Successful Small Businesses and Sustainable Cities Share Symbiotic Relationship

Sustainability is the contemporary global movement that will help society and all inhabitants of this planet on many levels.

If you’re mainly focused on the environment, water and forests, sustainability will ensure their existence.

If you’re interested in human beings, their medical and personal welfare, and lifestyle rights, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals will preserve them.

If you’re interested in your habitat, municipality and country, sustainable principles will guarantee their livability.

If you’re interested in growing your company, sustainability will help you accomplish that goal.

Seventeen principles and numerous interconnected paths of cooperation will improve life on this planet. These are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by the 195 UN member-states in September 2015 to transform our world.

GOAL 1: No Poverty

GOAL 2: Zero Hunger

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being

GOAL 4: Quality Education

GOAL 5: Gender Equality

GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality

GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

GOAL 13: Climate Action

GOAL 14: Life below Water

GOAL 15: Life on Land

GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

Small businesses have a major role to play in this constellation of mutually-beneficial activities that will simultaneously benefit their companies, customers, vendors, communities and everyone else.

All large and small businesses should make efforts to become sustainable because it’s smart business. By becoming sustainable, large companies will impact the quality of life on a global scale, while small businesses, even neighborhood ones, will have a similar impact on the equally important local level.

Sustainability does not merely pertain to the environment or climate change. It’s time to stop thinking about sustainability as a green option meant only for so-called tree-huggers. Sustainability is a core strategic competence for businesses today and for those that want to be around for the long term with revenue-building consequences. Adopting sustainable business practices can improve your bottom line—in both the traditional and the environmental senses.

Businesses in every municipality and country can contribute to creating large or small sustainable communities. City halls and businesses, as two key local driving forces, can collaborate to create comprehensive sustainable economic environment that grows revenues and improves living conditions.

Cities offer the greatest challenges and opportunities for sustainable development because by 2030, six out of 10 people will live in urban areas, according to the United Nations. Twenty years later, it is projected that more than 70% of the global population will be living in cities. That’s where the action will be. Depending on how we develop and manage cities and their infrastructures, including business environments, in the coming decades, cities could become either a source of inclusive sustainable development and growth or a force for environmental destruction.

Cities face huge demands for providing infrastructures that meet social and economic needs, including employment, of a growing urban population. In order to meet the economic and public health challenges of urban growth and control air and water pollution levels, cities will need to shift from a high-carbon infrastructure to one that supports inclusive economic development and poverty eradication, while improving citizens’ quality of life and giving everyone and every business the chance to thrive.

Sustainable urban design’s greatest impact could be on economic performance and businesses should participate in this process so they can reap the benefit of the sustainable cities boom. By creating improved quality of life conditions for residents, sustainable cities simultaneously lay the foundation for wide-ranging economic benefits. 

Sustainable cities directly benefit businesses by attracting a smart and diverse workforce, and indirectly boost the corporate bottom line by improving workforce health and time efficiency. Healthy and happy citizens make healthy and happy workers who then spend money in sustainable businesses. According to Greenbiz.com, the justifications from sustainable cities fall into four categories:

• Increased time efficiency: Commute times are reduced when people live closer to their jobs, and the transition from private cars to public transit or non-motorized transit reduces traffic congestion. Today, it is estimated the average car commuter loses 42 hours every year — up to 80 hours in some places — due to traffic. Companies benefit when employees avoid sitting in traffic, earning back nearly two days’ worth of time every year.

• Access to talent: Skilled workers increasingly want to live in walkable and centrally located places close to services, amenities and job opportunities. Not only are companies more attractive to skilled workers if they are located nearby, but their central location accesses a greater talent pool for hiring.  
• Improved health: A physically and mentally healthy workforce is a more productive workforce. Shorter commutes means more time for people to get involved in activities improving their minds and bodies. Research shows every hour per day spent driving increases the risk of obesity 6%. Alternatively, biking even just a couple miles to work can increase cardiovascular fitness and reduce cancer mortality. A healthy workforce reduces workplace absenteeism while increasing job productivity (quantity of work) and performance (quality of work).  
• Innovation inspired by diversity: Sustainable cities attract demographically and professionally diverse talent — a major catalyst for new ideas. In “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Richard Florida pointed out that diversity outperforms ability in driving innovation and creativity. Access to public spaces, a feature of sustainable cities, fosters interaction among diverse groups of people.

Statistics abound about consumers’ preference for businesses that are sustainable. Millennials are more inclined to spend their disposable dollars at retailers and restaurants that are recognizably sustainable. This means if your business is sustainable, tell the marketplace that it is.

Among the SDG principles, #11 refers to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030 – the deadline for fulfilling the goals. It calls for its adherents to ensure access for everyone to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums, in addition to providing access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons. This helps make the happy and healthy citizen.

This year’s United Nations Civil Society Conference will focus on “Building Sustainable and Inclusive Communities.” It will be held in Salt Lake City in August 26-28.

The session’s Concept Note states: “As the complexities of urban life grow, communities and local leaders are at the forefront of finding sustainable solutions to poverty and inadequate housing, hunger and health, clean water, energy, environmental degradation and climate change, infrastructure, transport, education, migration, violence and gender equality. These and other challenges are interconnected with similar issues in rural areas and municipalities of all sizes, where activists and civil society organizations partner with governments and the private sector to ensure that communities are inclusive, equitable and sustainable.”

While the three-day session will offer a treasure chest of ideas on how to build these communities and how to attract appropriate stakeholders like businesses into the mix, I came across an interesting article that said that cities could already look to businesses rather than officialdom to build sustainable communities.

Politico held a roundtable on this topic, during which the participants opined that mayors, like business owners, recognize that bottom lines matter. Sometimes the constituency that needs the most convincing is the business community itself. In cities, getting buy-in from major corporations and even small businesses is crucial to reducing the overall carbon footprint because it is often those companies—and the massive office buildings they inhabit—that are the biggest energy users. True enough.

Furthermore, other speakers shared that successful projects need the seal-of-approval from respected third-party non-governmental organizations such as universities and non-profits that can help improve the design or bolster credibility of a project at a time when trust in government and politicians is running low. This builds partnerships.

Mayors, many of whom have come from the business community, have to fight against a well-worn political script that pits business interests against public health. The most successful projects marry economic benefits with sustainability — sometimes in surprising ways, the panel said. This group at least understood that good business and good environmental practices are the same thing nowadays. Business people know that if they’re not responsible from an environmental standpoint, they’re not going to be able to attract the best employees.

And this point refers back to my earlier point about happy and healthy citizens.

Businesses that incorporate some or all of the SDGs into their companies’ business plans and become active in building sustainable, inclusive towns will reap the benefit of greater revenue. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development anticipates that the sustainability windfall could be as high as $12 trillion a year in the course of the next 12 years. A slice of that would surely satisfy any business owner.

The goals hold great possibilities for all businesses and have the potential to unleash innovation, economic growth and development at an unprecedented scale. The opportunities could generate up to 380 million new jobs by 2030.

That should be enough to open the eyes of wary small businesses and even satisfy local economic growth.