Millennials, who are today in decision-making positions and Generation Z, who hold our future in their hands, are overwhelmingly pro-sustainability and are showing this with their every action. Worldwide, companies and organisations are taking action to benefit from the transition to the Sustainable, Circular Economy. Are your competitors better prepared? Are they dealing more successfully with stricter regulations and changing buying and decision-making patterns?

• Deloitte: Business leaders can win the loyalty of millennials by driving societal and economic change.
• Morgan Stanley research results: Companies must engage with sustainable development or face being left out of investment decisions by Millennials, one of the largest generations in history moving into its prime spending years.
• 84% of Millennial investors interested in sustainable investing (Morgan Stanley)
• There is an accelerating growth of people choosing sustainable brands (Nielsen 30,000 consumers in 60 countries)
• Millennials love CSR (Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK)

More research: Sustainable Development Makes Good Business Sense

• 2 out of 4 major consumer trends relate to sustainability (Mintel)
• Mintel research: Key 2018 consumer trends relate to sustainability
• Corporate sustainability and profitability are interrelated (Oxford University)
• High Sustainability companies significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, in both stock market and accounting performance (Harvard Business School)
• Gender diversity across a company increases productivity (MIT News)

Generation Z is emerging as the Sustainability Generation

According to a recent study by First Insight cited by Forbes, the vast majority of Generation Z shoppers prefer to buy sustainable brands, and are most willing to spend 10 percent more on sustainable products.

The study also found that Generation Z, along with Millennials, are the most likely to make purchase decisions based on personal, social, and environmental values and principles.

According to another survey by DoSomething, also cited by Forbes, 75 percent of Generation Z respondents wanted to see that brands were ensuring employee and consumer safety.

Additionally, according to the 2022 Gartner Sustainability Opportunities, Risks and Technologies Survey:

• For 86% of business leaders, sustainability is an investment that protects their organisations from disruption
• Four out of five leaders think sustainability helps their organisation optimise and reduce costs
• 83% say their sustainability programme activities directly generated both short- and long-term value for their organisations

We firmly believe that we must all take a step back and see the forest. We must address serious environmental issues but also take positive action to develop the economies and societies on which we rely for growth and profit.

Also read:

• How to use the GRI Standards ASAP to accelerate positive change
• Case Studies: How companies are cleaning their supply chains of bad environmental and social practices
• Case studies: How companies are affecting positive change on the economies and societies they operate in and rely on for profit/growth
• Laying the foundation for good communication with responsible CSR/ sustainability reporting
• Are your competitors better prepared?

Simon Pitsillides
Sustainability Reporting and Marketing Communication Strategy Expert. Simon is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM) a Fellow of the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (FISEP) and a Chartered Marketer, and holds an MBA in Marketing. He is a GRI and ISEP Trainer, the publisher of www.sustaincase.com and owner of www.fbrh.co.uk. Simon teaches the FBRH GRI Standards Certified, ISEP & CIM Recognised Course (venue: London School of Economics (LSE). 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-pitsillides

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

FBRH GRI Standards Certified & ISEP recognised Sustainability Course | Venue: London LSE

By registering for the next 2-day FBRH GRI Standards Certified & ISEP recognised course you will be taking the first step in gaining the many benefits of sustainability reporting.

The post License to operate – Millennials, Generation Z appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

Based on the findings of relevant surveys, the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) identified a number of key behaviour patterns in millennial consumers (18- to 34-year-olds) regarding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):

• 81% of millennials would like companies to publicly commit to CSR values

• 92% of millennials would choose to buy from a company committed to ethical business practices

• 64% of millennial females bought, in the past year, a cause-related product

• 82% of millennials would strive to be employed by a company recognized for its commitment to business ethics

• More than 9 out of 10 millennials would change brands to a cause-related one

• 73% of millennials would pay extra for sustainable offerings – a significant increase from 50% in 2014

Moreover, according to the surveys, millennials would:

• buy environmentally or socially beneficial products
• offer voluntary support for a cause promoted by a trusted company
• express their views to a company regarding its CSR programs
• mention to their friends and family a company’s CSR initiatives

References:

