SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights July 8, 2015

Sustainability?  Green products & services?  That’s nice.  One might still hear this in the company’s executive suite.  But the word is fast getting around in the board room and C-suite corridors of power.  That’s MONEY we are talking about.  The Conference Board just released a study – “Driving Revenue Growth Through Sustainable Products & Services,” authored by Thomas Singer and supported by the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRC).  Findings:  Leading companies are realizing a substantial and positive impact on revenue from their sustainable products and services.

The researchers looked at a dozen large-cap enterprises:  Allianz; BASF; Caterpillar; Dow Chemical; DuPont; General Electric; IBM; Johnson & Johnson; Kimberly-Clark; Phillips; Siemens; and Toshiba.  Among these companies, revenues from sustainable products & services grew at 6X the rate of overall company revenues (from 2010 to 2014).

Sustainable products represent on average 21% of total revenues.  Capital sources – banks, investment bankers – play an important and increasing role in financing the development of large-scale products / solutions, mostly through asset finance and green bonds.

Among the companies in the Conference Board survey, customer demand for solutions that address global sustainability challenges (climate change for example) is a driving force. Also – increasing resource scarcity.

Our Top Story is a must read for company managers., investors, analysts, asset managers, and others who may still be on the fence about the business case for corporate sustainability.  And, green products and services…and the value in being a trailblazer in this space.  And do clip the story and pass it around the C-suite when the questions come up…”sustainability?” What's the purpose of that?
 

This is just a sample of some of the articles from this weeks SustainabilityHQ Highlights.  You can view the full Highlights by using the following links. Sustainability | ESG, Highlights for the Week of July 8, 2015