Resource And Good Business

26 Jan, 2012

Following the news that the world population had reached 7 billion people, there was some media debate and discussion over what the ultimate population size might be and most importantly, what the planet could manage…

We are entering what is known as ‘the resource funnel’ – a perfect storm of rising population, increasing wealth, decreasing natural resources and environmental degradation. The consequence is simply tighter access to resources and challenges around quality of life and environment. Recent food and oil price volatility may be the early signs of this turbulence – although this may now be temporarily dampened by the financial pressures of the last year or two.

At apetito, as we strive to be a more fully sustainable business one thing we keep finding is that sustainability is simply just another word for efficiency. Materials with a low carbon cost tend to have a lower financial cost, reducing waste, driving down electricity and water use and reducing packaging, making them great for the environment and good for our business.

It keeps us competitive, helps us weather the first squalls of tightening economic markets and be a business that is financially sustainable into the long term. At the end of 2011, we began to pull together data on our social and environmental performance to publish our annual Sustainability Statement later this year. It’s very much addressed to all of the stakeholders in apetito and represents our report back to you on how we are doing against our sustainability targets.

If you are a customer or intending to be a business partner of any organisation – in a resource tightening world – we think the company Sustainability Report will be increasingly important, probably more important than its financial statement. It should give you a real sense of how well they can deliver, what kind of people they really are and how likely they are to be around in the future.

This article came from out latest Community Meals newsletter.