This article was compiled using a publication by the Chartered Institute of Marketing. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the publication’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the links below:

https://exchange.cim.co.uk/infographic/millennials-love-csr/?utm_source=Exchange%20newsletter&utm_campaign=Exchange%20newsletter&utm_medium=Email&_cldee=c2ltb25AZmJyaC5ldQ%3d%3d&recipientid=contact-45545ffae8f4e4118103c4346bad1218-c1c53dcf21664731945075fba1549b47&esid=6f74b51b-5aaa-e611-80ef-5065f38bc591&urlid=2

https://www.philanthropy.com/items/biz/pdf/AflacCorporateSocialResponsibility.pdf

http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2015-cone-communications-millennial-csr-study

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2015/the-sustainability-imperative.html

The post Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK): Millennials love CSR appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

According to a new survey by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, among 1,000 active individual investors, interest in sustainable investing continues to grow steadily, especially among a younger generation of investors: Millennials, who believe that their investments can have a positive social and environmental impact.

Millennial investors tend to incorporate sustainability into their decisions. In fact, since 2014 sustainable investing has increased by more than 33%, from $6.57 trillion to almost $9 trillion.

More specifically, according to the survey:

• 86 per cent of Millennials are interested in sustainable investing  Tweet This!
• Millennial investors are twice as likely, compared to other investors, to invest in companies focused on social or environmental targets
• 89 per cent of Millennials are interested in sustainable investments that could be customized to respond to their interests and goals
• 75 per cent of Millennial investors believe that their investments may “influence the amount of climate change caused by human activities”
• 84 per cent of Millennials believe that their investment decisions may help lift people out of poverty
• 61 per cent of Millennial investors have taken at least one sustainability-related investment action over the last year
• 90 per cent of Millennial investors are interested in pursuing sustainable investments as part of their 401(k) portfolios

Audrey Choi, Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Morgan Stanley, said that, with widespread attention to sustainability issues and objectives steadily increasing, “consumers and investors alike are now more than ever factoring sustainability issues into their investment decisions”.

References:

This article was compiled using a press release by Morgan Stanley and the publication “Sustainable Signals New Data from the Individual Investor”. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the press release’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the links below:

https://www.morganstanley.com/press-releases/morgan-stanley-survey-finds-interest-in-sustainable-investing-st

http://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/sustainable-socially-responsible-investing-millennials-drive-growth

http://www.morganstanley.com/pub/content/dam/msdotcom/ideas/sustainable-signals/pdf/Sustainable_Signals_Whitepaper.pdf

The post Morgan Stanley: Millennials sustainable investing continues to intensify appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

According to a new, international study by Unilever, of 20,000 adults from five countries – Brazil, India, Turkey, the United Kingdom and United States – a third of consumers (33 percent of those surveyed) would choose to buy from sustainable brands, i.e. brands they believed to be socially and environmentally beneficial.

Key findings include:

• This trend (purpose-led purchasing) is more noticeable among consumers in emerging markets, as compared to developed ones: 53 percent of consumers in the United Kingdom and 78 percent in the United States said they felt better when purchasing sustainable products, compared to 88 percent in India and 85 percent in Turkey and Brazil.

• Over one in five (21%) of respondents said they would actively choose brands provided these brands made their sustainability features clearer, with both their packaging and marketing. This means that a possible unexploited opportunity of €966 billion out of a €2.5 trillion total market for sustainable goods is out there, for brands that will choose to make their sustainability credentials clear.

Unilever’s own financial performance testifies to the scale of the aforementioned opportunity: among the company’s hundreds of brands, Unilever’s Sustainable Living brands (which integrate sustainability into both their purpose and products) grew 30 percent faster than the rest of the business, accounting for nearly half of Unilever’s growth in 2015.

According to Keith Weed, Unilever’s chief marketing and communications officer, this research “confirms that sustainability isn’t a nice-to-have for businesses  Tweet This!”. “In fact,” he continues, “it has become an imperative. To succeed globally, and especially in emerging economies across Asia, Africa and Latin America, brands should go beyond traditional focus areas like product performance and affordability. Instead, they must act quickly to prove their social and environmental credentials and show consumers they can be trusted with the future of the planet and communities, as well as their own bottom lines”.

