Can sustainability initiatives deliver tangible business value?

In EROAD’s 2022 Road to Sustainability Report, 84% of businesses with vehicles said their current sustainability initiatives have delivered one or more tangible business benefits, across a range of measures including: customer satisfaction, employee participation, brand recognition and increased productivity.

Half of those who started sustainability reporting in the last 2 years have already seen improved customer satisfaction and a third also report improved brand recognition & reputation – which shows that payoffs can come quickly.

The benefits can improve over time too. The longer a business has been measuring and reporting on sustainability, the more likely they are to see a positive impact on areas such as financial metrics/ROI, investor/shareholder satisfaction and measurable impact on the environment.

Reporting itself doesn’t deliver this, so what do these businesses have in common when it comes to the initiatives they’ve undertaken?

Transitioning fleet and assets to alternative power/fuel sources

One of the most common initiatives amongst these groups is that they’ve been transitioning vehicles and assets to alternative power/fuel sources. Here you can see some of the positive impacts experienced and the percentage of businesses who have started transitioning their fleet/assets:

Unlocking ROI from sustainability initiatives

When it comes to the bottom line (those seeing an impact on financial metrics/ROI), the most common initiatives they’ve undertaken are:

–           Using more sustainable materials (51%),

–           Transitioning to electric/hybrid vehicles/plant (40%)

–           Setting and measuring sustainability goals (40%)

Although 93% of this group say challenges remain, such as prioritisation, it’s clear that they have the data and systems they need to track and measure – 75% are not challenged by data availability, and 81% have no issue linking goals to return on investment.

While fleet performance might only be part of the picture for some, they understand it plays an important role – you can’t manage what you don’t measure! 87% either have or plan to have GPS tracking/fleet telematics installed in their fleet.