Sustainability
EPS – Where sustainability strategies are opportunities leading you to profitable growth
EPS – Where sustainability strategies help you meet your business goals.
EPS – Where sustainability strategies represent your durability.
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability is inherently about durability. The Brundtland Commission defines it as “the capacity to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Green is another way in which sustainability has been expressed. As energy costs increase, so too does the demand for environmentally friendly products and services, including energy and environmentally friendly design for commercial, public and residential buildings.
For all of us, sustainability is certainly about meeting the needs of the present while ensuring that we leave our children and their children the ability to also meet their needs. But it also means more than that. It is about going beyond meeting needs to ensure that we all have the opportunity to enjoy a healthy and stable environment and economy.
For EPS, sustainability is where business and the environment meet to create a result that is greater than either alone. At EPS, we are about the business of the environment as well as the environment of business.
EPS recognizes that it’s not enough to simply stick a green label on your product or service. Walking the talk means providing problem-solving strategies for the client that incorporate creativity, productivity, efficiency, innovation, savings, conservation and convenience – all parts of the big picture that amount to profitable development.
Sustainability Strategies and Planning Profitable growth today means thinking beyond basic compliance and identifying opportunities that enhance the bottom line. By reducing environmental impacts, and implementing sustainable business and environmental practices, EPS can show you how to minimize risk and cost while promoting performance and profitability.
Corporate Social Responsibility Plans (CSR) are a core component of a company's sustainability program and EPS's experienced team of professionals can help your company reduce its risk exposure, enhance environmental health & safety and achieve sustainability that is tailored to custom-fit your company.
Corporate Social Responsibility
According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility "is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large."
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means different things to different people, but generally it is about the existence of key components in a company's policies and practices, and the interrelationship between and among those elements which include social and environmental activities, corporate governance and compliance - with stakeholders at the center.
One-dimensional financial reporting is increasingly being replaced by triple bottom line (TBL) reporting focusing not only on assurance and auditing processes, but also on verification of environmental and social criteria. With growing demand for corporate social responsibility, reporting processes that verify compliance with certain standards are in the process being made more uniform. According to CMA Management Magazine (Feb. 2005), "The corporate social responsibility movement and resulting TBL reporting processes are now being standardized and formally recognized by accounting and regulatory bodies around the world." Additionally, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is "currently reviewing various narrative and environmental practices. Accountants and their member bodies will be involved in integrating these processes into existing structures or will be assigned responsibility to create new processes.”
What are some of the performance indicators that can help companies achieve sustainability? Among the more relevant governing standards are the GRI Indicators (Global Reporting Index) that list the following:
- Externally developed voluntary charters or principles to which the organization subscribes
- Policies and/or systems for managing upstream or downstream impacts
- Approaches to stakeholder consultation and frequency
- Awards received relevant to social, ethical and environmental performance
EPS helps its clients turn challenges into opportunities and achieve higher standards of sustainability with CSRs appropriate for the individual client.
Supply Chain Management
EPS helps clients see the value and profitability in supply chain management. For example, EPS can show you how to conduct a supplier audit or develop sustainable procurement practices. EPS can heIp you from start to finish.
Sustainable Development & Green Building
Leading companies know that a comprehensive approach to sustainability optimally includes green design and building. This includes a broad range of considerations that incorporates green building and LEED certification, reducing environmental impacts, redeveloping brownfields and broad-based environmental solutions.
EPS's team of environmental and sustainability consultants, engineers, scientists, chemists and executive and managerial education staff specialize in tailoring solutions custom-made for your projects, business or business group. Experience has shown that companies that conduct sustainability assessments and provide training to senior executives and managers concerning social performance and environmental impact, and their interrelationship, can positively affect the financial bottom line.
EPS's skilled team can help turn your green building and development projects into gold.
Partnership and Stakeholder Facilitation
The work of increasing numbers of companies shows that engaging stakeholders and building private-public partnerships also serve to advance the client's bottom line while promoting broader interests.
EPS helps its clients by identifying relevant stakeholders and serving as a facilitator to build relationships that are designed to promote the bottom line.
EPS thinks about sustainability in terms of the client’s entire system and not simply in terms of just outputs such as production and sales. By pursuing sophisticated sustainability strategies that consider every facet of a process and avoiding shallow strategies that limit the client’s opportunities, EPS provides comprehensive environmental consulting where sustainability choices drive profitable growth.
EPS Is About the Business of the Environment.sm
