Jenny Carter’s family has been in printing for more than three generations. But what struck her most when she studied her firm’s history was how much the business had had to adapt and change over the years.

Since her grandfather Fred Soar set up Soar Printing (see page S8) on return from World War I, printing has moved from hot metal typesetting to offset and now digital. With the rise in social media the industry is facing another hurdle.

“The printing industry is in decline so we have had to be really smart about keeping ahead of our competition and sustainability is a big part of that. We want to be better than our competition at it because it’s good for business and it’s also good for our bottom line. The stronger printers, the ones who can adapt, are the ones that will survive,” says Carter. Carter is chief financial officer at Soar Printing. Her brother Fred is managing director and their sister Vicky client account manager. All three, together with their mother Tui, are on Soar’s board.

Thinking about the longer term and introducing sustainable business practices is in the family’s DNA, says Carter. “We’ve always had that ethic; we were brought up that way. Sustainability is a bit of a new buzz word for a lot of things people may or may not have been doing for quite a while.”

Soar was one of five finalists in the strategy and governance category of this year’s Sustainable 60 Awards and won the medium category. Having that commitment from the top to sustainable business practices was a key factor in making the grade, says judge Simon Telfer.

Telfer heads Stimulus, a consultancy that advises on governance, strategy and succession planning. He’s also co-founder of Springboard, a 750-member group that develops and promotes the next generation of Kiwi directors and trustees. To Telfer good governance and sustainability are almost identical. “Good governance means planning for the future, identifying and mitigating risks and acting in your stakeholders’ best interests, and all those things are sustainability principles as well. A board that is top notch in governance, even if it’s not consciously doing it, is probably acting in a very sustainable manner.”

Rob Fenwick, a professional board director and co-founder of organic waste management business Living Earth, says you just have to look at the last few recessionary years to see that short term thinking does not build strong businesses. “Traditionally directors have had short term horizons. We have been focused on the next quarterly financial result as being the principal indicator of business performance. But now we have to look beyond the 12 month strategy to the risks and opportunities that are not just financial.”

The global financial crisis has done much to propel sustainable business practices to the forefront of directors’ thinking. In the 2010 United Nations Global Compact and Accenture study of 766 international chief executives 80% said the downturn had raised the importance of sustainability in their minds.

Brand, trust and reputation were key drivers of sustainability practices, with 93% saying sustainability was critical to their company’s success.

One Kiwi company that spotted the international warning signs early was Auckland Airport, winner of this year’s strategy and governance category.

Sustainability advisor Martin Fryer says the airport’s sustainability strategy was put in place more than six years ago, around the time of Al Gore’s climate change wake-up call An Inconvenient Truth, and the European Union’s review of the aviation sector and its inclusion in its Emissions Trading Scheme.

The focus on climate change and how it could impact the future of long haul tourism was a huge driver of Auckland Airport’s sustainability strategy, admits Fryer. The sustainability strategy became part of company’s long term strategy, adopted and backed by the board and the company’s senior management team, making it part of the business rather than an add-on to existing environmental management systems. “Without that corporate governance coming down from board level and permeating through the leadership team it’s always going to be a struggle to embed sustainability into day-to-day business performance. But the approach that’s been taken at Auckland Airport has enabled us to do that and it’s made my role a lot, lot easier,” says Fryer.
It was clear in the judging that the airport’s sustainability practices had been in place for a long time and now run throughout the organisation, says Telfer.

“It’s a really complex business and we were really impressed with how they were engaging and communicating with all their stakeholders and how engaged the board was as well as the management team.”

Some companies think setting up a sustainability committee is enough, he says. “Sure it’s interesting, but it’s not going to get you top marks because you run the risk of everyone else going, ‘Great, we’ve got the committee’ and then washing their hands of it. We were looking for sustainability initiatives that are part of the company’s DNA, not just repositories in special committees or at board level.”

From the more than 79 entries in the 2011 Sustainable 60 Awards it’s clear many companies, especially smaller companies, still don’t understand what’s meant by sustainable business practices, says Telfer. “They thought that because they had a product or service that was environmentally friendly they were a sustainable business. But they had no succession planning, their revenue models weren’t strong and they had no long term strategic plans. They pitched their entries on what they did, not who they were.”

For Carter it’s a no brainer. Echoing the title of her paper on the history of her family business, it’s the capacity to endure, she says. “If you want your business to be there in another 10, 20 years, you’ve got to continually refine and adapt what you are doing. It’s about making efficient use of resources so you’re not wasting stuff in your business. It just makes so much sense.”