As com­pa­nies move to address the cli­mate cri­sis with car­bon neu­tral­i­ty com­mit­ments and oth­er sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals, cli­mate change dis­cus­sions still tend to focus more on car­bon emis­sions than social implications. 

Yet the suc­cess of an inclu­sive green econ­o­my will depend on address­ing human equal­i­ty along­side cli­mate action, reskilling the glob­al work­force to pre­pare for fast-chang­ing busi­ness oper­a­tions, and upskilling mil­lions of oth­ers to per­form the job func­tions that an inclu­sive green tran­si­tion could cre­ate with­in the next decade. 

As com­pa­nies grap­ple with social issues such as fair labor prac­tices, racial and gen­der inclu­siv­i­ty, eth­i­cal behav­ior, and glob­al pover­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty has expand­ed to encom­pass far more than chas­ing net-zero emis­sions and cut­ting down on paper use. 

That’s accord­ing to Robert Richard­son, Human Expe­ri­ence Strat­e­gy Advi­sor at SAP, who focus­es on top­ics such as social sus­tain­abil­i­ty and social respon­si­bil­i­ty in speak­ing with SAP cus­tomers about steps their com­pa­nies can take toward max­i­miz­ing pos­i­tive social impact. 

Ahead of a Nov. 29 town hall (free and open to non-mem­bers; watch the recap here) in which he will dis­cuss social respon­si­bil­i­ty along­side Gitte Winther Bruhn, Glob­al Head of Social Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Solu­tions for SAP, Richard­son reflect­ed on how SAP defines social respon­si­bil­i­ty, why busi­ness­es should address the sub­ject, and what’s in it for them. 

A Great Responsibility

“Social respon­si­bil­i­ty is the idea that, with­in our busi­ness­es, we should all be respon­si­ble with resources, includ­ing human resources, and that we should care for one anoth­er and focus on issues like diver­si­ty, equi­ty, inclu­sion, belong­ing, child­hood adver­si­ty, reduc­tions in child or slave labor, and human rights,” Richard­son explained. 

Social sus­tain­abil­i­ty takes issues like these into account while tak­ing the long view to ensure soci­ety can meet such needs with­out com­pro­mis­ing future gen­er­a­tions. As Richard­son likes to say, ​“Cli­mate sus­tain­abil­i­ty gets a well-deserved share of the atten­tion. But we also need to ensure that this plan­et is one we want to live on after we are done sav­ing it.” 

For instance, as tools like arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence become main­stream, busi­ness­es need to make strate­gic deci­sions around eth­i­cal hir­ing (and fir­ing) prac­tices. Embed­ding ​“fair­ness” with­in busi­ness oper­a­tions is para­mount to social respon­si­bil­i­ty, Richard­son added. Social sus­tain­abil­i­ty is relat­ed to this con­cept and focus­es on mak­ing deci­sions that ben­e­fit busi­ness­es’ long-term strate­gies while con­tribut­ing to a health­i­er, more equi­table planet. 

As Richard­son puts it, ​“Orga­ni­za­tions are right­ful­ly con­cerned with ensur­ing prof­itabil­i­ty. That’s fair. With­out prof­it, busi­ness­es fail, and the peo­ple inside them expe­ri­ence real hard­ship. But we all even­tu­al­ly turn over in an orga­ni­za­tion. Wouldn’t it be nice if the next gen­er­a­tion of employ­ees had the same oppor­tu­ni­ties we did?”

Achiev­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals requires exper­tise, he adds, from data analy­sis focused on emis­sions and ener­gy use to hard­ware exper­tise focused on installing ener­gy-mon­i­tor­ing mod­ules. Com­pa­nies must design jobs with the right require­ments in mind, whether those jobs require deep sus­tain­abil­i­ty spe­cial­iza­tion or involve some core sus­tain­able com­pe­ten­cies, in order to attract and devel­op talent. 

With green job growth con­tribut­ing to the exis­tent tech­nol­o­gy skills gap, com­pa­nies empha­siz­ing social sus­tain­abil­i­ty through good job design as well as pub­lic sus­tain­able com­mit­ments and achieve­ments, give them­selves a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage and bet­ter posi­tion them­selves with tal­ent that can help meet their busi­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.

“It Pays to Listen”

Social respon­si­bil­i­ty and social sus­tain­abil­i­ty are grow­ing top­ics of inter­est at many SAP cus­tomer com­pa­nies, accord­ing to Richard­son. The rea­son for that, Richard­son states, is that both top­ics are increas­ing­ly impor­tant to employ­ees, can­di­dates, investors, and customers.

​“All these indi­vid­u­als are push­ing orga­ni­za­tions toward sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he says. ​“It has become a busi­ness imper­a­tive.” In oth­er words, social sus­tain­abil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty are no longer sim­ply areas that mat­ter to those com­pa­nies seek­ing to make a pos­i­tive social impact. They mat­ter as well to com­pa­nies seek­ing a prof­itable com­pet­i­tive edge.

“I would love to see every employ­er focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty sim­ply because they believe it is the right thing to do,” Richard­son says. ​“But the fact of the mat­ter is that many com­pa­nies are focus­ing on this because it’s the prof­itable thing to do. When employ­ees, cus­tomers, and investors all insist they want to see sus­tain­able prod­ucts and busi­ness prac­tices, it pays to listen.”

Accord­ing to a recent Har­vard Busi­ness Review report, job can­di­dates are actu­al­ly will­ing to take low­er salaries in order to make an impact in areas they care about. Since the pan­dem­ic trans­formed the way that mil­lions work world­wide, more job­seek­ers are increas­ing­ly research­ing not only how much they’d get paid but what their pur­pose would be at a giv­en company. 

Beyond attract­ing and retain­ing employ­ees, com­pa­nies that pur­sue sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives often see their brand rep­u­ta­tion pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed, with con­sumer demand for their prod­ucts ris­ing accordingly. 

In pur­su­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty in busi­ness prac­tices, many com­pa­nies are dis­cov­er­ing costs and sup­ply chain sav­ings, using their resources more effi­cient­ly, and even uncov­er­ing new lines of busi­ness around sus­tain­abil­i­ty inno­va­tions. In addi­tion to ben­e­fit­ting the plan­et and soci­ety, Richard­son con­cludes, ​“social sus­tain­abil­i­ty makes good busi­ness sense.” 

For more from Richard­son, watch the recap of his Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty Town Hall with Gitte Winther Bruhn, Glob­al Head of Social Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Solu­tions, SAP from Nov. 29, 2023; watch here.