Despite the boom in corporate interest in sustainability, the reality for many in-house teams seems to be reducing budget and head count. Is this the lingering impact of the financial crisis, or is there a deeper reason? After a burst of enthusiasm for the topic, are management teams now taking a cold, hard look for the results of their investment?

‘What’s it worth?’ explores the paradox that, despite plenty of strategic enthusiasm for sustainability in business, many in-house teams are still struggling to sell in programmes that take it to the heart of their companies.

We identify two issues in particular – the distraction and drain on resources that comes from servicing the ‘external agenda’, and the difficulty in proving to management the value that sustainability can bring to the business.

We have great contributions on these topics from Anglo American, Marks & Spencer and Ernst & Young, and we also review the sustainability efforts of some leading companies, to see how they are escaping these traps by marrying sustainability to the corporate strategy.

Our conclusion is that when it’s hard to quantify the value of sustainability (the output), it’s even more important to demonstrate a relevant, value-adding strategy (the input).

Please download this issue via the PDF link to the left. If you would like a hard copy of the publication for you or your colleagues, or if you would like to discuss sustainability strategies in your company, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.

The purpose of the office will be to help us complement our international expertise and services with a small group of local experts who can extend the range and the level of service we are able to offer. This local presence should also serve to reinforce our commitment to the Scandinavian market and build on our work with companies such as A.P. Møller-Maersk, Carlsberg Group, H&M, LEGO, Marine Harvest, Nokia, SCA and UPM.

The Nordic office will be led by Troels Børrild.

Please visit our Danish site to read more about the new office, give us a call on
+45 3343 6376 for more details or drop into the new office for a coffee at Havnegade 39 in Copenhagen.

Ashridge Business School has conducted a major new piece of research looking at these questions, talking to leading companies including Salterbaxter clients such as Adidas, Anglo American, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Marks & Spencer and Skanska. From this, they have developed a new model of change for sustainability. The first article in this Directions supplement introduces the research and the model, and asks questions about what this means for your business. The model is called the talik (named after the naturally occurring positive feedback loop that keeps water liquid in the frozen tundra) and describes the interplay between external reputation and brand and internal culture and energy, and the journey that organisations make around the four Es – Engaging, Expressing, Enacting and Encoding. The story of Vodafone’s M-Pesa mobile payment service in Kenya is used as an example of how the model works.

In the second article, Lucinda Hensman describes CCE’s sustainability journey, relating it to the talik model. One of the most significant recent steps in their journey was the launch of CCE’s new Sustainability Plan in autumn 2011, and CCE’s story demonstrates how companies need to keep evolving their sustainability strategy and actions, and listening and responding to stakeholder feedback.

Please download the PDF to read the articles. If you would like hard copies of the publication for you or your colleagues, or if you would like to discuss what might be the next steps for embedding sustainability in your company, please get in touch.

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What is a Social Business? There are plenty of definitions around as to what social business is but this is what we think a social business looks like:

A company that embraces active ‘conversations’ with all of its key stakeholders and is seen to respond and act upon those conversations for the common good of all parties.

Cynics amongst you might want to understand what the definition of ‘common good’ is and how weighted that is in reality in the organisation’s favour. Well, in simple terms social business which is only favourable to one party won’t work, in the same way that collaboration that only benefits one party, or consultation that is neither listened to or acted upon, is quickly seen for what it is – meaningless. Replace the ‘common good’ with something that achieves a better end result for all and you get the picture.

At this point it’s worth introducing one of our favourite anecdotes from J P Rangaswami (currently Chief Scientist at salesforce.com). On the subject of social business he remarked recently: “Why would any organisation seek to be anti-social?” It’s not exactly a sign of being open for business. So, on the face of it, no contemporary organisations would seek to be anti-social but that is different from actively seeking to be social. We’ll explore further what this means over the following pages.

It’s more than Facebook and Twitter

Having a company Facebook page or tweeting that a new press release is available does not in itself make you a social business. We think there is a lot of misunderstanding, amongst senior management especially, that actions such as these constitute being social in the corporate context. It’s a part of what can be involved, yes, but there’s so much more to it than that. Think less about the media bit, ie which tools might be used and more about the social part of the phrase, which is much more about how an organisation conducts its everyday business.

Social business as a concept is something that we at Salterbaxter have a specific interest in. For many years we have been advising organisations on how they can conduct business that is sustainable but also ethically and socially responsible. At the same time, the rapid development of digital technologies has accelerated the rise of social business too, of that there is no doubt. We will be leading a number of social business initiatives this year and into 2012, including regular blog postings and white papers, and a seminar in November 2011 looking specifically at how sustainability communications can be positively influenced by social business.

Visit www.salterbaxter.com for regular updates.

Within this supplement we discuss more about the underlying concepts behind social business, how to determine where your company is on its social journey and some examples of social business in action.

The good news is that thought leaders and major companies all over the world are forging strategies that are good for profit, people and planet. In the pages that follow, we’ve crunched their ideas and experiences into seven ‘rules’ for success in the coming years. Our conclusion? You can’t conquer uncertainty, but enormous opportunities can open up when you embrace it.

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The truth is that integrated reporting is complicated because there are several dimensions to it. Of the many publications that are out there already on the subject each one talks about it from a slightly different angle. By the time you’ve read even a few (and believe us we’ve read lots) your head is spinning!

We’ve come to the conclusion that, when you cut through the clutter, it boils down to two basic dimensions:

• INTEGRATED THINKING – developing an integrated corporate strategy and management approach

We think all companies should do this.

• INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS – telling an integrated story to your stakeholders

This is less clear-cut. A single Integrated Report is not the solution for everyone. There are different answers for different companies and for different stakeholders.

In this supplement we explore these dimensions and get the inside view from Dr Rory Sullivan, a leading Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) expert, and Vodacom, a South African company that has just produced its first Integrated Report. We also unpack what actually goes into an Integrated Report. But first, answers to some burning questions.

Why now?

The sustainability agenda has long been focused on integration – driving the consideration of environmental, social and socio-economic issues into corporate strategy, and therefore corporate reporting. The word ‘integrated’ would be well positioned in a sustainability tag-cloud. Added to this, the EU and various national governments have been looking hard at mandatory environmental/ sustainability reporting, with countries such as Denmark enforcing some basic requirements.

All of this has been aimed at encouraging companies to consider non-financial, longer-term factors when talking about their risks, performance and growth prospects.

The Salterbaxter Forum brought together new and provocative perspectives on this critical challenge from Andrew Howard, Executive Director, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research; Randall Krantz, Head of Sustainability Initiative, Center for Business Engagement, World Economic Forum; Amine Tazi-Riffi, Senior Partner at McKinsey and Annette Stube, Director of Group Sustainability at A.P. Møller-Maersk. This was followed by a debate on this subject with an audience of senior business and NGO leaders from around Europe where they examined the emerging risks facing companies that over-emphasise the short term, and identified strategies that help long-term thinking to take root and deliver real sustainable business growth.

Download a full summary
PDF of the event