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Take the lead for a green organisation

Experts suggest a new mindset for corporate sustainability

BT and Cisco teamed up to sponsor some of the world’s leading academics on the topic of corporate sustainability. The six experts ... two in the UK, and one each in the USA, Spain, China and Singapore ... came together using the companies’ telepresence solution to discuss, brainstorm and ultimately create the paper you can download here. The paper is both a vision of corporate sustainability, and a proof point of how flexible working technologies can help far-flung colleagues come together with impressive results.

The authors place an emphasis on innovation as the means to add value, not just to the bottom line, but to the environment and society at large.

The research and case studies summarised in the paper build on more than three decades of experience and insight. With the Copenhagen conference returning the world’s focus to sustainability, we thought the time was right to shine the spotlight back on this report, first published last year.

This paper draws on earlier lessons, and builds on the solid foundations laid by initiatives including the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Tomorrow’s Global

Company, SustainAbility and others, all of which have impressed upon the business world the need to look beyond shareholder value, to consider social and

environmental impacts, as well. We have called this approach: S2AVE (Shareholder and Social Added Value with Environment restoration), to emphasise how organisations can successfully and profitably address all three elements of the ‘triple bottom line’ simultaneously – becoming increasingly agile and innovative as they do so.

This view reflects our conviction that sustainability is not an objective so much as a journey, one which may see the business undergo radical transformation. We demonstrate how, effectively wielded, innovation can help open the doors to radical new business models, engage profitably with previously untapped markets, and enable the business to become a truly agile, strategic entity through a systemic and integrated approach.

You can download the white paper for full details. There’s also a podcast that lets you hear opinions direct from the authors, and the video clips below see them answering some of the most relevant questions inspired by the paper’s creation.

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