Companies with strong sustainability plans need actionable strategies to ensure optimal business, environmental, and social performance. In May 2009, the Aberdeen Group released the results of a study that investigated how best practices in sustainability are linked to business return on investment (ROI). “The ROI of Sustainability: Making the Business Case” recommends a number of sustainability practices and shows how companies excelling at these see higher ROI for their efforts.

Practices that help companies excel in sustainability efforts include corporate leadership, developing metrics, setting policies and standards, improving stakeholder communications, educating staff, and formalized reporting. Using dashboards to deliver sustainability metrics in a user-friendly way is also a highly recommended practice. Dashboards provide a visual means of gauging how well a company is doing on various indicators, like energy and water use. They often come in the form of websites or “apps”.

The study used six key performance criteria to differentiate “Best-in-Class” companies. These companies achieved the following returns on their sustainability investments:

• 9% reduction in carbon footprint
• 6% reduction in energy costs
• 7% reduction in facilities costs
• 10% reduction in paper costs
• 7% reduction in transportation / logistics costs
• 16% increase in customer retention

For more information on sustainability practices tailored to the electrical distribution industry, please refer to NAED’s “Inside Going Green – Little Green Book of Corporate Sustainability.”

Source: Cindy Jutras and Jhana Senxian, “The ROI of Sustainability: Making the Business Case,” Aberdeen Group, May 2009.

Available at: http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5908-RA-sustainability-environmental-stewardship.asp