Sustainability
Finding a way to promote socio-economic development and eradicate poverty, while simultaneously halting environmental degradation, is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Chances are that your corporation or organization is mandated to incorporate sustainability principles into all operations as a fundamental way of doing business. This means aspiring to meet the present-day needs of your customers and stakeholders without depleting resources or harming natural cycles for future generations.
If your asset-intensive organization is a utility, for example, you are already responsible for providing much of the essential infrastructure required to sustain human life and enable societal development. Your challenge in achieving sustainability is balancing the demands of growth, regulation, and the replacement of aging infrastructure.
In order to integrate sustainability goals into the operations of an asset-intensive organization, it is critical that you understand effective long-term planning and find a way to develop and implement projects in a way that is environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically efficient.
What does sustainable development look like in asset-intensive organizations?
In addition to the more obvious objectives of protecting and conserving natural resources, contributing to the economic vitality of local communities, delivering a quality product or service to customers at acceptable and predictable rates, and developing employee awareness, a sustainably managed asset-intensive organization must meet the following challenges:
- Maintaining stable, well-planned infrastructure: This means understanding the condition of and costs associated with assets and developing a program to maintain and enhance asset condition over the long term.
- Undertaking adequate, accepted risk: You must find a way of identifying the long-term cost of business in such a way that allows your organization to set predictable rates and product/service delivery for a five- to ten-year projection.
- Achieving effective risk management: This involves planning effectively and creating an organizational culture that identifies and accepts calculated risks as well as the possible related consequences.
- Securing stakeholder support: In addition to developing the plan, organizations must successfully secure support and budget endorsement from key stakeholders and/or regulatory agencies.
How can CopperLeaf help?
CopperLeaf’s ESP product can help you optimize budgets and plans, forecast performance, profile investment risk, and compare investment options effectively. As part of your performance improvement efforts, it can help you better understand the asset value chain and conduct informed risk management that balances short- and long-term needs across multiple operational areas. Bottom line: it can help you establish sustainable levels of performance through long-term, fact-based plans based on asset condition and value… and it can help you communicate those plans to multiple stakeholders with confidence.
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