Airmic Sustainability SIG

The eventual consensus was that organisations can in fact become more profitable as champions of sustainability if they use this path as a route to a more resilient organisation. The keys to this success are getting all organisational stakeholders on board, understanding your organisation’s purpose, prioritising action over conversations, taking care with public commitments, understanding your supply chain, and protecting your reputation.

Structural challenges remain present, however. One of the key difficulties identified was developing an organisational wide understanding of what sustainability means, and how to link it to corporate objectives, which can sometimes be achieved through linkage to international frameworks or standards such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Another difficulty is the shortage of skilled sustainability graduates, nor sufficient materials currently to ensure every organisation has what it needs to become a sustainable and resilient business.