By: David Miron-Wapner

Past conversations about corporations’ environmental performance have been mostly tangential to the “real” business being pursued. Usually they would have reflected an oppositional stance seeing costs of regulatory compliance as a nuisance at best, at worst an unnecessarily imposed cost of doing business. A glimpse at future company communications with an array of stakeholders, from customers, suppliers, employees and government regulators will likely reflect a new paradigm of corporate leadership to building and ensuring a better future for all, along with enhanced profitability.

The change is inexorable and inevitable. Its impetus will not flow from altruism. Business means to make money, and so it must if it has any pretense of success. Yet companies are beginning to perceive that corporate responsibility and sustainability, as an all embracing concept of good corporate citizenship, offers opportunities to add positively to the bottom line. Corporate value will be increasingly tied to satisfying the needs of a broad array of stakeholders over time, rather than today’s narrow focus only on maximizing value for shareholders. Mimicking the definition of sustainability itself as meeting today’s needs without compromising on future generation’s ability to meet theirs, a business attuned to its stakeholders pursues profitability that allows future generations an equal opportunity to do so as well.

“Extending consideration to stakeholders is not a charitable adjunct to a successful business strategy but an intrinsic element of it. Integrating economic, social, and environmental objectives into a single bottom line can be a significant source of innovation and top-line growth. Companies that make the transition from focusing exclusively on shareholders to managing for stakeholder satisfaction will survive consolidation and attrition in today’s marketplace and become leading actors in a global world of the twenty-first century.”

So writes Chris Lazlo in the introduction to his book “The Sustainable Company – How to Create Lasting Value through Social and Environmental Performance.” As markets internalize the environmental costs, whether through government command and control or direct market-oriented “cap and trade” schemes or green taxation, companies will be forced to adjust to dynamic new realities. Those that have earlier adapted themselves, taking a pro-active leadership role in embracing sustainability will manage the transition most effectively, efficiently and demonstrate greater profitability.

Measures and benchmarks for sustainability are becoming more commonplace. As sustainable performance assumes a quantitative, not only a subjective save-the-world moral value, it will be viewed as an integral part of corporate business performance with clear positive impact on the bottom line.