• The organisation has a clear and aspirational vision of what it means to be sustainable, and understands that sustainability is an essential part of creating value.
• The business strategy is set to deliver sustainability as well as profit.
• There is active engagement with the wider sector on sustainability – influencing others to improve performance and address global challenges, such as poverty and climate change.
• The organisation uses a combination of strategies to deliver sustainable outcomes, such as improving or replacing technologies or influencing markets.
• Difficult issues are tackled head-on. The risks, as  well as the benefits, of taking a bold and leading public position are understood and managed.
• Commitments are reflected in good examples of improved performance – in products and services, customer engagement, investor relations and other areas.

Case studies

TUI Travel PLC, Europe’s leading international leisure travel company, deals with over 30 million customers from over 20 countries and leads its sector on sustainability. Parts of the Group operate in a mainstream market characterised by a relatively low awareness of sustainability, although this is now starting to change.
 
Sustainable development is formally embedded into the heart of its strategic planning. The Group Management Board recognises that not paying attention to sustainability issues could pose reputation risks and undermine the quality of destinations through environmental degradation, as well as impact some potential business opportunities.
 
The process of setting strategy now includes a fact-base on sustainability, sent to Directors across the business to incorporate into their strategic decision-making.  A Board level steering committee sets the Group-wide strategic direction on sustainability issues, and 'Sustainable Development Champions' from across the business help ensure that the action plan is implemented.
 
In recent years the company’s commitment to sustainable development has been reflected through its actions: TUI Travel PLC is the European launch partner of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is 20% more fuel efficient than similar-sized aircraft operating today. The business has a progressive carbon strategy that tackles its direct impacts such as fuel efficiency. It also engages customers through the World Care Fund, in which customer donations are matched by the company and fund ‘on the ground’ social and community projects (via the Travel Foundation) and carbon offsets (via Climate Care).

Guardian News & Media (GNM), publisher of The Guardian, The Observer and guardian.co.uk, recently declared its ambition to lead the media industry in building a sustainable future. Its vision includes a commitment to becoming environmentally regenerative, with an operational performance that positively affects climate change. It treats sustainability as a business opportunity and sees excellence in sustainability as a way to ensure future profitability.

In contrast to many other media companies, GNM emphasises that its greatest impact comes from editorial opportunities to influence global opinion and understanding of sustainable development. It includes an editorial commitment in its vision, pledging to lead the field with comprehensive and accurate environmental reporting.

The vision acknowledges some of the big challenges facing GNM if it is to realise its ambitions – including its current reliance on advertising products and services with poor sustainability credentials. This is a good example of how a stretching vision really challenges the business.

Kingfisher, a leading home improvement group with a global reach, has a clear ambition to fully integrate sustainability into business thinking. The company wants to be the one customers choose for sustainable home improvements products and services. In 2007 it set about developing a vision and long-term sustainability goals using the Five Capitals Model.

A process was designed to take Kingfisher’s executive committee through the strategic implications of future social and environmental trends, confirming that ‘business as usual’ would not equip the company for these changes. With this in mind Kingfisher developed a set of strategic sustainability goals that enables it to be prepared for, and capitalise on, opportunities presented by the growing market for sustainable products and services.

Kingfisher has the challenge of coordinating its sustainability activities and maintaining leadership across a diverse group, with operating companies across the globe including B&Q in the UK, Poland and China, and Castorama in France and Italy. Its ‘Steps to Responsible Growth’ management system helps its subsidiaries at different stages clearly understand the way forward and what is expected of them. Kingfisher is now working on the detailed actions that will deliver its vision.

Interface Inc, a leading manufacturer of modular flooring, aims to eliminate any negative impact the company may have on the environment by 2020.  This vision is called Mission Zero, which the company is working towards on seven fronts:

1. Eliminate Waste: Eliminating all forms of waste in every area of business;
2. Benign Emissions: Eliminating toxic substances from products, vehicles and facilities;
3. Renewable Energy: Operating facilities with renewable energy sources - solar, wind, landfill gas, biomass, geothermal, tidal and low impact/small scale hydroelectric or non-petroleum-based hydrogen;
4. Closing the Loop: Redesigning processes and products to close the technical loop using recovered and bio-based materials;
5. Resource-Efficient Transportation: Transporting people and products efficiently to reduce waste and emissions;
6. Sensitizing Stakeholders: Creating a culture that integrates sustainability principles and improves people's lives and livelihoods;
7. Redesign Commerce: Creating a new business model that demonstrates and supports the value of sustainability-based commerce;

Interface has been addressing the issues of sustainability since 1996, Mission Zero enables all Interface companies and associates worldwide to speak with a common voice about sustainability and was developed as part of the rebrand in 1996

They are certainly on their way to achieving their goal. Since 1996 Interface has reduced waste from manufacturing to landfill by 75% and reduced net greenhouse gas emissions on an absolute basis by 82%. Electricity used in manufacturing in Europe is now 100% renewable.  This has financial benefits too, for example their efforts have resulted in a cumulative avoided waste cost of $372 million.

