The Collaboration Imperative For Sustainable Businesses

Collaboration has been key to humanity’s success since the beginning of time. It’s no surprise, then, that collaboration is critical within the business environment as well. While the free market tends to discourage collaboration, many of today’s businesses are seeing the value in working across systems, removing silos, and collaborating with both stakeholders and competitors. This concept is called the “Collaboration Imperative,” and as global environmental problems become more complex and intertwined, it’s becoming critical for organizations focused on sustainability.  

Why? Issues like climate change are often difficult to solve in a vacuum. The reality is that the world’s businesses and communities are intertwined, and efforts to work towards a solution can be affected by the actions of other organizations. Bringing everyone together takes advantage of the wisdom of the crowd, and it can lead to more effective solutions. Plus, most businesses face similar challenges when it comes to sustainability. If you’re looking to reduce your waste, use ethical labor, or cut back on pollution, for example, there are thousands of other companies going through the same thing. Working from the collective wisdom of thousands of companies is likely to bring about better results than a single company working alone.  

Improved Technology

With these ideals in mind, it’s essential that organizations come together with a shared purpose and leverage their collective resources and brain power. Here are a few of the benefits of collaboration for sustainability. Technology plays a key role in helping unlock solutions to the world’s climate problems. Working together with other entities makes it possible to improve and combine technological advancements for the best results.

Companies that are on the forefront of sustainability solutions can partner with companies that excel at marketing to leverage each other’s strengths.

Faster Implementation

When it comes to sustainability and climate issues, efficiency is key. The longer it takes to get solution-oriented initiatives up and running, the worse the problem will become. Working together often speeds up the process and improves outcomes. There are many organizations working on various sides of sustainability issues. Businesses can collaborate with governments, academic organizations, charities, and manufacturers and suppliers in addition to other businesses. Each entity will approach sustainability from a different lens, bringing a diversity of thought that can lead to breakthroughs.

Diverse Perspectives

There are many organizations working on various sides of sustainability issues. Businesses can collaborate with governments, academic organizations, charities, and manufacturers and suppliers in addition to other businesses. Each entity will approach sustainability from a different lens, bringing a diversity of thought that can lead to breakthroughs.

Focused Marketing

Lastly, many climate change organizations don’t specialize in marketing. However, building public awareness and support around sustainability solutions often helps them reach widespread adoption more quickly. Companies that are on the forefront of sustainability solutions can partner with companies that excel at marketing to leverage each other’s strengths.

It’s clear that the path towards a sustainable future requires teamwork and collaboration. Here are a few actions you can take to align with the collaboration imperative in your own work.

• Take action to reduce gate-keeping in your organization. If you find a solution to a sustainability problem that may help others, make an effort to share your findings on a timely basis.
  

• Keep up with what other organizations are doing in the sustainability space. They may be progressing in ways that aid your own efforts, leading to amplified success for both companies.

• Understand your strengths. If you excel in one niche, spend some time brainstorming ways to put those skills to use for communal benefit. Offer your time to other companies who can share their strengths, too.

• Attend conferences and other events where you might benefit from shared expertise. Put your organization in situations where you’re exposed to new ideas.  

If you face resistance in implementing these collaborative measures, you’re not alone. Don’t forget that the every-man-for-himself mentality is ingrained into today’s businesses and entrepreneurs, and undoing those instincts is a process. The actions above are a great starting point, and you can begin to collaborate in more extreme ways as you become comfortable with sharing ideas and seeing your competitors as sources of inspiration. After all, when we make progress towards sustainability goals, everyone wins.

Business Takeaways

• Understand that collaboration is critical to the future of sustainability. Gate-keeping progress may be good for individual profits, but it holds back the global community.
• Audit your existing processes to assess where you’re missing opportunities to collaborate. Do you have wins to share? Do you have specific questions that other organizations can help answer?
• Work through the action items above to begin expanding your window of collaboration. You may choose to start by collaborating with others in your industry, then bring in outside entities over time.