5 Steps to Enhance Business Sustainability
‘Frying in Your Own Oil’: How Sustainability Can Make Businesses More Resilient
As a child refugee who subsequently stitched together a multimillion-dollar luxury goods company from scraps of recycled leather, I have always believed that business resilience and environmental sustainability are inextricably interwoven.
When my family fled from persecution as members of a Turkish ethnic minority in communist Bulgaria, we arrived in Istanbul with just two suitcases among us. But we were fortified by the lesson my grandfather imparted from his own life of struggle: “You have to fry in your own oil,” meaning use and reuse whatever resources you have, however meager, to gain the maximum value from them. For my family, living in poverty and trying to turn off-cuts into on-trend accessories, sustainability was not just an optional extra or some empty words — it was the essential source of our strength.
Does most of the fashion industry see the connection between resilience and sustainability? As a label owner, consultant, and academic specializing in fashion entrepreneurship, I’m sorry to say it does not.
It’s well-known that fashion is one of the most polluting industries, responsible for around 10% of all carbon emissions, 20% of all industrial water pollution, and a garbage truck full of clothes burnt or buried in a landfill every second.
A Short-Sighted Approach with Long-Term Costs
Underlying those grim statistics is an unspoken assumption that pervades much of the industry: Sustainability is costly and incompatible with success. Hence, companies cut corners trying to lower costs and pay lip service to sustainability by greenwashing their clothes and products.
That short-sighted approach is the opposite of what my experience (and my grandfather) taught me, and is contradicted by an increasingly weighty body of evidence.
Put simply, the research now shows that if a business wants resilience and long-term success, it should make sustainability the heart of everything it does.
Consider the study conducted by Harvard professors revealing that companies in the top quartile for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance had higher returns on investment and lower stock-price volatility relative to those in the bottom quartile. Or the work of my Oxford colleagues, showing that organizations with well-developed sustainability practices had higher profitability and lower costs than their peers.
But how does a business implement sustainability to become resilient? Based on my experience and research, I recommend a five-step plan that can help any firm, irrespective of their industry, achieve sustainability and success.
A 5-Step Plan to Enhance Sustainability
The first step is communicating a powerful vision to create a shared organizational commitment to sustainability. Amy Powney of Mother of Pearl setting out to create their first sustainable collection in 2018 is a powerful example of how a vision can translate into impressive results in reality. In their case, a 40% sales revenue increase from 2020 to 2021, followed by order growth of 27% and 32% in subsequent years, and an 8% uptick in 2023 to date.
The next step concerns embracing the increasingly strong international sustainability regulations. The approach here is to see compliance not as a threat but as an opportunity to drive innovation and gain competitive advantages by going beyond the minimum requirements. Compliance also matters for investors: 74% of investors said they were more likely to divest from companies with poor sustainability performance, while 90% said they would now pay more attention to a company’s sustainability performance when making investment decisions.
Third, firms must prioritize quality and durability to reduce resource usage while increasing customer loyalty, business resilience, and long-term profitability, as a recent report by Bain & Company demonstrated. In fashion, Patagonia is an outstanding example of building clothes that last, and its “Worn Wear” program encourages customers to repair and reuse, rather than repurchase products.
The fourth step is remembering the human side of sustainability — treating your staff and suppliers right might create additional costs, but it generates a loyalty that is priceless. My own brand maintained its supply and distribution operations seamlessly during the COVID-19 pandemic because we had invested heavily in making our business relationships mutually beneficial partnerships, ensuring our networks were resilient when we needed them most.
Finally, I advise companies seeking to blend sustainability and resilience to stay curious. In the infamously fickle world of fashion, the most iconic brands, such as Chanel or Louis Vuitton, have persisted because their designers’ relentless curiosity enabled them to anticipate and respond to cultural shifts with new products that met society’s changing needs. The leading fashion houses continually search for ways to improve, and several of the most progressive are embracing AI to reduce overproduction, thus improving sustainability and profit simultaneously.
My grandfather was right: “Frying in your own oil” is old-fashioned wisdom that points toward a more sustainable and successful future for all. By establishing a powerful vision, embracing compliance, building durable products, prioritizing people, and remaining curious, businesses in any industry can implement sustainability programs that are good for both the planet and the bottom line.
B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