References:

This article was compiled using a press release by Unilever. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the press release’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

https://www.unilever.com/news/press-releases/2017/report-shows-a-third-of-consumers-prefer-sustainable-brands.html

The post Major Unilever Research: Potential untapped opportunity of €966 billion out of a €2.5 trillion total market for sustainable goods – 20,000 adults from five countries appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

In an article based on the findings of a number of surveys and data collected (2), Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim (Harvard Business School) argue that companies should actively integrate sustainability into their financial reporting and, more specifically, in their quarterly earnings.

The surveys are showing a sharply increased interest in sustainability by both company executives and investors and, at the same time, a lack of meaningful, effective communication between the two on companies’ sustainability strategies and practices.

Turn two stories into one or risk having your company being labeled as engaging in greenwashing

According to Eccles and Serafeim, corporate executives are, without a doubt, missing an opportunity to discuss, through earnings calls, their companies’ sustainability approach and initiatives with investors. Companies should, as Eccles and Serafeim aptly put it, “turn two stories into one” and talk about their most important environmen­tal, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues in quarterly earnings calls, not least because:

• Integrating sustainability into financial performance reporting and, above all, quarterly calls – demonstrating how the two, sustainability and business performance, are in fact interconnected – shows that a company not only has a sustainability strategy in place but, more importantly, implements a sustainable strategy: a strategy that “enables a company to create value for its sharehold­ers, while at the same time contributing to a sustainable society”.

• Quarterly earnings calls – which include Q&A – provide an invaluable, concrete opportunity for engagement, dialogue, sharing of information and receiving feedback from key investors on a company’s  sustainability and business performance. This is in contrast to the various reports produced by a company (such as an annual or sustainability report), where communication is one-way.

As Eccles and Serafeim conclude, “a sustainable strategy needs to be discussed in the usual quarterly calls”. If this does not happen, a company “should simply accept the fact that it has a sustainability strategy, not a sustainable strategy” and at worse that it is “greenwashing”.

References:

This article was compiled using an article by Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim (Harvard Business School) in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the article’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

(1) http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/JACF%20A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Stories_f511f187-3656-4aa5-9a83-52988d5b5570.pdf

(2)  All the sources referred to by Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim in their article can be seen at the link above. Two important sources are  a) Accenture and UN Global Compact, “A New Era of Sustainability CEO Study 2010,” June 2012.  b) MIT Sloan Management Review in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group, “The Innovation Bottom Line,” Winter 2013.

The post Harvard Business School: Sustainability should be integrated, by companies, into financial reporting appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

According to the 2015 Cone Communications Millennial CSR Study, based on the findings of a survey among 1,003 18- to 34-year-olds, Millennials show strong support, in a number of ways, for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts by companies. More specifically:

• 91% of Millennials would change brands to a cause-related one  Tweet This! (of comparable quality and price)

• 87% of Millennials would buy environmentally or socially beneficial products and 59% bought such a product in the past year

• 88% of Millennials would stop buying products from a company with bad business practices

• When deciding what to buy or where to go shopping, 81% of Millennials take into account a company’s social and environmental initiatives

• 70% of Millennials would pay more for sustainable products

• A company supporting a social or environmental cause would be seen more positively by 93% of Millennials

• For 86% of Millennials companies should not just make profits but tackle social and environmental issues

• 81% and 82% of Millennials, respectively, would like companies to report on their progress in their CSR efforts and generate and communicate outcomes

References:

This article was compiled using a study by Cone Communications. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the study’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2015-cone-communications-millennial-csr-study

The post Cone Communications research: Millennials embrace CSR appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

In 2015 American insurance company Aflac & LightSpeed GMI conducted a survey, in which 6,000 consumers and 355 investment professionals were asked their views about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs and initiatives by businesses. Key findings were as follows:

• 79% of consumers believed companies committed to ethical business practices outperformed others in their sector

• 81% of consumers would choose to buy from a company involved in philanthropic activities constantly – not only in difficult times

• 92% of millennials (18- to 34-year-olds) would prefer to buy from a company committed to business ethics

• 69% of consumers would invest in an ethical company

• A company’s commitment to CSR and corporate ethics is the second highest priority – after salary – for consumers, as regards a potential employer

