May 14, 2017
3 min

Why is Sustainability Important for Agri-Business?

Sustainability is important for any business in any industry but is especially important for agri-businesses. The success of agri-businesses is heavily reliant on the natural environment - and vice versa - the natural environment has a reliance on responsible food production. The world's single largest cause of environmental degradation is food and biomass production. It is estimated that approximately 40% of the world's land is currently used for agricultural production. App

How Can Businesses Effectively Communicate Sustainability Practices?

Caterina Sullivan

May 7, 2017
3 min

How Can Businesses Effectively Communicate Sustainability Practices?

There are many advantages for businesses engaging in sustainability practices. However, businesses must ensure they have a developed communication plan in order to see many of these advantages pay off. There are a number of groups of people to whom sustainability practices should be communicated and a myriad of ways in which to do so. We explore some of those ways here. Staff It is important for staff to be aware of sustainability practices in order to ensure staff are suppor

Why is Sustainability Necessary for Businesses?

Caterina Sullivan

May 4, 2017
2 min

Why is Sustainability Necessary for Businesses?

Corporate social responsibility is a company's way of ticking a box. Sustainability is the holistic approach of an organisation to look at their effect on the economy, the society and the environment and assess whether or not their practices can continue into the future, both externally and internally. Corporate social responsibility is seen from two different types of leaders: the compassionate leader and the leader who wants to out-CSR the other companies. Sustainability is

What are the Challenges of Sustainability in Business?

Caterina Sullivan

May 1, 2017
3 min

What are the Challenges of Sustainability in Business?

At Strategic Sustainability Consultants, we will be the first to admit that it is not all blue skies when it comes to adopting sustainability measures in business. There are many bumps in the road along the way. It is important that each business understands the challenges presented by adopting sustainability practices before embarking on this journey. Staff The most important step of achieving sustainability in your business is recruiting your staff to come on board for the

How do Corporate Sustainability and Consumer Trust Relate to One Another?

Caterina Sullivan

Apr 18, 2017
3 min

How do Corporate Sustainability and Consumer Trust Relate to One Another?

As we have discussed previously, consumers are looking increasingly towards businesses with values centred on sustainability and practices which consider the impact on the economy, on society and on the environment. But can these sustainability practices actually build customer trust? According to a study from California State University, sustainability practices have an impact on customer trust and loyalty. Not only that, but customer trust actually has a mediating effect on

Can Volunteer Work Count Towards Corporate Sustainability?

Caterina Sullivan

Apr 13, 2017
2 min

Can Volunteer Work Count Towards Corporate Sustainability?

Small businesses can often feel intimidated by making a commitment to sustainability due to the misconception that becoming a sustainable organisation means an absurd and impractical financial commitment. There are many ways in which a small business can commit to sustainability, including through staff volunteer hours. Depending on your individual organisation and the interest and commitment levels of your team, staff volunteering can be done in a number of ways. Some staff

How Do Businesses Weigh-Up Short-Term Profits Against Sustainability?

Caterina Sullivan

Apr 6, 2017
2 min

How Do Businesses Weigh-Up Short-Term Profits Against Sustainability?

While not all sustainability practices cost money at the outset, there are some which do require financial investment. For an economically sustainable business, it is important to weigh-up short-term profits against sustainability. The first fact businesses must reconcile is that social and environmental sustainability actually have an impact on a business' economic sustainability. If we completely destroy and degrade the planet, there will not be a planet on which we can con

Why is Sustainability not One-Size-Fits-All?

Caterina Sullivan

Apr 2, 2017
2 min

Why is Sustainability not One-Size-Fits-All?

No two businesses in the world are exactly the same. That's hundreds of millions of unique businesses, each one different from the other. Different industries, different customers, different locations, different staff, different offerings... there are so many points of variance. With this in mind, every business' strategy is going to be a little different. That includes a business' sustainability strategy. There are some excellent guides online to point businesses in the righ

What Does Sustainability Mean for an SME?

Caterina Sullivan

Mar 29, 2017
3 min

What Does Sustainability Mean for an SME?

You're a small business owner. You already work longer hours than the average 9-5 employee, trying to stay on top of everything that a small business owner needs to manage. You're chasing up client invoices, making sure your suppliers are getting paid, seeking new customers and ensuring the service you are providing your current clients is at the incredibly high standard you have set for your business. Sustainability is the last thing from your mind. This is typical for a sma

How Does a Sustainability Strategy Benefit Your Business?

Caterina Sullivan

Mar 27, 2017
2 min

How Does a Sustainability Strategy Benefit Your Business?

A sustainability strategy is not just about fulfilling a moral obligation. There are a number of benefits for a business to adopt a sustainability strategy. Here are a list of 12 ways in which your business can benefit from a sustainability strategy. 1. Lower costs Switching to renewable resources, such as renewable energy or recycled water can save your business money. 2. Consumer satisfaction and retention When customers buy a sustainable product or clients seek services fr

What is Sustainability in Business?

Caterina Sullivan

Mar 13, 2017
3 min

What is Sustainability in Business?

"The term 'sustainability' can be rather contentious. At Strategic Sustainability Consultants, we embrace the concept of sustainability by employing the definition above to guide our consulting work. We apply this idea of sustainability - of being able to continue carrying out a specific action into the future - to economic, social and environmental markers to assess your business' longevity." This excerpt comes from our "What is Sustainability?" page in our about section on