Make Meaningful Changes With A Sustainability Audit

What Is A Sustainability Audit?

A sustainability audit is an excellent way to create an effective sustainability strategy for your company. When performing the audit, you take a deep look inside your organization to gain insight into the best way to practice sustainability.

Many businesses are performing business sustainability audits because it helps them develop a good corporate image. They are turning their focus on sustainability as a core concept in strategic management because sustainability is linked to a competitive advantage on the market, in a world that is growing ever more conscious of the damages it is inflicting on the planet.

Today's consumers are beginning to care more about sustainability and green products are in demand. Sustainability is a huge opportunity for your business to cater to environmentally conscious consumers. But more importantly, sustainability is a responsible way to act as a business enterprise. It considers the welfare of the community, treats employees better and meets regulatory requirements to protect the earth.

By making an honest effort and not resorting to greenwashing strategies, you can boost your image and act sustainably for a good feeling and a positive impact on the environment.

In this article, you will learn:

1. Why Sustainability Audits Are Important

2. How You Should Conduct A Sustainability Audit

3. Why A Digital Checklist Can Be The Perfect Companion To Your Sustainability Practice

4 Reasons Why A Sustainability Audit Is Important

Environmentalism and sustainable practices are fast becoming an important strategic factor in many companies all over the world. Today, businesses are publishing sustainability reports and environmental impact or risk assessments. But there are still many issues to tackle and many businesses are still struggling to come up with a sustainability strategy.

A business must perform an environmental sustainability audit to make sure that the organization is making environmental sustainability a significant part of its strategy in order to work on environmental protection. After all, businesses are concerned with making profits and many business operations come with heavy social and environmental costs.

Given that today's consumers are turning ever more environmentally conscious, sustainability is now an issue that can have an impact on business viability, financial performance, and market size. Businesses need to be able to sustainability audit questions to determine whether the organization is following sustainability best practices.

A business sustainability audit is the first step you must take to create a sustainability strategy or improve an existing one because you can only improve something if you know which areas still require work.

An effective sustainability strategy is important and useful for all businesses for the following 4 main reasons:

1. Your sustainability strategy will help you avoid legal ramifications. It is also the key to society's approval and trust. When the government and the consumers find that your business operations are a threat to the environment, your license to operate could be revoked and you will lose clients.
2. About one out of three consumers, a UK study reveals, have abandoned brands because of sustainability-related concerns. There is a sizable market segment willing to pay higher prices for services or products that are more environmentally friendly. But many businesses are not giving them what they need and make inaccurate claims or greenwash their products instead. This can cause serious damage to the company once caught. A sustainability audit is needed to make your business genuinely sustainable.
3. Technological advances are geared towards environmental sustainability. Take electric cars, for example. Not many people can afford them now, but they will likely become more affordable as more and more companies get into this trend. Another evidence of the interplay between technology and the environment is PET, which is commonly used for making clothes and other products. Today, it is known to be toxic not only to humans but to the environment as well. Prioritizing sustainability will allow your business to be one of the pioneers in many technologically advanced products.
4. An effective sustainability strategy is indispensable if you want to go global. You need to make sure your company follows sustainability best practices wherever you operate. You can be accused of environmental dumping if the public finds out you are taking advantage of lax regulations in a country where you are doing business.

How to Conduct a Sustainability Audit

Conducting a sustainability audit is how you will know how your company is performing regarding sustainable processes, services and products. But sustainability best practices are still being developed, improved and will be refined constantly on our way into the future. Since sustainability isn’t always quantifiable, it can be difficult to measure success.

However, there still are different frameworks you can adopt and key performance indicators you can use to assess your strategy. You can, for example, create an environmental sustainability checklist to guide you through your sustainability audit.

You could start by asking questions such as:

• Do we have a clear position about climate change, child labor, corruption, equality, and the wage gap?
• Do we currently have projects related to environmental or social sustainability issues?

If you have responded negatively to the above questions, it’s high time you consider defining what sustainability means to your company, set smart goals, and finally, create a strategy based on your audit.

One of the most common ways businesses measure their sustainability efforts is using the so-called triple bottom line concept. The triple bottom line is a business concept that proposes that businesses must commit to assessing their social and environmental impact, not just their financial performance. It encourages firms to focus on the “three Ps”: profit, people, and the planet, rather than merely caring about profit.

Profit

In a capitalist economy, a business's financial performance is a key indicator of its success. It must generate profit to keep its shareholders happy. Smart business decisions and strategic planning must be designed to maximize its profits and at the same time minimize costs.

People

The triple bottom line concept urges businesses to consider their impact on society and the people. Apart from the shareholders, firms must also uphold their commitment to the stakeholders. Businesses must not only strive to generate profit for the shareholders. They must also focus on creating value for the people affected by their business decisions. This includes employees, customers, and community members.

Planet

The third and final component of the triple bottom line concept has to do with making a positive impact on the environment and the planet we inhabit.

Businesses, especially big, multinational firms, have been the biggest contributors to climate change, which is why they also have the power to eventually drive positive changes. Fortunately, many businesses have accepted this responsibility with building pressure and awareness.

But the effort must not lie on the shoulders of big corporations. Any business has the power to act in a way that helps reduce its carbon footprint. Some ways businesses can make a positive impact on the planet is by using ethically sourced raw materials, reducing their energy consumption, and simplifying their shipping processes.

A Trustworthy Digital Solution For Your Sustainability Audit

Lumiform's mobile app actively and sustainably supports you in creating sustainability audit checklists that you can create easily and flexibly adjust. With changing regulations and the world adapting to more sustainable practices, your sustainability audit checklist can be transformed with just a few clicks.

If you use the Lumiform app, every step of the performance can be performed conveniently via tablet or smartphone – online or offline. You can use the desktop software to create lists and then evaluate the collected data. This significantly reduces the risk of documentation errors and reputational damage.

Also: Abandoning paper in favour of digital checklists supports the environment as well.

Other benefits of a digital environmental sustainability checklist include:

• Benefit from Lumiform’s large ​​template library and go digital immediately.
• If you have company-specific requirements for a unique sustainability audit checklist, our flexible form builder and checklist maker can help you do just that in the blink of an eye.
• Corrective actions for problem areas or items identified during the audit can be assigned to responsible staff from our mobile app.
• Get an overview and stay on top of everything through our automated and comprehensive analyses function.