Sustainability is increasingly becoming a crucial competitive parameter.
Sustainability is now raw competitive strength for Danish companies.
Sustainability means access to new markets, employees, and capital. Not to mention the retention of existing ones. Thus, sustainability is practically the driving force behind business value—a force that is rapidly accelerating in these years.
As a small or medium-sized enterprise, you might think that sustainability isn’t a driver for your business. But sustainability isn’t about the size of your company; it’s about who your customers, employees, and investors are—and whether they consider sustainability important. Have you asked them about it?
Large companies are already rolling out their initial sustainability requirements to their suppliers, covering both climate and social issues. More demands will follow as they become increasingly specific about their sustainability needs.
In the coming years, large companies, banks, pension funds, etc., will be subject to more legal requirements regarding sustainability. This is to ensure that the EU and Denmark can meet their commitments to the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate. There are specific requirements for reporting and information, where companies must also account for their suppliers' sustainability. Therefore, you should be prepared to report on sustainability if you are a supplier.
Valified Creates Business Value
Companies on Valified's platform report that they are already experiencing significant business value from being able to report on sustainability to their customers and investors, especially in tenders, etc. Companies with a clear grasp of their sustainability data and strategy simply find it easier to win orders and engage in discussions with new customers. Sustainability has become a topic of conversation over coffee at client meetings, networking events, and similar gatherings—driven in part by the CO2 tax and the war in Ukraine.
What Can You Expect in the Near Future?
We are at the beginning of a comprehensive transition toward a sustainable global society. We have only seen the first concrete measures with new reporting requirements, a new CO2 tax, and diversity requirements in boards. As the planet's resources become more depleted, more political and regulatory measures will be necessary, and large companies and financial institutions will need to take greater responsibility to remain attractive to consumers and employees.
It’s about:
- Increasing taxes on the consumption or pollution of natural resources such as water, air, and biodiversity. Taxes that will directly affect all companies' bottom lines.
- Setting floors and ceilings on companies' resource consumption, which could hinder growth in unsustainable businesses.
- Requirements for social responsibility to be considered as suppliers to public entities and large companies. This could include mandates for hiring people with disabilities, diagnoses, or chronic illnesses, apprentices, refugees, etc. Such requirements will eliminate suppliers without social initiatives from the start.
Overall, it will no longer be enough to focus on a single sustainability initiative, such as sponsoring the local football team and promoting it in a nicely designed brochure. It will be necessary to present accurately calculated sustainability data and concrete action plans with ongoing follow-up, both for environmental and climate issues as well as social responsibility, to be a relevant partner and supplier in a few years.
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