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Collaborate to make going green sustainable

Cape Town – Environmental, economic and social governance are critical for business sustainability, which needs more attention from all role players, a communication sector expert said.

Ogilvyearth strategist and editor Melissa Baird told Fin24 that Ogilvy’s message to business leaders was that the time for talk was over: the time has arrived for each business, as well as their suppliers and partners, to become more sustainable.

She was talking at the launch of The Conscious Industry, a book published by Ogilvyearth to reach out to brands and businesses. 

“It’s about the changing forces at play in the business arena, resource depletion and the need for the shift towards business practises that are more sustainable,” she said.

“Told in a light-hearted yet informative way, the issues at hand are easily understandable and aimed at provoking thought and raising awareness about the new paradigms that business will need to operate within.”

“It’s a very much a collaborative story,” she said. “We need to get together more business forums, more opportunities … with marketing and sustainability managers to talk more.

“Sustainability managers might be connecting with other service providers that are looking at efficiency and what to do with waste, whereas marketing people might be running off on a tangent doing something else.

“So it’s an opportunity for us to collaborate, to work together in sectors and industries, and say, ‘how can we improve the way we do things to save money, to save energy, to save waste and to continue evolving.

“So it’s a never ending story.”

Watch the full interview and preview of the book:


Baird gave a few tips and tools to help businesses become more green:

1. Improve efficiency in your business, including waste, water and energy. Cape Town businesses could speak to the Green Cape consultants to see how they could guide you in your first attempts at re-looking the way your business disposes of waste through the innovative Industrial Symbiosis Programme. Others could visit Green Certified.
- Visit Green Cape
- Visit Green Certified

2. Green building standards can enable your building to improve its resource use to save costs, improve staff well- being and attract better tenants and rentals.
- Visit: GBCSA

3. The green maps give you an indication of the business initiatives already out there. You can sign up if your business makes the grade.
- Visit Cape Town Green Map
- Visit Joburg Green Map

4. Only listed companies are required to do integrated reports, but for small and medium enterprises the value of reporting is becoming more and more apparent as it enables you to identify areas of resource efficiency and product innovation as well as the stories that can be told around social initiatives.
- Visit GSA Campbell

5. Keep up-to-date on business and government initiatives that are driving the case for sustainability.
- Visit Green Business Journal

6. As consumers we all have a role to play in understanding how products, goods and services are made and how they impact the environment and society
- Visit Life in Balance
- Visit Green Home Magazine
- Visit Green Times
 
* To get a free copy of the book or PDF, email Baird now.

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