So you’re wondering whether I can really help your business. Have a look at the scenarios below – examples of businesses I work with – and see if any of these challenges remind you of your own:

• Your customers are demanding proof of sustainability. Your business is getting requests from customers and their customers to demonstrate environmental and human rights compliance not just for your part of the operations, but for all your suppliers and their suppliers too. You’ve been sending letters to assert that you’re in compliance with the law. But they’re developing their own specifications for compliance – and they’re starting to talk about having you do an audit of your whole supply chain.
• You’re suddenly responsible for recycling your products once they’ve been used. Your business is designing, making and distributing your products. Now customers and governments are asking you to take responsibility for the products you sold – after they’ve been used. You’re not sure how to identify where they are, not to mention how to get them back. So how do you get that sorted?
• Your competitor’s gaining market share by going green. A competitor has jumped onto the environmental bandwagon, and you’re worried his gains are coming at your expense. You don’t want to play “me too”, but you don’t want to lose either. And you certainly don’t want him to get credit if he’s not really green.
• Marketing is saying that there’s a great opportunity – but you need to go green fast. They want you to position the company on its carbon footprint. While you think there must be an opportunity in doing something with the environment, you’re asking yourself, What’s a carbon footprint? and how do we know that’s the advantage? But how do you begin to figure what your environmental positioning should be?
• Questions are being raised about your outsourcing. You’re expanding your business to other countries, and have found some good partners in countries like Dubai, India and China. Now there have been some letters raising issues about how they are managing human rights, labour practices and bribery. You’ve passed the questions on to purchasing, but does anybody really know?
• Your staff have become a bit complacent. You’re proud of your business. Your customers are repeat customers and seem pretty satisfied. But you worry your staff is complacent and set in their ways. A competitor is coming in aggressively, and you’re looking for an issue that will get your staff fired up and performing. Could green be the way to go?

If you find that one or more of those scenarios rings a bell, I can help you.

Of course, you may wonder if this approach will work for you, because actually:

• you feel pretty ignorant about environmental issues and need to start from scratch, or

• you’re passionate about environment, but don’t see how to integrate it in the business; or

• you’re competitive. You don’t care so much about the environment, but you really care about getting an edge on your competitors and impressing your shareholders, and are willing to do what it takes.

Experience has shown that it’s not your starting position with the environment that matters, it’s the focus on outcomes. Clients who have the greatest success are those who:

• Want to leave their mark on their company
• Demand results
• Are determined to build brand value
• See environment & sustainability as a way to gain an enduring competitive edge
• Want to leave a meaningful legacy to their community
• Wish they were creating the world they want for their kids
• Want to be excited
• Love nature

But just in case you want a more business-like sense of who this has worked for before, here’s a short list:

• A strategist who wanted to ensure his company was working on the issues that would take it into the future successfully;
• A customer focused leader who wanted to inspire loyalty and affection in clients through her way of doing business;
• A marketing genius who was looking for opportunities to differentiate himself and his company meaningfully;
• A PR non-hack who wanted a deeper understanding of sustainability to better align her communications with what really mattered to her audiences;
• A change agent who wanted to reinvigorate staff, and was looking for the issues and tools to create urgency, motivation and momentum.
• A hard-headed business person who wanted to get his head around what the environment and sustainability meant practically to the business;
• A prudent business leader who wanted to get involved in the environment, without the risk of hiring a full time environmental director;
• An innovator who wondered how to incorporate the environment meaningfully into design decisions.

But you may be wondering – can this approach really help you and your business? Click here to see our approach to becoming a sustainable business.