CSOs Nexus: A Comprehensive Guide to Sustainable Businesses Practices in Portugal.
Over the past two years, I’ve engaged with over 400 Portuguese companies, from large corporations to SMEs, to understand their sustainability journeys. Despite their diversity in size, sector, industry, and geography, common challenges and approaches emerged in their transition towards sustainability. This insight led to the creation of the CSO Nexus framework, designed to support companies on their journey towards the Next Economy, ensuring that no one is left behind. The CSO Nexus framework provides a structured approach to addressing these challenges and driving sustainable business practices.
The Six-Dimensional Circle
From July 2022 to December 2023, in a decentralized project across 12 Portuguese cities, companies discussed major themes impacting their sustainability journeys. The data highlighted six key dimensions, each critical to successful sustainability integration:
Compliance
Public Governance
Management
Innovation
Financing
Communication
The Dimensions Explained
Compliance:
The discussions on compliance focused on the necessity for companies to adhere to legal and regulatory requirements related to sustainability. This dimension is crucial as companies often struggle to navigate the complex and evolving regulatory landscape. Compliance serves as the foundational layer for sustainability efforts, ensuring that companies meet necessary legal standards and avoid potential penalties or reputational damage.
Conclusion: Clear, concise legislation that is easy to implement and tailored to company size, sector, and activities will significantly benefit companies on their sustainability paths.
Who can help: Associations - Smart Waste Portugal, Grace and BSCD Portugal, that sponsors training and support on regulatory frameworks. Also some companies provide training on new regulations as a support to their stakeholders - Sociedade Ponto Verde.
Public Governance:
This dimension covers the role of public institutions in providing the necessary frameworks and support for sustainability initiatives. It includes the development of policies, strategic plans, and support mechanisms that help companies navigate sustainability challenges. The discussions revealed a clear gap between public policies and corporate needs, emphasizing the necessity for external support and strategic direction from the government.
Conclusion: Bridging this gap will foster a collaborative approach to sustainable development, benefiting both companies and the country.
Who can help: If your company is operating in the Tourism sector, Turismo de Portugal has already develop a Sustainability Strategic Plan for the sector, with tools to sponsor your journey.
Management:
The sessions highlighted how sustainability has reshaped business management. Companies can no longer neglect sustainability; it must be embedded in both external and internal management practices. Internally, businesses need to develop sustainability-driven skills and knowledge and manage processes, practices, and resources to achieve specific goals. Externally, companies must handle sustainability issues systematically, bridge information gaps, and improve value chain management while adhering to regulatory and policy requirements. Engaging shareholders and stakeholders is essential to ensure competitiveness, value creation, and talent retention.
Conclusion: Providing training on sustainability for internal teams, including leadership and subcontractors, fosters a culture that prioritizes sustainability at all levels of the organization.
Who can help: AICEP has developed a training offer based on sustainability requirements for Portuguese SME’s Exporters. In addition to associations, you can also explore offerings from universities such as Nova SBE and Catolica Lisbon (I am one of the alumni of this program).
Innovation:
Although this trend only emerged in the second year of the project, the results were consistent. Companies view innovation as a tool to make sustainability tangible and create value by developing new sustainable products and services. Collaborative innovation, particularly within the value chain, reduces costs and time to innovate and provides access to talent that may not be available internally.
Conclusion: Promoting an innovation culture, encouraging employees to contribute ideas, and investing in research and development were unanimously supported by the companies involved. They expressed keen interest in further discussions to develop partnerships focused on sustainable solutions.
Who can help: Beta-i showcases several examples on its website where innovation has made sustainability tangible. Additionally, check out their canvases; you may find interesting tools to work with.
Financing:
Financing sustainability is a significant theme, especially with new EU regulations such as CSRD, EU taxonomy, CSDDD, and SFDR. Companies now face the necessity of reporting non-financial results to access funds. This is a major concern as many companies lack the skills and resources for additional reporting. Additionally, the increasing number of "sustainable financing" solutions makes it complex to choose the most suitable options.
Conclusion: Clear guidance and support are needed to navigate these challenges and various financing opportunities. Enhancing the quality of sustainability reporting is essential to meet financial institutions' and investors' requirements. Providing training for finance teams on sustainable financing options and how to leverage them can further support these efforts.
Who can help: BPI has developed a tool to guide you in securing public financing support for your sustainability journey. Turismo de Portugal developed FOREST to support tourism organisations on their sustainability reporting.
Communication:
Communicating sustainability involves challenges across all dimensions discussed. Laws and regulations are complex and ambiguous, and government strategies related to sustainability are often hard to interpret. Internally, many companies lack the structure and capabilities to effectively communicate sustainability. Externally, the evolving trend of greenwashing and increasingly aware consumers make it difficult to deliver clear, transparent, and honest messages about sustainability efforts and performance. Effective communication is pivotal for the success of sustainability initiatives and should cover all aspects of a company's operations.
Conclusion: Companies agreed on the need for clear, data-backed information about sustainability efforts to build credibility and support informed decision-making among stakeholders. Regularly updating employees and customers about sustainability goals, progress, and successes can foster engagement and trust.
Who can help: GRACE has developed a toolkit for “Responsible Sustainability Communication”.
So What Really is the CSO Nexus?
Nexus represents the connection between things, people, or events that are part of a chain of causation. This project revealed how interconnected these dimensions are, how they are challenges for the companies I’ve worked with, and they are relevant in accelerating sustainable business practices in Portugal.
The CSO Nexus:
The CSO Nexus is about recognizing and addressing the chain of interrelated dimensions that each company must consider to advance their sustainability journey effectively, that comes from real data shared by companies.
The insights gathered from discussions with Portuguese companies highlight the interconnected challenges and opportunities in pursuing sustainability. As CSOs, it is crucial to lead the way by integrating these dimensions into your strategies and fostering a culture of sustainability, innovation, transparency, and collaboration. By doing so, we can drive meaningful change and contribute to a more sustainable global economy. The CSO Nexus framework serves as a guide to navigate these complexities, ensuring that companies can achieve their sustainability goals effectively.
And how can the CSO Nexus framework help?
If your company is an SME, you can refer to the examples I've shared for practical solutions and contacts to support you in your sustainability journey. You are not alone in navigating the complexities of sustainability. Feel free to reach out, and I can direct you to the best person or support for your specific challenge.
If you are a CSO (or aspiring CSO) for a large company, it's crucial to consider how you can support your value chain within the CSO Nexus. These dimensions represent real challenges companies face on their sustainability path, and it will be important for you to develop and partner to sponsor solutions.
Ready to team up for change?
The interconnected dimensions of the CSO Nexus highlight the multifaceted approach required for successful sustainability integration. By addressing each dimension thoughtfully, companies can enhance their sustainability maturity and lead the way in creating a sustainable future. Engage with these insights, contribute your perspectives, and together, let's build a robust and resilient pathway to sustainability.
Collaboration is key. The CSO Nexus must evolve by incorporating diverse perspectives and understanding various challenges that might fit within these dimensions. This continuous evolution is the only way to develop new tools and strategies to catalyze the path toward sustainability.
Your insights and suggestions are invaluable as we build a comprehensive database of resources to support the CSO Talks community. Share your solutions, contribute your ideas, and let’s shape the future of sustainable business practices together.
Let’s talk?
Ana
