It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Anton Roe, CEO of MHR.
Sustainability has long been a buzzword but now it’s becoming a critical part of strategic planning for organisations, especially as ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues take a priority position for stakeholders and employees alike.
There are many opportunities for organisations to forge the way as leaders in their sector and create real change if action is taken now. In times of financial challenge, it can be easy to reduce the time and investment spent on ESG, however, having sustainability-based objectives and reporting key results is one way to maintain focus and track progress. Furthermore, this can result in vital business benefits such as improved employee engagement, a stronger employer value proposition, higher talent retention and attraction rates, brand recognition, energy cost savings, alongside a sense of community and long-term stability across the people in your teams.
One specific opportunity is engaging younger workers around issues of sustainability. Gen Z and millennials strongly value protecting the environment and ensuring our way of life is sustainable. This not only drives career choices but can also be leveraged for younger workers to influence senior decision-making around sustainability, with reverse mentoring being a great tool to inform the C-Suite on just how important this issue is.
Whether it be environmental changes, community work, internal progression or training programmes, sustainability is about doing the right thing by people and the planet we share. Organisations need to find ways to push forward in the fight for people and planet.
