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Sustainability services help companies maximize their potential for maintaining the Earth’s long-term well-being, focusing on environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Consultants assess a company’s sustainability efforts, create a strategic plan, communicate it to employees and stakeholders, provide training, and offer certification.
Sustainability services are those that provide planning and benchmarking, communications and reporting, assessment, training and possibly certification for companies. These services focus on how this company can maximize its potential for maintaining the Earth’s long-term well-being, which has environmental, economic and social dimensions. These services can focus on specific areas of climate change, carbon use, building standards, resource and water management, and renewable energy opportunities company-wide or product-by-product.
When a company begins to use sustainability services, the consultant providing these services will look at the company in two or more ways. The first review will be an overview of the company’s sustainability efforts. This will take into account how the company uses energy or petroleum-based products, builds or maintains its facilities, and uses other natural resources such as water or specific minerals. If you can break this usage down by product line to do a more detailed analysis, chances are the consultant will do that too.
The assessment starts the process for each company to determine how the company is incorporating sustainability into its business processes. It is imperative that the company takes an honest look at what it is doing right in terms of Earth stewardship and what could be improved. With accurate information, the company can determine which areas should be addressed.
Planning is the next step in the sustainability services process. During this phase, the company creates a strategic corporate sustainability plan. This plan documents the company’s environmental impact, sets out the objectives and costs associated with improving corporate sustainability, and designates principles and practices to facilitate improving sustainability. Benchmarking the company with similar companies is also completed at this stage.
Communicating the corporate sustainability plan, the benchmarks the company is trying to meet and the processes to be used to achieve those goals is the next step of sustainability services. During this phase, the company should communicate with its employees to educate them on how implementing these objectives will best manage the environment in an economically and socially responsible manner. The company may also have to inform government agencies and its shareholders about actions it is taking to improve its sustainability.
Training is an integral part of sustainability services. It is important that employees learn the rationale for implementing each change initiated by the corporate sustainability plan. Employees will take ownership of the company’s sustainability plan if they are properly educated on why they are implementing it and the benefits of each change.
Certification is another part of sustainability services. Companies in certain sectors can benefit from the certification process. Certification provides an objective designation of how a company measures up against its sustainability. These certification programs vary by business sector and location.
Asset Smart.
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