Reasons for Sustainable Business Practices

Why should an organisation change to more sustainable practices? This question needs an answer that convinces the essential decision-makers in the organisation.

A. Normative reasons

Normative reasons include explicit or implicit moral judgements. Something is done because it is believed to be the right thing.

Common normative reasons for sustainable products are:

1. Humans caused climate change. Therefore, humans have to solve the problem
2. Humans cause climate change, and it will affect us all. Therefore, we need to prevent it
3. Humans caused climate change, it will primarily affect low-income people and low-income countries without means to protect, which is an unjust situation we need to mitigate

More sustainability narratives focus on moral judgements. The risk of normative reasoning is that:

• People disagree because of different moral standards
• People feel offended or morally inferior because they are told that their behaviour is morally wrong

The opportunity of normative reasoning is the energy it creates for people with a specific normative view. This purpose motivates me to act and drive change. While normative reasoning is an essential and helpful strategy, Green PO provides more insights about commercial reasoning - the more dominant type of reasoning in organisations.

B. Commercial Reasons

1. Business Fundaments

50% of global GDP depend on natural resources. A collapse or radical changes of natural ecoystems will disrupt the global economy.

Rerecences points:

• Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy https://www.weforum.org/publications/nature-risk-rising-why-the-crisis-engulfing-nature-matters-for-business-and-the-economy/

2. Customer expectations

More and more customers expect products to be more sustainable. While customers are hardly willing to pay an extra price, companies following late risk being not competitive anymore.

Moreover, public authorities have started integrating sustainability criteria in their selection criteria for public tenders.