Sustainability at SBC |Our Company | Our Workplace | Our Environmental Impact |Our Social Impact
Sustainable Business Consulting is a professional services firm committed to the belief that sustainability and profitability are inextricably linked. We work tirelessly to educate businesses large and small about the competitive advantage of sustainable business.
Our Company
Our goal is to create economic, social and environmental value by measuring, assessing and taking action. We strive to be as effective as possible with any service that we provide while still being true to our guiding principles. We take care to discourage any possible instances of greenwashing because they introduce a clear and present danger for any business looking to share their sustainability journey. It’s not good for our clients, for us, for anyone.
The precautionary principle is an important part of SBC's mission and services, in that we are providing the services necessary to help organizations mitigate their impact on the environment. We believe it is better to take action and do it the right way than to wait to see the consequences. And we take care to practice that internally ourselves.
Our Services
We offer our clients several services to meet their needs:
Organizational Structure
In 2010, SBC was a single owner LLC located in Seattle, Washington. We do not have a board of directors, advisors or separate organizational oversight structure. Rather, we are an inclusive organization that practices an open style of management structure that includes the entire staff in discussions regarding all major (economic, social or environmental) decisions on strategy and actions. These include goal-setting, opportunity and risk assessment, and budget decisions using open-book financials. All employees are encouraged to weigh in on the right course of action, including financial decisions. Compensation for both employees and owners is tied to financial and sustainability performance.
Transparency
In today’s era of information access and the ever present eye of watchful consumers, transparency has become an important measure of a business. At SBC we embrace an open style of management and share our financial statements on a monthly basis with all employees. Furthermore, we have expanded the depth of our CSR report each year to include more internal activities in an effort to better inform our stakeholders about our business.
Conflicts of Interest
As part of our day-to-day operating structure, we actively try to avoid conflict of interests. As active members of our local community and the entire Pacific Northwest, we occasionally find ourselves in a position where our external influence may affect our work environment. In these circumstances, we respond with immediacy, transparency and honesty regarding our commitments and excuse ourselves from any situation which may present a conflict of interest.
Our Partners
We work with numerous firms and individuals as subcontractors to complement our strengths to ensure our clients are getting the experts in every aspect of sustainability work. We screen all potential subcontractors to make sure that they meet the exceptional quality of work and service our clients deserve and ensure they share our values and goals towards sustainability. Working with others with ideals in line with our own creates more successful partnerships.
We are a results-oriented organization and are always looking for the greatest impact from our efforts. In keeping with this, we acknowledge that our greatest environmental impact can be felt through the work that we do with our clients. Whether it was in achieving a concrete reduction of emissions, formulating a sustainability plan or establishing systems to track environmental metrics, each of our clients made progress to a more sustainable future.
Client Growth
2010 was a year of doing more with less for SBC. Despite a reduction in staff, we were able to have a record revenue year and develop new and larger clients. Through our client work, we now manage 111,555 metric tons of greenhouse gases. (That’s a 30% increase from last year!) This sharp increase represents a groundswell of interest that businesses are showing to decrease their contributions to climate change as well as positive feedback from the market that we are a leader for this type of service. We certainly feel the tides are turning and companies are increasingly aware of the effects that climate change has on the planet and their financial bottom line.
After receiving some insightful advice from our stakeholders, we have decided to focus our efforts on larger clients so we can make the most impact with our services.
As you can see in the amount of carbon we managed through our client work in 2009 and 2010, we have moved from working with many clients with small footprints to a few larger clients. We believe that making positive change on a bigger scale will be more impactful on the environment, which is why we have chosen to go in this direction.
Client Case Study
Environmental improvements can apply to every industry even those with seemingly negligible affects. In the past year we worked with a financial client to incorporate the triple bottom line of their auto and home loans. We measured the greenhouse gas emissions associated with those loans to help them better understand the environmental impact of their activities. As a result, they are looking at reducing the interest rate on loans to those who implement home energy efficiency or choose vehicles with increased fuel economy.
Sustainability Assessment
Flexibility and adaptability are our core strengths at SBC and it is from these traits that we stay ahead of the curve in the field of sustainability. In 2010, we realized the need for a comprehensive way to measure the environmental and social performance of a business. To meet this demand, we developed our Sustainability Assessment service for our clients. This has enabled us to maintain our position as a leader in the field of sustainability consulting and push for a better way to do business financially, environmentally and socially.
Client Case Study
We began our sustainability assessment program with a recreational retailer to help them locate hotspots of impact within their governance procedures, human resources practices, operations and supply chain. With our help, they were able to identify and rank their top ten areas of opportunity and begin to leverage those areas for the greatest environmental and social impact down the road.
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Carbon Footprinting
Return on Sustainability - the Book
