What’s Your Elevator Speech?
By Jeanne von Zastrow
Senior Director, Sustainability and Industry Relations
FMI
It’s always a good idea to have a few key “elevator
speeches” in your mind just in case you run into that perfect person with whom
you’ve been hoping to share your latest idea, strategy or cause.
FMI’s Sustainability Executive Committee, consisting of
sustainability experts from 22 companies, are creating a new toolkit for the
industry on “Making the Business Case for the C-Suite” – and one element of
that toolkit will be concise, customizable strategic language to help
executives effectively articulate the business case in less than 60 seconds.
Why are we doing this?
Because sustainability is complex and complicated, our industry –
including C-Suite - often struggle to understand the scope of sustainability
impacts and the bottom-line results for their activities in this area. Sustainability is interwoven into every
job and decision we make. Yet, in
many companies, executives are not precisely aware of how sustainability
initiatives are effectively transforming the business, creating competitive
advantages, spurring innovation, attracting new talent and opening up new
revenue streams.
Many leaders are already seeing returns on investment related
to store enhancements, from greener buildings to energy efficiency and waste. Innovative
retailers are now moving to transform every activity – from the farm to the
landfill – including sourcing, transportation, packaging, recycling, fair labor
and empowering a new shopper generation.
An integrated sustainability strategy is a competitive advantage, critical
to a brand’s image, and ultimately reduces risk within the supply chain.
If you search the Internet, you will find a myriad of studies
and resources that document the business case for sustainability. There is no lack of hard evidence
proving the value of a good sustainability program, but much of that great
information goes untapped because it is either too generic or too lengthy and
difficult to decode. FMI’s members
see a great value in translating existing information into our own language,
and combining new, industry specific guidelines and case studies into one
strategic tool that is customized to the retail food industry. As an
association, we want to present information in a practical, hard-hitting format
that is easy to navigate and customize.
As a prelude to the development of the new toolkit, we will
be featuring Bob Willard as a keynote speaker at the Sustainability Summit in
October in Washington, DC, to speak about “Competitive Advantage and a Triple Bottom
Line – Marking the Business Case to the C-Suite.”
Bob is a leading authority on quantifying and selling the
business value of corporate sustainability strategies to the C-Suite, and he
has created this presentation specifically for our industry.
He’ll present us with new ideas,
customizable tools and personal examples to help attendees increase
effectiveness as cha
nge agents in their companies.
His book,
The New Sustainability Advantage, was released this year and his
website is full of free tools and resources to get people started.
The FMI Sustainability Executive Committee will present its new
toolkit as a free gift to our industry – with the goal of helping the food
industry move forward faster, together toward success.
The toolkit will be a concise and
relevant way for you to develop and customize your menu of “elevator speeches”
for that strategic moment when you can make a major difference in the direction
of your company’s path to sustainability.
