Corporate Sustainability

Encouraging sustainable behavior is important and I believe that every action counts. However, it is also true that some peoples actions have a greater effect on the world. For example; if one person decides to start recycling that’s good, but if another person, perhaps the owner of a large company, decides to start recycling and requires their company to do the same that’s even better. We need to encourage businesses to adopt a sustainable mindset, and many are and already have.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management released a study back in 2011 which attempted to measure sustainability innovation among global corporate executives. They did this by interviewing global executives over a period of three years. They found the following results:

68% of respondents say their organizations increased their commitment to sustainability in the past year. (Brokaw, 2011).
In 2009 only 25% of respondents made this claim.

67% of respondents say that sustainability strategies are necessary to be competitive.
That’s a 12% increase from last year. (Brokaw, 2011).

When asked if sustainability is important to top management, survey respondents say:
28% believe it’s a permanent and core strategic consideration.
42 percent say that although it’s not a core consideration, it is nonetheless on the agenda to stay. (Brokaw, 2011).

I think that the general trend of increasing sustainability within corporate america is going to have many positive effects and I look forward to a more responsible future.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/sustainability-by-the-num_b_2158104.html

Brokaw, Leslie. “Five Ways That Sustainability Commitment is Up — Dramatically.” MIT Sloan Management Review. 27 Nov 2012. Web. 15 Oct 2012.

One thought on “Corporate Sustainability

  1. Rachel Lynn Campbell

    In today’s society it’s “cool” to go green and that has finally started getting into corporate america. In fact just like how most offices have Human Resource departments, they are starting to include Environmental/SUstainability departments to ensure the company is doing all they can to go green.

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