Sustainability in business is a topic growing in popularity globally. The importance and necessity in today’s business world to making your company “go green” is increasing steadily. The book titled, Green to Gold argues three major reasons for a company to add the “green lens” to their core strategy: upside benefit potential, downside risk management, and a concern that is value-based for environmental stewardship. The BC provincial government heightens the attraction for companies to go green by offering 38 incentives that range from tax breaks on research and development spending to energy conservation measures.
Taking this to the extreme such as Patagonia does, of placing values ahead of profits, may be too big of a risk for many companies today. However, I truly feel that in today’s world it is exceedingly imperative for a company to build a strong sustainability strategy that will not only have a positive impact environmentally, but also socially and economically. It is also not enough for a company to simply offset their damage (carbon neutrality) by supporting an NGO for example, but they need to be implementing procedures directly into their business model that will make their company sustainable from the inside out.
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