Van Soest/Koedam Consultancy and sustainability
For a small consultancy such as ours, sustainability is a state of mind rather than a set of procedures. Fair trade, green electricity and awareness for our carbon footprint reflect an attitude rather than published business principles. But that in no way should be read as a passing of the buck. Let us eloborate:
- we don’t run expensive director limousines
- our presentation tools are not designed to impress but to convince, which saves a lot of CO2 (and time)
- our office is extremely modest, utilising existing infrastructures rather than adding new ones
- we never send three people to a meeting when two will do
- we never drive separate cars when combined travel is a viable option
- we use public transport whenever it makes sense
- we do not own energy-intensive plasma screens and limit our use of laptop batteries containing heavy metals wherever possible
- we research the sustainability of all kinds of digital and paper-based office processes, and use our findings to our own business advantage as well as in our individual and collective recommendations
- we prefer to work for organisations with published sustainability goals and (wherever possible) committed to internationally accepted standards.
All this is important
Nevertheless, we appreciate that for a company of our limited scale this means little more than a statement of intent.
More important to us is what we can contribute to your sustainability. In terms of people, planet and profit: that our recommendations reflect not only on your profit but also on your people, and on our planet.
And they do
If you have mastered your computer, and the intricacies of Outlook, you will waste less resources, time and carbon on cars or nocturnal meetings. If you have attained symbiosis with customers, suppliers and colleagues, you will waste less of your own energy, and that of others. That’s good news for the planet. And if you have achieved control over your own processes, you will have learned how to be frugal with all resources that really matter.
For us, sustainability is no fashionable icon or temporary priority. It means, quite literally, that well-understood self-interest does not conflict with business targets, stockholder priorities, staff preferences or customer requirements.
To put it another way, unsustainability is simply not on option. Not in human terms, and not in any kind of business sense. That’s why sustainability is an integral component in all our PEP® courses, and that’s why any company-specific priorities you may have (from coffee machine to climate control, from production process to personal performance) can be easily integrated in such courses. We see it as tailor-made elements in what is otherwise very much a basic business philosophy.