Now showing items tagged environmental sustainability

The last couple of years have seen the sharp rise of a very welcome idea: working less. With trends like working from home and the Great Resignation, our collective mentality towards work has undergone significant change. One of the ways we are now seeing this manifest is in the four-day workweek, which is increasingly looking like it’s here to stay.

Many of us assume the idea of a Monday to Friday working week is something that humans have always done – that it reflects some unspoken law about how the nature of work should be. And yet the notion of working five days per week is actually a relatively new concept. In fact, it was stonemasons in Melbourne, Australia, who were the first to achieve an eight-hour, five-day workweek back in 1856.

The demand for sustainability has no less than revolutionised the way companies do business. In the last decade, the move towards sustainable products, waste solutions and emissions reductions has forced businesses to pursue purpose over profits, leading the way to a new and positive form of conscious capitalism.

The call for sustainable packaging has been one of the strongest demands of our sustainability goals, forcing us to turn away from the abundant plastics embraced by older generations. While recyclable materials and a shift away from single-use plastic is nothing new, emerging models for addressing unsustainable packaging offer an exciting glimpse of the future.

In a marketplace increasingly concerned with climate change and environmental sustainability, the call to action for companies rings loud and clear. With Millennials and Gen Z consistently willing to pay more for products with purpose and boycott the companies that fall short, businesses and brands can no longer ignore the demands of the environment, or the market.

In this climate, it is tempting for some businesses to engage in ‘greenwashing’, making statements or taking actions that may seem impressive but in reality do little to mitigate environmental impacts. Other companies well and truly practice what they preach, and it comes as no surprise that these are the ones that reap the rewards.

Within a society driven by capitalist aims – efficiency, accumulation, profits – the endless innovation of new products is a worthy practice. Keeping consumers keen for new products is key, and so the clever marketing, regular new releases and planned obsolescence begin. After all, why would a customer buy a new product if they are satisfied with what they have?

It wasn’t always trendy to be sustainable. In the past, speaking and acting on issues of climate change and the environment often rendered you a hippie or a leftie, or worse still, a vegan. However, what was once an issue kept in the margins is now overwhelming the mainstream, with the need for urgent action being widely acknowledged by businesses, leaders and public officials alike.

The need for environmentally sustainable moves in business has been common knowledge for years. However, while many businesses have implemented changes and strategies to address this, many others have been held back by the need to maintain profits and ROI.

One thing we know about disruption is that it is definitively unpredictable. Perhaps the most unprecedented disruption businesses have faced in recent years has been that of environmental sustainability. As awareness of climate change and its dangers has grown exponentially in the last few years, with student protests filling cities and legislation being passed in many countries, businesses are having to respond to the overwhelming consumer demand for environmental sustainability in products.