Sustainable profits?

Attending the Reset Connect conference at the Excel centre was a sobering experience. Despite evidence of climate change, the proliferation of sustainability reporting standards, and tomes written on the subject, very very very few companies are seeing sustainability reporting as a commercial advantage and even fewer are truly integrating these environmental and social risks and opportunities into their corporate DNA/financial baselines.

KPMG leads Josh Olomolaiye and Keith Thompson led two excellent sessions on sustainability reporting and it was clear that companies have a long way to go to truly see sustainability as a business imperative or as a means to drive commercial profit. But they did say that storytelling continues to remain important to influence not just the board and internal stakeholders, but also investors, shareholders and customers. Perhaps the tail must wag the dog then, and the narratives need to be built before true integration takes place!

Another excellent panel was around Purpose and Profit and the role of the CFO in driving sustainable growth. (Read an excellent summary of this session by Joanne Dyson). The one line that stood out to me though was the one made by Robert Hayward who said: 'You need to be sustainably profitable, otherwise your purpose will evaporate!'

And that's where I see the gold. When businesses see sustainability as a source of corporate longevity, business resilience and long-term profits, suddenly everyone from the CFO to CRO sits up and takes notice. It's a reframing problem to start with. All the old 'purpose-led' narratives are no longer holding sway... because if there is no company to speak of, what use is a purpose statement?! Let's talk about 'sustainable profits' instead, and change how this game is played!