8 Sustainability Trends Impacting Business in 2024 and Beyond

The ERM Sustainability Institute's 2024 Trends Report examines the global business sustainability environment across industries to pinpoint the most important sustainability trends and corporate reactions for the upcoming year.

The report, which pulls from in-depth research and interviews with industry experts, identifies and connects the top ten changes and suggested paths of action to assist businesses in navigating 2024 and beyond.

8 Sustainability Trends Impacting Business in 2024

Today, a successful corporate strategy revolves around sustainability; it is no longer a last-minute addition. Businesses need to adjust as society expectations change and environmental issues get more intense to remain relevant and competitive. Ten key sustainability themes that are reshaping the corporate environment are examined in detail below.

Responding to Climate Change: There is no ignoring the necessity of reducing climate change. Companies are under growing pressure to lessen their carbon impact from authorities, consumers, and investors. This tendency calls for an all-encompassing strategy that includes:

• Decarbonization methods include implementing low-carbon technologies, increasing energy efficiency, and shifting to renewable energy sources.
• Emissions from the supply chain: Working with suppliers to decrease emissions along the whole value chain.
• Utilizing carbon markets and offsetting techniques to attain carbon neutrality is known as price regulation and offsetting.

Human Capital: Going Above and Beyond Normal: Labor relations will not return to normal, even though many of the challenges brought on by COVID-19 have passed. Employers are being forced to reconsider their human capital strategies as worker engagement and workplace disruption levels stay low and high, respectively. The pandemic brought to light the importance of a positive work environment and the well-being of employees. Companies are setting priorities.

• Work-life balance and mental health: Putting in place initiatives to assist workers' mental health and wellbeing.
• Building inclusive workplaces that encourage creativity and employee participation is known as diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I).
• Investing in staff development to create a workforce prepared for the future is known as upgrading and upskilling.

ESG Integration: Environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, considerations are now necessary for sustained corporate performance and are no longer optional. Integrating ESG effectively entails:

• Finding the ESG concerns that are most important to the company and its stakeholders is known as the "significance assessment."
• Analysing and managing ESG performance through data and analytics is known as data-driven decision-making.
• Risk management involves locating and reducing risks associated with ESG.

To Safeguard Natural Systems: The impact of nature on businesses is becoming increasingly important. Environmental protection has been pushed alongside climate change concerns by regulations and voluntary standards. Strategies that promote nature include:

• Conservation of biodiversity refers to the preservation and repair of ecosystems via conservation efforts.
• Adopting methods that reduce their negative effects on the environment is sustainable land and resource management.
• Principles of the circular economy: creating goods and procedures with less waste and more resource conservation in mind.

Simplified Sustainability Reports: Transparent and comparable sustainability information is becoming more and more in demand. Companies need to manage:

• Standardized Reporting Frameworks: Using models such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) or the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
• Implementing mechanisms to effectively gather, handle, and report ESG data is known as data management and reporting.
• Materiality Focus: Giving top priority to disclosing data that will be of most interest to stakeholders.

Creating Robust and Sustainable Supply Chains: Businesses are going to examine their supply chain more and more to fully understand the potential and hazards it presents. Important things to think about are:

• Risk management and supplier assessment: Assessing suppliers' sustainability performance.
• Enhancing supply chain transparency to address labour and environmental issues is known as traceability and transparency.
• Creating plans for dealing with disruptions to the supply chain and hazards associated with climate change is known as risk mitigation.

Enabling Sustainable Production and Consumption: Is waste finally coming to an end? A combination of regulations, legal action, stakeholder pressure, and resource constraints are compelling businesses to reconsider how they manufacture and package their goods. It looks like sustainable sourcing and circularity will become common in business practices.

Technology and Sustainability: Putting artificial intelligence to the test with artificial intelligence (AI) making a big splash, businesses now have another electronic instrument in the form of inventory for gathering and handling ESG data. The next year will see how effective AI is in supporting long-term success. Companies implementing more sustainability-related technologies will benefit from generous rewards. Important uses consist of:

• AI and Machine Learning: detecting supply chain interruptions, assessing ESG data, and optimizing energy use.
• Blockchain: Improving traceability and transparency in the supply chain.
• Internet of Things: Tracking effects on the environment and maximizing resource use.

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