cts of doing so are substantial. Honesty in its campaigns means Patagonia gains trust from its consumers. Taking a charitable sentiment by investing in the environment builds a strong brand that people will support, and often pay more to do so.
Patagonia’s healthy environmental stance has positive social effects for the company, creating a firm foundation of brand evangelists. In addition, the company has only a 4% employee turnover due to its strong brand message and good working conditions.
The environmental and social sustainable actions of Patagonia contribute to the company’s economic success. In 2017 Patagonia obtained $209 million in revenue, and it continues to use its increasing profit to strengthen its environmental and social mission.
The short term benefits of a sustainable business
From the above case studies, it is evident that long-term success and unsustainability are mutually exclusive.
But what about the short-term benefits of sustainability?
Let’s take the business mentioned in the last case study – Patagonia – as an example.
Adopting sustainable actions heightens Patagonia’s brand value, thereby providing them with loyal customers who are willing to financially support a brand which aligns with their own ethics and values. In fact, 81% of consumers suggest they will make a personal sacrifice to address social and environmental issues. For Patagonia, this is a huge short-term economic advantage.
The short-term benefits of sustainable actions don’t end with heightened brand value and the acquisition of loyal, well-paying customers, either:
- Being a sustainable business can help you when bidding for contracts from governmental or corporate bodies who work with sustainability.
- Focusing on sustainability allows you to scrutinize your overall business functions – specifically, where you are wasting time, effort, and money. For example, by incorporating environmental accounting procedures, you can reduce your energy costs. By improving your workplace environment, you will reduce employee turnover, save money, and benefit from increased productivity, engagement, and innovation.
Ultimately, being a sustainable business won’t just result in benefits that take years upon years to reap; there are plenty of short-term advantages that directly result in profitability.
How you can be a sustainable business
In this post, we have considered what business sustainability is, and how a sustainable business is made up of three different principles.
We have also seen why business sustainability is needed, and considered the negative impacts of being unsustainable, in addition to the positives that being a sustainable business brings.
Now we’ll look at how you can do your bit to help create a more sustainable business, and how Process Street can help you achieve your sustainability goals.
How to use Process Street to help you become a more sustainable business
As a piece of business process management (BPM) software, Process Street has targeted common business procedures and looked at how they can be made more sustainable.
We provide advice, information and template resources to facilitate you in reaching your sustainability goals.
For example, use Process Street’s environmental accounting template to make your accounting processes more sustainable. Save money by doing so and support a healthy active workforce by implementing schemes such as the cycle to work scheme.
Below are some of Process Street’s resources to help you get started and become more sustainable in your business operations.
- 12 Inspection Checklists to Maximize Safety in the Work Place
- Office Safety Inspection Checklist
- Hotel Safety Inspection Checklist
- What is IS0 31000? Getting Started With Risk Management
- ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Audit
- Warehouse Safety Checklist
- 5 Free ISO 14001 Checklist Templates for Environmental Management
- Environmental Accounting Internal Audit
- Hotel Sustainability Audit
- What is Workplace Diversity? Improving Diversity in the Workplace (8 Free Templates)
- How to Build Better Employee Acco