the business

simplicity

podcast

Sustainability Sprint with Diane Zandee

Episode 165 – 30 November 2022

Diane Zandee is versatile.  She is a researcher at Nyenrode Business University, where she is working on her PhD on circular economy and financial challenges. She also teaches at Nyenrode on corporate social responsibility, always from the business perspective. As sustainable CFO, she helps startups understand their business model and their sustainable value in doing so. As a consultant, she also helps companies in their transition to sustainability and to integrate this into their core activities and take employees and supply chain partners along. Her goal is to make an impact and better understand the business side of sustainability. It is about building bridges between our old and new sustainable ways of working.

Investing in corporate sustainability is now, and in the long run, lowering your risk but also securing your continuity and licence to operate. Do not try to make short-term gains with a sustainable business model, keep the long-term horizon here. Therefore, start small, experiment and gradually build up your sustainable or circular business. More and more investors are seeing the value of a sustainable business that translates to the core of your business. Think of optimising raw materials, extending product life or recycling raw materials. Companies that contribute to optimising value chains towards a circular model have the future in my view. With the complexity of value chains today, quite a challenge, I know. So it requires leadership and vision. And most importantly, you need your chain partners.

Think about how to secure sustainability at the core of your organisation. Do you work in a bank and provide mortgages? Then look at how you can make buildings so energy efficient and build or renovate with circular materials, modular and dismountable. Do you work at a manufacturing company? Then consider whether you can process recycled materials with your current machinery. Do you design products? See if you can use high-quality materials that can be reused after use, and that are repairable. Digitalisation plays an important role here because chain partners will exchange more information with each other about raw material quality, material availability and composition, for example.

Read the ebook about the circular economy here: https://koruconsulting.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-5-Succesfactors-of-a-circular-business-model.pdf

Learn about the circular model here:

The Sustainability Sprint

The Sustainability Sprint is a series of five half-day workshop sessions, designed and facilitated by expert coaches, for organisations to kick-start their sustainability ambitions. In a structured process, participants explore and align with each other on how best to address sustainability in their business. Over the course of the Sprint, they develop an all-around view of the issues and potential solutions. The sessions combine individual and group assignments, inspiration from guest speakers, customer feedback, and a pitch to executive management. The outcomes are a clear action plan, a high level of motivation, and a feeling of empowerment.

The Sustainability Sprint: https://www.qhuba.com/diensten/sustainability/sustainabilitysprint/

Website: https://koruconsulting.nl/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-zandee-8b34372/

The conversations on The Business Simplicity Podcast are inspired by the Simple Business Design framework, which is described in detail in the Simplicity Toolkit.  Get it below for free!

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