Blog Navigating Corporate ESG: A Leader’s Guide to Sustainability

An increasing demand for sustainability

Modern companies are recognizing the importance of sustainability, not just for the longevity of their business — but also for how sustainability efforts can influence reputation in the marketplace.

According to the Insight-commissioned annual Foundry survey, 87% of IT leaders reported that environmental, social and governmental (ESG) concerns have an impact on IT investment decisions. In the same survey, 42% of respondents rank the impact of ESG as significant and 45% as moderate to their operations.

The demand is here, but where does the path to corporate sustainability begin?

ESG and corporate responsibility

At base level, sustainability is a journey of continuous improvement, impacting both the environment and the people who represent our community. This spans areas from corporate citizenship, to manufacturing policies, recyclability, power consumption, carbon footprint and more.

One of the more common terms we often hear associated with sustainability is the acronym “ESG”, representing three pillars: environmental, social and governance. These pillars are the corporate criteria for evaluating an organization’s ability to manage sustainability successfully.

The environmental pillar covers overarching principles like climate change and air pollution, affecting a global ecosystem of people — this area often takes the focus of many sustainability conversations.

Yet arguably, the social and governance pillars have a more direct effect at the corporate level. These pillars urge the ethical management of organizations and advise leaders not to sacrifice environmental and social aspects of sustainability for profit.

Still, how can businesses continue to drive profitable organizations that allow sustainability and social impact while building and maintaining a healthy corporate ecosystem?

Webcast: Sustainability is a Journey

Tune in to hear our experts share how leaders can balance their efforts to increase the bottom line, with participating in corporate governance and citizenship.

Watch webcast

3 steps to building the groundwork for corporate sustainability

Leaders don’t need to choose between increasing revenue and upholding social responsibility. Sustainability initiatives can enhance or even accelerate an organization’s profitability and growth  initiatives.

Here’s how we’d recommend launching your sustainability initiative.

• Step 1: Learn.
  • Before you start plugging sustainability processes into your company, educating yourself should be your top priority. Learn the fundamentals of sustainability and how it can relate to your unique corporate position. Gaining a passing understanding of how sustainability categories work together will help you identify areas of focus while understanding the larger mission.
• Step 2: Find your sustainability niche.
  • Prioritize your sustainability investments and efforts based on the answers to the following three questions:.,
    • What area of sustainability is your organization uniquely positioned to have the most impact?
    • Where can you have the biggest influence, with the least initial investment?
    • Where can you start making small investments now to create longer-term ESG payouts in the future?
• Step 3: Measure your impact.
  • Once you’ve narrowed down your sustainability niche, start collecting data on what efforts are currently at play in your organization. This will give you a baseline snapshot of your existing impact and highlight areas of improvement.

Then, set a goal to focus on identified areas of growth, starting once more with where you can have the most impact with the least amount of investment. Creating this cycle of result-tracking and improvement will, over time, reveal your influence in your chosen sustainability niche.

Not yet ready to launch a sustainability initiative? Sometimes, kicking off your sustainability journey is a matter of simply getting started with what you have.

How can sustainability practices be woven into your everyday processes and procedures? As an example, if you are a frequent business traveler, you can use the carbon emissions data provided by airlines, transportation, and hotel providers to select travel accommodations with the smallest environmental impact. Think about the initiatives your organization is prioritizing today, and how sustainability can be featured in your decision-making process from the get-go.

Get started.

Sustainability, like any lasting project, cannot be accomplished overnight. Prioritizing ESG is a long-time commitment to collecting data and setting realistic goals to improve your sustainability position. Here’s the good news: Once you start paying attention to sustainability, improving your corporation’s position becomes all the more possible.

Start your sustainability journey with confidence. Find out how Insight can help you enhance your corporate responsibility position and create a lasting impact.