By Eric E. Boyd and Craig B. Simonsen

George P. Nassos, of George P. Nassos & Associates, recently provided our Group with a presentation on “The Urgency of Adopting Sustainability”. It is an interesting analysis on the rationale for and the cost-benefit value in adopting sustainability within large corporate businesses and organizations. Sustainable strategies are listed and reviewed.

Interestingly, studies have found that while ninety-three percent of industry leaders say that they believe that sustainability is critical to the company’s success, very few organizations actually have a chief sustainability officer to ensure the implementation of sustainability goals and purposes.

Nassos indicates that implementing sustainability throughout the organization can also have positive returns on the corporate bottom line. Research has shown that certain sustainability metrics can reduce the company’s cost of capital (discount rate) and thus increase its shareholder value (capitalization). Companies are urged to consider performing sustainability audits to see where they may best succeed in implementing their own sustainability measures and be sure of investing strategically.