Simple and efficient

Today, sustainable development in business is significantly more than just an endeavour of convinced environmental managers. It is about responsible management commitment, professional risk management, adaptation to market requirements, a long-term orientation. These things are not actually new. However, they represent a new kind of opportunity for companies to successfully meet the challenges of the market.

Global challenge in a local environment

The scarcity of and general competition for natural resources inevitably lead to an increase in the cost of raw materials. At the same time, the increasing industrialization of emerging economies is leading to an increase in global emissions. And finally, current social challenges such as demographic development have also had an impact on the global economy.

Responsible for the total impact

In the wake of globalisation or worldwide migration, sustainability considerations have become central to the corporate strategy of many national and multinational companies. However, sustainability is not only a development that a company must take up strategically; increasingly, it is also an intrinsic will as a company to take responsibility for its entire impact, be it economic, environmental or social.

Sustainability: a definition

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Report, 1987). This commonly used but rather abstract definition of sustainable development turns out to be very concrete when looking at an individual company.

Because today, every medium-sized company must:

• be profitable and sufficiently liquid to ensure its survival;
• adapt to increasingly rapidly changing challenges; 
• demonstrate a long-term profit potential for its investors;
• have a risk management system in place for all potential economic, social and environmental challenges affecting the company;
• Satisfy its customers and partners (suppliers, employees, neighbors and community);
• maintain its image;
• optimise the use of natural resources and energy in order to conserve resources, cut costs and reduce emissions.

Or, to put it another way: think globally and act locally, think both in the short and long term; in all decisions, meet economic, ecological and social requirements at the same time. Implementing sustainability in a company is nothing other than a long-term orientation towards increasing value, with all its opportunities and difficulties.

Sustainable project evaluation

Far-sighted medium-sized companies have already gained experience with "sustainable management". This is understood to mean an integrated management system in which the areas of finance, quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001), social affairs (OHSAS 18001), health and operational safety are combined. For a few years now, ISO 26000 has also been showing the way in which a company can make itself fit for sustainable development. This approach is ambitious, as it requires coherence, leadership, transparency and a professional approach to conflicting objectives; however, it often has a positive impact on the cohesion and efficiency of the company.

A "sustainable project evaluation " is a complementary approach to this or can be seen as a first step towards sustainability. This approach is focused on projects and activities where sustainability is highly likely to be required: Investments in

Step towards sustainability

personnel, infrastructures, markets, new products or services, acquisitions, purchases, sponsoring and more. Each of the activities listed has an impact on the three basic pillars of sustainable development, namely economic, social and environmental. Above all, a sustainability assessment of a project makes sense if this project changes the management system or takes place outside of its processes, and thus the system-related criteria cannot be applied.

Simple rules in a complex environment

Sustainable project evaluation means nothing other than a complete, forward-looking analysis of all possible impacts of a planned or already started project. It covers economic, social and environmental issues in equal measure.

It is essential that the process takes place as a team so that a consolidated picture emerges from the different perspectives that can be communicated to the outside world. Each individual team member, whether from the areas of marketing, human resources, production, environmental management or PR, contributes his or her own professional expertise. Only if an important point cannot be conclusively clarified does one turn to an external specialist. Thus, a sustainability assessment is above all a process that helps to get an overview of a project in a simple and structured way, and not a calculator that provides a fixed figure at the end for the final assessment of whether the project is sustainable or not.

A simple type of sustainable project evaluation is based on an Excel spreadsheet that assesses the potential impact of a project using a catalogue of questions. This is based on economic, social and environmental aspects and can be adapted to the needs of the company without much effort. In addition to assessing the impacts, it is important to note the comments, questions and considerations formulated during the process. These statements serve to optimise the project and provide a basis for the final decision-making process.

As a supplement, a column can be added in which the affected stakeholders (employees, neighbourhood, suppliers, etc.) are described and in which it is simultaneously noted whether the effects are short-term (temporary) or long-term (irreversible or permanent). This allows a better assessment of the impact in relation to the business strategy. In a second step, the one or

Various evaluation methods

other outcome can be quantified or evaluated in more detail if this information is useful for decision making or project optimisation.

Currently, there are various assessment tools for project evaluation according to sustainability criteria. The only compilation of such assessment instruments available in Switzerland has been published by the Federal Office for Spatial Development ARE. The instruments are available on the Internet, and the procedures can be downloaded from there. About a dozen different assessment methods are listed. These range from the simple list of questions written down on paper, through classic questionnaires oriented in Excel spreadsheets, to more complex, computer-supported databases.

What is the purpose?

A project evaluation according to sustainable criteria within the company is certainly appropriate for all projects where economic, social and environmental impacts cannot be excluded and which may therefore be controversial: the acquisition of new machinery, the development of new processes, the relocation of production to adjacent locations, the establishment of new production plants, the establishment of new production facilities, the establishment of new production plants, the establishment of new production facilities.

IntensiveUse

The risk analysis is based on the following factors: the change of regions or countries, the change of suppliers, renovations and new buildings, the introduction of new working models, mobility concepts, to name just a few examples. This type of assessment goes beyond the obligatory and traditional risk analysis and makes it possible to identify unfavourable aspects of a major project at the planning stage, to optimise projects when the associated follow-up costs are still low, and to steer a company's innovation performance in the direction of long-term added value. It helps to create value in the financial, social and ecological areas, to live the corresponding core values of the company in its day-to-day business and to build up a corresponding reputation as the market value of the future and as social trust capital for times when it may be necessary to draw on it - times from which even the best-managed company is not immune.

Rapid development in the construction industry

In the construction industry, the penetration of this method is currently very high; after all, construction is very resource-, personnel- and cost-intensive. And it is usually very long-term. Several construction-specific tools have been developed, such as SméO (City of Lausanne and Canton of Vaud) or Kompass 21.

SméO's "Red Thread of Sustainable Construction", for example, is a tool for assessing sustainability criteria from construction to deconstruction. Also very promising is the "Sustainable Construction Switzerland NNBS" network, which is currently developing a "Sustainable Construction Switzerland" standard, among other things.

practice makes perfect

These instruments are usually very simple to use. Nevertheless, practice has shown that a facilitator who knows the instrument well can be very helpful.

The benefits of a sustainability assessment of a project:

•  allows a quick overall view of the project, taking into account all economic, social and environmental impacts
• improves communication, mutual understanding and cooperation between the different departments of a company
• makes advantages and weak points of a project visible
• takes into account aspects relating to the duration (short or long term) and territorial scope of the project
• allows risks and potential conflicts to be identified at an early stage
•  contributes to improvements of the project and shows new potentials
•  provides arguments that allow a decision to be made on a sound data basis and in full knowledge of the facts of the case
• identifies potential conflict situations and allows different interests to be weighed up.