Create a sustainability strategy
By Ann-Christin Pålsson, Johan Widheden, Sofia Petersson
A sustainability strategy should give direction to all functions within the company, to integrate sustainability considerations both on a strategic level and into the day-to-day work. Generally, this requires cooperation between functions.
The strategy should be founded in the sustainability policy and be based on:
- A clear vision on what to achieve
- Internal knowledge and understanding of the relevant sustainability aspects of operations and products in a life cycle perspective
- External input in terms of current and upcoming trends, legislation, policies, methodologies etc. that affect the operations or products
The development of the strategy should be performed in a cross-functional setting, where the different functions and competencies in the company participates, e.g. sourcing, R&D, manufacturing, marketing, sales etc. This ensures that all relevant parts and sustainability aspects of the company is included in the strategy, and it can also facilitate the implementation.
Examples of external bodies supplying useful input when setting up a sustainability strategy are:
- Environmental Policies of the European Commission
- United Nations Global Compact
- Kyoto protocol
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development
- World Resource Institute
- Global Reporting Initiative
