Increase Profit with Sustainability
Introducing Bob Willard
When it comes to making your business more sustainable, it really doesn’t matter what your motivation is. It would be nice to think that entrepreneurs are making decisions on sustainability for altruistic reasons, but in business, often the bottom line is what matters. Regardless of reasoning, the important thing for our planet is that the right decisions are being made and that those decisions can actually increase your profits substantially.
Bob Willard is a man leading the charge to get businesses on track with sustainability and showing them how these efforts will make them more money. Bob spent over three decades with IBM Canada before taking early retirement to begin his second career as a speaker and author. During the majority of his career at IBM, Bob was blissfully ignorant to the issues with sustainability until there was a proposal to open a water treatment plant near a nuclear generation station in his home community. In his attempts to change the plan for the water treatment plant, Bob realized how many big issues that were out there to tackle and he knew that it would require the expertise of business to make the biggest positive impact. Bob started and finished a part time master’s degree at the University of Toronto, and for his masters paper he took on a subject his professors didn’t think existed… a business case for sustainability.
Bob has since came out with his book, Sustainability Advantage and now speaks around 100 times a year. His suggestions can conservatively increase profits for almost any company around 50-80% within three to five years just by doing things that other companies have already done. By doing nothing, you could jeopardize your current profits by about 35%. Listen to this week’s episode to get your company on track and future fit.
In this episode
- Bob tells us how he went from working at one of the worlds leading computer companies to a champion of sustainability.
- He tells us why a company’s motivation to become sustainable shouldn’t matter.
- Bob tells us about some big companies doing some big things in the field of sustainability, but wants them also to realize that they have a long way to go yet.
- We hear about Bob’s new project, the Future Fit Benchmark.
- Bob also fills us in on some of the best political parties, countries, and businesses to support for their sustainability efforts.
- Greg mentions how “companies for good” seemed like it was almost fiction 15 years ago and how everything has changed from that perspective.
- Dave mentions how people run companies, and generally people are not evil and have the right intentions.
- Greg and Dave put out the call for guest suggestions from our audience.
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