Go green, save green.(UPDATE)

COMPANIES LOOKING FOR WAYS TO CUT EVEN MORE costs from their bottom line should take a closer look at their sustainability initiatives. Organizations with the strongest sustainability programs have dramatically reduced energy, facilities, and other expenses while making significant gains in customer service, according to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group, The ROI of Sustainability: Making the Business Case.

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Aberdeen defines "best-in-class" as organizations that have cut costs in several areas, while retaining customers. Its study of 200 organizations worldwide finds that top-performing sustainability programs enable organizations to reduce their carbon footprint 9 percent, facilities costs 7 percent, energy costs 6 percent, and paper usage 10 percent. Such organizations also have improved customer retention by 16 percent. For most best-in-class firms, sustainability drives all or some of their overall business strategy.

"A growing number of companies must provide verifiable evidence of social and environmental impacts," says Cindy Jutras, vice president and research fellow with Aberdeen, based in Boston. "Yet, in order to justify the continued application of resources, companies must also demonstrate real business benefits." Nearly three-fourths of best-in-class companies have an organizationwide sustainability policy, compared to 58 percent for all other companies studied.

Besides cutting costs, best-in-class organizations have tightly integrated sustainability into their operations. More than half of these organizations have made sustainability metrics part of their value chain performance management. Such metrics can demonstrate that the sustainability initiatives are producing real results, the study notes. To get more out of their sustainability initiatives, the Aberdeen report recommends that organizations implement role-based dashboards to provide streamlined delivery of action items and consolidated views.

The sustainability study is available at www.aberdeen.com.

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