• 75% of consumers would prefer to work for a company with solid CSR practices

• 82% of millennials, and 74% of all consumers, would strive to be employed by a company recognized for its commitment to ethical business practices

References:

This article was compiled using a survey by American insurance company Aflac & LightSpeed GMI. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the survey’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

https://www.philanthropy.com/items/biz/pdf/AflacCorporateSocialResponsibility.pdf

The post Aflac & LightSpeed GMI survey: 79% of consumers believe companies committed to ethical business practices outperform others in their sector appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and Arabesque Asset Management explored, in a report, more than 200 academic studies and sources dealing with sustainability, with a focus on the connection between corporate social responsibility and profitability. According to the report, ‘responsibility and profitability are not incompatible, but in fact wholly complementary’.

Three key findings regarding the relationship between sustainability and the cost of capital, operational performance, and stock price performance

Overall, from the studies reviewed, three highly important findings emerged:

• ‘90% of the cost of capital studies show that sound Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards lower the cost of capital.’

• ‘88% of the studies show that solid ESG practices result in better operational performance.’

• ‘80% of the studies show that stock price performance is positively influenced by good sustainability practices.’

The report’s conclusions

• Managers will only gain from incorporating sustainability into their strategic decisions, as will institutional investors and trustees if they ‘require the inclusion of sustainability parameters into the overall investment process’.

• ‘Investors should be active owners and exert their influence on the management of their invested companies to improve the management of sustainability parameters that are most relevant to operational and investment performance.’

• Asset management companies will only gain from incorporating sustainability in investment procedures.

• ‘The future of active ownership will most likely be one where multiple stakeholders (such as individual investors and consumers) are involved in setting the agenda for the active ownership strategy of institutional investors.’

• Research is needed to ‘identify which sustainability parameters are the most relevant for operational
  performance and investment returns’.

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

7 GRI sustainability disclosures get you started

Any size business can start taking sustainability action

GRI, ISEP, CPD Certified Sustainability courses (2-5 days): Live Online or Classroom  (venue: London School of Economics)

• Exclusive FBRH template to begin reporting from day one
• Identify your most important impacts on the Environment, Economy and People
• Formulate in group exercises your plan for action. Begin taking solid, focused, all-round sustainability action ASAP. 
• Benchmarking methodology to set you on a path of continuous improvement

See upcoming training dates.

References:

This article was compiled using a report by The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and Arabesque Asset Management. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/research/

The post Oxford University: Corporate sustainability and profitability are interrelated appeared first on SustainCase - Sustainability Magazine.

In order to investigate investors’ attitudes towards sustainable investing (investing in companies or funds striving to achieve a positive social and/or environmental impact), identifying trends and expectations, the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing surveyed 800 individual investors, including 200 Millennials (18- to 32-year-olds).

Key findings include:

• 71% of the individual investors surveyed were interested in sustainable investing and 65% thought sustainable investing would become more widespread in the next five years

• 84% of Millennial investors were interested in sustainable investing. More specifically, Millennial investors were:
  • almost twice more likely, compared to the rest, to invest in companies or funds striving to achieve specific social and/or environmental results
  • almost twice as likely to invest in companies or funds that used their environmental, social or governance practices to gain a competitive advantage
  • more than twice as likely to not invest in a company because of offensive business activities

• As workers and consumers, Millennial investors were:
  • almost three times more likely (compared to the rest) to choose an employer because of the employer’s approach to social and/or environmental issues
  • almost twice as likely to purchase a product based on a company’s social and/or environmental impact and check a product’s packaging using sustainability criteria

• Female investors were more interested in sustainable investing compared to male investors, were almost twice as likely to take into consideration both rate of return and a positive impact when making their investment decisions and were, also, more likely to think about sustainability in their decision making as consumers

• 45% of individual investors saw companies that integrated sustainability into their business practices as more innovative, 30% thought they attracted better talent and 72% believed such companies were capable of becoming more profitable and were better long-term investment choices

References:

This article was compiled using a paper published by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the paper’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the link below:

https://www.morganstanley.com/sustainableinvesting/pdf/Sustainable_Signals.pdf

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