Tiffaney George

Future Proofing Your Company through Sustainability-Driven Innovation

Tiffaney George
Metago Environmental Engineers, WA

Abstract:
Today’s business decisions are becoming increasingly complex through an escalation in the options and variables that require consideration. Together with the implications of climate change and an unsustainable use of resources, it is clear that a "business-as-usual" approach is no longer an acceptable business strategy. The innovative decision making approach outlined in this paper is designed to evaluate and entrench sustainability practices within all business decisions. Experience and research suggests that to be sustainable, business decisions need, from the outset, to take into consideration all four pillars of sustainability; that is, economic, environmental, social and governance, in identifying sustainability criteria.

An organisation’s products, services and stakeholder views will determine the relative weightings of the sustainability criteria for the decision at hand. It is therefore essential for decision-makers in this process to reach consensus on these weightings. This paper shows that alternatives can be selected through the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), by conducting pair-wise comparison workshops to develop criteria weightings and a consensus-building approach to sustainability-based decisions. It is demonstrated that by conducting workshops with the full engagement of specifically chosen representatives such as financial, environmental, regulatory and stakeholders, the opportunity for a sustainable decision is maximised. This is because the application of AHP techniques facilitates the development of a shared understanding of the constraints and opportunities of sustainability criteria.

The method ensures that discussions remain focused and communication barriers that can push diversity into conflict are addressed, while all sustainability criteria are given equal consideration. This paper fully describes this decision-making approach, its versatility and significance is demonstrated through a number of example applications.