What is corporate sustainability?
Care for the environment and concern for social issues have been major topics in society for quite some time, and ultimately gave rise to the concept of corporate sustainability in the 1990s, when it became clear that companies’ economic growth had to be aligned with environmental preservation measures.
Corporate or business sustainability is an operating model that seeks to combine strong financial results with social development and environmental preservation, aiming to transform the current management model by reducing the socio-environmental impacts of a company’s activity.
In this way, corporate sustainability is more focused on value-generation strategy, risk management and business models, for example, so that the brand is strengthened and society develops in a fairer, more equal and more conscious way.
The pillars of corporate sustainability and their benefits
As a growing demand from today’s consumers, one that tends to be valued more each day, sustainability has also become a demand of the business world.
When we talk about corporate sustainability, three pillars can be identified: economic, social and environmental, whose goal is to ensure they coexist harmoniously in companies’ day-to-day operations.
- Economic. This pillar serves to add value to the product or service and achieve a good return on investment.
- Social. This pillar pays special attention to the people affected by the company’s operations, whether employees, collaborators or consumers.
- Environmental. The third pillar of corporate sustainability is based on putting into practice actions with a positive environmental impact, such as reducing carbon emissions, recycling waste and migrating to digital documents.
Corporate sustainability is advantageous to companies in different ways. By committing to the three pillars mentioned, businesses can be positively impacted, improving the company’s image, driving greater employee engagement and even reducing expenses through strategic sustainable practices, among other benefits.
Enacom in the UN Global Compact
“Working on sustainability is about the responsibility we have to ensure that Enacom’s growth is healthy and environmentally friendly.” — Ingrid Vosgrau, Corporate Governance Specialist at Enacom.
The Global Compact is a UN initiative created in 2000 to encourage companies to adopt social responsibility policies.
The proposal is for companies to align their operations with 10 universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption, and to develop actions that help address society’s challenges.
With more than 16,000 companies and nearly 4,000 non-business organizations, spread across 70 local networks covering nearly 170 countries, the UN Global Compact is today the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.
Since March of this year, Enacom has been part of the initiative in Brazil, contributing to mobilizing the business community to adopt and promote more sustainable practices.
In 2022, we strengthened sustainability discussions within the company and identified actions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which can be reviewed in our Sustainability Report.
Some examples of our work can be seen in a few of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as:
- SDG 5 (Gender Equality). Aligned with Enacom’s intention to become a more diverse and welcoming company.
- SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). Linked to our Sustainability Vertical, ZeroCarbon, which has already helped hundreds of people make their purchases more sustainable.
SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action): present in our solutions developed for the Energy, Steel and Logistics sectors, which help our clients reduce the environmental impacts of their operations.
But what about ESG?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. It refers to the set of a company’s good environmental, social and corporate governance practices and the way it positions itself in the market, so that sustainability within a company is analyzed from a financial perspective.
The ESG concept is more recent than that of sustainability, having been listed in 2004 by a working group linked to the UN. More recently, with the climate change agenda heightened by the pandemic, it has drawn greater attention.
In practice, while corporate sustainability is about improving the company through sustainability, ESG focuses on reducing financial risks through sustainability. And the more evident the impacts of climate change become, the more consumers and stakeholders turn their attention to it. As a result, ESG is becoming increasingly essential to maintaining companies’ competitiveness.
ESG at Enacom
Enacom is committed to collecting data to measure the results and impacts of its products and solutions across the ESG dimensions. In addition, as a member of the Global Compact, we are committed to reporting our progress against the Ten Principles every year, which drives our constant evolution in environmental, social and governance sustainable practices.
We believe that with the courage to innovate, we can make a difference. That is why we love opportunities to share experiences and knowledge. One of them is ESG Tech Summit 2023, an online event that discusses the commitment to sustainable business, where we discussed innovative strategies to drive sustainable growth while creating positive impacts in our communities.
In the market since 2009, we have a team of specialists dedicated to enabling sustainable alternatives for developing technology solutions that generate positive impact. In this way, we walk side by side with our partners toward more sustainable production.
Become an Enacom partner and contribute to a more sustainable industry.