Focus on sustainable value creation when fixing your purpose

It is the responsibility of the board to define and review the company’s purpose and to translate it into a strategic view. The current crisis is also an opportunity to recalibrate and clarify the fundamentals of the company’s business model. Business as usual belongs definitely to the past and our traditional economic model is undergoing profound change. This coronavirus pandemic reveals also that we can’t continue to maximise profits for the sole shareholders, ignoring the collateral damages to the people and the planet. Today we urgently need to define new ways to create value based on human, social and environmental capital, not only because of increased regulation (17 SDG’s) or pressure from the entire society, but also because a financially successful organisation is not viable any more without taking into account the interests of all the stakeholders. Companies who made this ESG shift tend to demonstrate that they do preserve people and the planet while increasing their long-term profitability. So how should you start? By setting the purpose of profit-making: which profitable solutions do you want to create to the problems of your stakeholders and what is the right level of profitability? Business performance should be simultaneously measured by financial as well as non-financial reporting. Integrate sustainability in your business strategy is not only a matter of survival, but it is also an opportunity to innovate! It opens the door to new technological solutions, to motivated and qualified employees and to forward-thinking attitudes…