In June I attended my very first Forum Network event designed for our Members and Partners. The focus was on ‘the business case for achieving sustainability step-change’. What does that mean? Well, smart businesses know that they need to radically re-think the way that they operate, and what they are offering, by making investments in what we call ‘step-change’ sustainability activities: those that intend to make a large, fast contribution to the trajectory we need to create #theBIGshift to a sustainable future.

Forum highlighted examples from partners C&A, B&Q, Finlays, PepsiCo and Ecover to show how they drive business benefits and positive bottom line results. Before delving into our partner-led workshops to explore their successes, David Bent, Forum’s Deputy Director, articulated five building blocks for a successful step-change business case:

• Have a journey to build on – have you already created favourable conditions and ‘open ears,’ using low-risk, low-cost, highly successful moves?
• Seek out the right senior executive leadership – Do you have a sponsor whose role and credibility matches the risk, scope and strategic implications of the decision? If not, what do you need to do to gain the right executives’ support?
• Take a long-term view – Does the business have a long-term view on how it creates value, continues to operate, and endures? If so, how does the proposal align with this?
• Have a specific business rationale – There needs to be a clear, bespoke link from the action proposed to value creation for shareholders, one that holds water under scrutiny.
• Address status-quo bias in financial tools – In a nutshell, the historic ‘do-nothing’ case is flawed, because it utterly fails to account for future resource constraints imposed on the business, or worse, on its customers.

It’s safe to say that this event was highly relevant for our Network; afterwards, many mentioned the step-change lessons would be applied to their own contexts immediately. In particular, the case studies from our featured Partners stimulated conversations centred on how participants could approach issues and funding challenges in new ways. I got to see Matt Sexton of B&Q dig into some unique challenges facing a couple of participants in his workshop, and even do a bit of problem-solving on the spot. Very helpful indeed!

So, as it was my first major Network event since becoming a Forumite, what did I observe? First, the energy and buzz: It was amazing to see how downright keen our Network members are to immerse themselves, learn, and apply to their contexts. Under the auspices of this ‘learning attitude,’ I was shocked to learn that two hours had elapsed, upon glancing at my watch the first time that day! Second, many participants commented that a robust, highly deliberate business case will help, but it doesn’t allay the immediate resource pinch felt by sustainability advocates across sectors. Given broader conditions, this isn’t going away, and Forum ensures this is addressed through the applied learning approach to event design. Finally, I suspect many in our Network would agree with me when I say that our events are a great (and rare) opportunity to get out of day-to-day ‘workthink’ and enter a more strategic and reflective space for a few sustained hours.

And the snacks were pretty good too.

Related links:

• Find out more about our Sustainable Business work
• Read more about #theBIGshift and how we create system change in a blog from our Lab
• Follow Aaron Hay on Twitter