Are you a corporate sustainability achiever, planner or straggler? Just finished poking through a new report called, "Crossing the Sustainability Chasm: Strategies and Tactics to Achieve Sustainability Goals," that will help you answer that question.
One of the high-level findings that most surprised me on my initial read was the following: no matter where your company falls on the corporate sustainability program curve (I'll define that in a moment), the amount of money that specifically gets side to support related programs is relatively low in the scheme of things. As in none. Or less than one-tenth of one percent of revenue.
The basis of the paper was a sponsored survey of 130 corporate sustainability professionals by market research firm Gartner. There were both public sector and private sector individuals surveyed, although in all cases the companies or agencies they work for had at least $1 billion in revenue or operating budget. All of them were in some way involved in the selection of software for environmental, real estate and or sustainable asset management initiatives. That makes sense because the company behind the survey is TRIRIGA, which is one of the software developers focusing on energy management and environmental sustainability applications.
The report define the "sustainability chasm" as the gap between companies that have already achieved some of their environmental and environmental goals through specific programs and those who are still working toward their initial results. Turns out there are three distinct groups:
Among the first two groups, there were three clear foci for their programs:
As I mentioned earlier, the survey respondents reported that budgets today are non-existent or limited for these initiatives, regardless of whether or not an organization was an Achiever or a Straggler (less than one-tenth of one percent). A large majority of the Achievers expect their capital budgets -- especially for energy management -- to increase in the next three to five years. But they are more optimistic than the Planners and Stragglers. Here's where the TRIRIGA survey respondents are focusing their efforts, with or without extra budgets:
Here are some other findings that are worth noting, but this one is definitely a download if you like reading this sort of thing:
My biggest takeaway from this report is that it is possible to be an Achiever in sustainability without throwing NEW money at the problem. Because, realistically, even though there isn't specific money being set aside for sustainability efforts, those efforts are being supported inside existing facilities, real estate and energy management budgets.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com