Sustainability is the new wave of growth in businesses transforming a company's strategy to work towards creating profitable companies that approach zero/negative environmental footprint and empower its customers to do the same.
However, sustainability has a different meaning to different businesses depending on their goals and industries. Some businesses are trying to be a little bit green by doing the bare minimum by carbon reporting without having a plan to reduce, improve or manage the emission. This is the case sustainability is reduced to a general view of carbon or emission reporting rather than balanced growth concerning the core purpose of helping solving an environmental or social challenge, such as improving air quality, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving workplace safety in industrial sectors, improving gender equality in education and businesses. For better strategy, companies can orient themselves with Global Reporting Initiatives and Carbon Discloure Projects that can act as a guideline on reporting, sustainable and carbon management, water and forest programs.
In a recent visit to COFCO's Meishan California Smart City (MCSC), TUV SUD's Vice President, Industry Service North Asia, Mr. Simon Lemin, said: "Sustainability is important to a business in two ways, firstly it drives growth: sustainable companies are economically successful, not just with better performing stock prices, but also the internal and external transparency of being sustainable can be used as a powerful marketing strategy; and of course in many value chains. Today 'sustainability' and 'sustainable operations' are becoming a mandatory aspect of some markets (for example the new draft EU Battery regulations requires sustainability to be considered all through the supply chain). The second aspect of sustainability is related to public perception – being 'sustainable', wearing 'sustainable' or living 'sustainable' is a major topic for many people and considered a 'must have' – simply put sustainability is the pathway to a future for all of us and generations to come."
(From left to right, the third is Jeffrey Chang, Chairman of Meishan Jiayue Real Estate Co., Ltd.; the fifth is Simon Lemin, Vice President of TUV SUD Certification and Testing (China) Co., Ltd. Shanghai Branch）
In correspondence with the UN's sustainability Goal 7, MCSC, a sustainable highland for the global clean energy, is a state-level new area in Southwest China. The concept design built by AECOM, New York, has clean energy, green IT and sustainability integrated into its design of MCSC's city planning.
For more information, please visit https://cnmcsc.com/.