Across its activities, Investa is a clear leader in sustainable property investment.  It has property assets of £3.8 billion, of which £2.2 billion are directly owned. It is also heavily involved with new builds with a development pipeline estimated at £900 million. Operating predominately in Australia, a country on the front line of climate change, they have had the vision and strategy to build sustainability into their operations, making it their key differentiator.

In particular, they have quantified annual targets for the portfolio and engage  their tenants with voluntary green leases. They also use their website to communicate the results of their sustainable design and technology with detailed case studies. Their strategy is getting results, in the last 3 years their tenants have consumed 33% less water, 20% less electricity and 41% less gas, whilst 60% of tenants’ waste is diverted from landfill. This vision and strategy has led to Investa being bought by Morgan Stanley Real Estate in 2007.

Generation Investment Management were established in 2004 with Al Gore as Chairman. Their mission from the start has been to deliver superior investment performance by taking a long-term investment view. This is achieved by integrating sustainability research within a rigorous fundamental equity analysis framework. The six founding partners had the vision of investments that created long-term value for their clients. In a market dominated by quarterly returns, this ‘long-run’ sustainable investment strategy was certainly visionary. In addition to this, 5% of Generation’s profits are used to support the Generation Foundation that works to strengthen sustainable development.

Terra Plana, the footwear company, has a vision of “urban respect and eco-sustainability whilst producing shoes that are good for your feet”. This approach forms the basis of production decisions, dialogue with consumers and innovative delivery partnerships.

Its footwear design is founded on lifecycle analysis – it focuses on building in reparability and longevity to maximise the shoe’s usable life, and lightweight and recyclable structures to minimise environmental impact. Ongoing sustainability innovation is pursued through an 'eco-matrix' , which scores all products across a variety of sustainability features, including efficiency, materials, durability, and transportation. Those products that score less than 67% are re-evaluated for upgrading, or discontinued if sufficient improvement cannot be achieved.

Terra Plana acknowledges that this scoring process cannot capture the educational aspect of its product, creating a challenge for its iconic brands, like the Bike Shoe, where labour intensive processes are required to prepare recycled bike tyres and inner tubes for reuse.

Terra Plana communicates its vision to stakeholders across the production lifecycle. In a commitment to transparency, a breakdown of costs for the Worn Again brand is publically disclosed, specifying marketing, production and development costs alongside consumer prices. Consumers are directly engaged at point of sale with an ingredients label on each trainer, detailing the recycled products used in its manufacture – from fireman’s trousers to prison blankets.

In seeking new markets, Terra Plana has developed innovative partnerships and production models which offer sustainability returns: launching a collection of “locally-grown” shoes made and sold in the UK from locally-sourced recycled materials; partnering with the social enterprise Anti-Apathy to develop the sub-brand Worn Again with the vision to create the “definitive ethical trainer”; and  participating in a working group investigating opportunities to derive value from alternative use of ‘end of use’ shoes.

Cafédirect is the UK’s largest Fairtrade hot beverage company. For the past 17 years it has pioneered a unique business model – one that puts growers at the heart of the company and delivers both social and financial returns for shareholders.

The internally defined ‘Gold Standard’ sets out the guiding principles on which the company is based, informing the company's goals, strategic direction and daily operations. .

It includes a commitment to paying above Fairtrade prices for tea, coffee and chocolate sourced directly from growers, and to reinvesting profits and supporting producers. Over the last 3 years Cafédirect has invested, on average, 60% of its profits in the businesses and communities of its grower partners. This has included initiatives to help growers diversify, diminishing the risks of single crop dependence. The company also supports reforestation, energy efficiency and clean water projects in many of the communities of its grower partners..

Growers play a key role in many aspects of the business, from governance to product design. They have a direct influence in how the company is run through inclusion on the Board and also benefit from the company’s growth - Cafédirect’s decision to go public in 2004 was “guided by a wish for a more inclusive ownership”. The public share issue enabled farmers, employees and consumers to become shareholders.

Cafédirect’s approach demonstrates how profit can be driven from an emphasis on partnership and ‘fair’ prices. In return the direct and personal relationships with its grower partners means the company gets the pick of the crop for its products. High environmental and social practices also create brand value, with the 2007 BrandZ survey identifying Cafédirect as the most recommended brand in the UK.