How to Create a Sustainability Strategy

By now, leaders must have realized that they need to consider sustainability in all parts of their business. The backbone of doing business sustainably is having a sustainability strategy, which guides your company in its actions toward societally and environmentally sustainable business.

We at Nordic Business Forum also understand the importance of integrating sustainability into our business and creating a strategy around it. Lately, we published our sustainability page, which tells more about how sustainability is considered at the event and in our company overall. Inspired by the work we began to do ourselves, we wanted to know more about how to create a sustainability strategy and share the information with our audience.

However, we are not experts on the matter, and therefore we decided to reach out to someone who knew more. We discussed how to create a sustainability strategy with the founder of SDG Monitor, Johanna Catani, an activist and advisor in sustainable leadership. She helped us compile a sustainability strategy checklist that can help your company take action toward sustainable business practices.

Johanna also shared something that really stuck with us:

“I personally believe that a company should only have one strategy, and that is a business strategy. The best sustainability strategy is not to have one, but to create a business strategy that consists of sustainability.”

Sustainability Strategy Checklist:

• Check your facts – Make sure you know and understand the facts that are important to your company. You should know where the boat is leaking the most.
• Write the why – Why are you doing what you’re doing, and how is it going to impact the ESG and your business?
• Set goals – Create tangible goals and formulate them into short-term actions.
• Use a framework – Pick a framework that is global and holistic. The purpose of a framework is to give you structure.
• Measure your performance – Use metrics that matter.
• Engage your team – You need your people on board throughout the organization.
• Communicate – Remember, 90% of the communication is internal, and only 10% is external. Show your bad numbers, too. Transparency creates trust.

The items on the checklist not only guide you to create a sustainability strategy but help you integrate sustainability into your existing business strategy. Sustainability should be implemented at all levels of the organization in all actions taken, and it should be embedded in how you do business.

Do you want to know more about what each of these steps includes? You can download the Executive Summary on how to create a sustainability strategy for free!

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