Diana Rivenburgh's blog

The hospitality industry has greatly ramped up sustainability efforts in recent years.  Early on hotels found ways to cut costs and operate efficiently by saving water and energy.  Today’s efforts are far more sophisticated and cross into every aspect of a hotel from its buildings, laundry, restaurants, golf courses, spas, housekeeping, guest services and technology systems. 

As I sit in my home office I hear the thump of a bluebird flying into my window over and over again trying to get into the fichus tree inside.  While this keep my cats entertained and off my keyboard, I shake my head thinking “crazy bird; you’re going to get hurt if you keep doing that.”   

I recently interviewed Kurt Kuehn, CFO of UPS for my forthcoming book, “The New Corporate Facts of Life” (AMACOM 2013). Kurt described how globalization has impacted the 105 year-old company, and continues to be a key strategic driver for the future. UPS went through a phase of building a global footprint, followed by a phase of adding broader capabilities.

Build the Global Brown Footprint

If we don’t first shift our thinking and reshape our old perspectives, we can’t change behaviors, foster innovation or create new solutions.  We must disrupt the very mindsets and behaviors that have lead to current successes in order to continue to be successful. 

Company leaders are realizing that being more sustainable isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s good for business.  Those who have been operating sustainably for longer periods of time were 50% more likely than the newcomers to say their efforts contribute to profitability.  In reality, responsibility will create a strategic advantage yielding sustainable prosperity if the correct steps are taken.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives; nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” - Charles Darwin

A few days ago I participated as a panelist in AkzoNobel’s second annual Sustainability Leadership Symposium moderated by Deborah Steketee, Ph.D. of the Center for Sustainability at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids MI.

While there are still companies out there who believe in the great trade-off myth, the reality is that ethical companies outperform others over the long term.  In it’s “WME Index,” Ethisphere showed how the publicly traded companies on their 2011 World’s Most Ethical Company list outperformed the S&P 500 between 2007 – 2011 – even in the midst of a global recession.