When I tell people that I am starting an environmental sustainability consulting firm I get vacant stares. This weekend one of the partners experienced that same stare when he used that same line on a couple. But he immediately said “we find companies money by making environmental improvements.” They perked up and the man said “oh, now you’re talking my language” while the woman said “I think its so great that ya’ll are helping improve the environment.”
This tells me a few things. First we need to talk our audiences language, not ours. And two, there is value in going green.
Sustainability is a word that is freely used in our business but there is no one definitions. We decided we needed to define it for our own company. I searched online and found as many different versions as I wanted. But none of them spoke our audiences language. Then I came across a speech by David Blood of Generation Investment Management, a firm he founded with his partner, former Vice-President Al Gore. The speech is titled “The case for sustainable business” and was given at Gresham College in London in January 2008. I encourage you to listen to the speech or download the transcript.
David Blood has some very insightful views and he gave a great definition for sustainable investing. We modified it and adopted it as our definition of a sustainable business.
“A sustainable business recognizes that environmental, social, ethical and economic factors directly affect business strategy. Factors that are sometimes difficult to quantify but drive the success of a business.”
It is simple, to the point and should be able to explain what we do so that everyone can understand.
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