Hi ‘for-profit’, why you should become a role model for sustainability!

Last year I wrote “Showcases of a broken economy.” I took a critical perspective on our economic system, which functions at the expense of the environment and society. I described how some companies chase the fast money and bring our planet close to collapse.

Sustainability is often seen as a moral imperative. There is nothing wrong with that. But I think too little attention is still paid to the fact that there are also plenty of economic arguments for companies to balance profit and sustainability impact.

Therefore, in the following I describe five forces for corporate sustainability or why it makes sense for companies to become a role model in sustainability.

1) Customer Demands

People care about sustainability. You certainly are too. We are changing our consumer behavior to reduce our environmental impact. Moreover, most of us demand that companies also make changes to be more sustainable. We as consumers are voting with our money — against unsustainable companies.

In figures: The majority (73%) of consumers would change their behavior and almost half (41%) of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. This is all not just talk, sustainable products have a faster market grow than their…