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Lately, I have been following blogs written in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. I find this website quite unique and interesting; In contrast to the famed Harvard Business Review, much of its contents are specifically dedicated to news and opinions regarding social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, and “social change leaders”.
One blog post that recently caught my attention is “Translating Sustainability Strategy into Practice,” in which Kenneth Amaeshi, Chris Ogbechie, and Nicholas Allo give advice to businesses experiencing difficulties in implementing the idea of sustainability to their organizational structure. I found this post as an effective confirmation of what I learned about business models in classes earlier in the course.
The authors suggest that companies should “treat commitment to sustainability as a business philosophy” and implement it in the value chain. In other words, in order for a company to successfully implement sustainability in its business, it must shift the focus of the right hand side of its business model canvas – specifically the value propositions, customer relationships, and channels – to a sustainable business model. Since changing the value propositions will have significant effects on all other parts of the business, I believe that implementing sustainability in the value chain is a practical idea.
On the other hand, I cannot overemphasize that for any of the changes in the business model to be truly meaningful, the leaders themselves must first believe in the social responsibility of their businesses. “Embedding sustainability practice in an organization’s culture” comes from the top-down, not bottom-up. Leaders should carefully assess whether pursuing sustainability truly aligns with their beliefs and visions.