The business case for sustainability can be found in four different areas:
- Brand & Reputation Enhancement and Value Creation
- Business and Market Development
- Cost savings
- Risk minimization.
Over the past 10 years a lot of research has been conducted with the purpose to develop the business case for sustainability. Although the business case sometimes is quite difficult to quantify, especially when it comes to brand value and risk minimization, there are several studies and examples available. Below we have listed a few examples.
Brand value
- Sustainability contributes more than 910 m$ or 10 % to Philips brand value of 9,100 m$ (in 2012)
Business development
- GE’s Ecomagination product sales are growing twice as fast as the rest of the company GE’s
- Ecomagination products had a US$21 billion in revenue in 2011
- Philips Green Products revenues increased from EUR 8.8 billion to EUR 11.3 billion from 2012 to 2013
Cost savings
- Kimberly-Clark saving up to $100 million in energy costs
- IBM $125.2 million estimated environmental savings and cost avoidance worldwide in 2013
- Siemens reduced supplier energy costs by 17%
- Walmart sustainable packaging initiative is estimated to save $11 billion along the value chain
- Profitability jumped by 16% for companies with high levels of employee engagement (Gallup)
Risk Minimization
- British Petroleum has set aside $43 billion to cover fines, legal settlements and clean-up costs associated with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
- Walmart paid $110 million in environmental fines for hazardous material disposal issues between 2003 and 2006
- Mattel fined more than $2 million for lead paint used on toys
- Volkswagen lost more than 1/3 of its market capitalization within one week after the emission scandal in 2015
Book a free consultation with us to explore your business case.
