Sustainability can apply across all levels and functional areas of a business.

You can target sustainability through your strategic and management processes, design and technology and your everyday operations.

The ‘areas of application’ diagram below shows one way of thinking about the breadth of sustainability across a business. It shows a range of areas where sustainability is often applied. You may find others as well.

Strategy and management

Through your strategic decisions and management processes you can drive improvements for sustainability throughout the whole business. You could target social sustainability by building stronger relationships with the local community or by providing training and develoment programs for employees. You could focus on your management systems and procedures to ensure that your values and commitment to sustainability are embedded in the organisation… [Read more…]

Design and technology

In the design and technology area you might want to develop new energy efficiency features or clever products that help consumers be more sustainable. Or you might set targets to improve the energy efficiency of your buildings and facilities. You could set up an environmental management system to help manage risks and take regular measurements of air, water and soil quality so that you can respond quickly to any incidents… [Read more…]

Operations

You might decide to target your day to day operations. You could encourage employees to make energy savings and to find ways to make your processes more efficient. You could set up productivity and efficiency systems that target process waste and waiting time as well as waste materials. Or you might work on a more sustainable supply chain taking into account the carbon footprint of materials as well as a supplier’s track record in ethical treatment of workers. [Read more…]