A Global Family Business Report from KPMG Private Enterprise and the STEP Project Global Consortium reveals how business families are great sustainability ambassadors, demonstrating how to embed best practices, create shared value, gain a competitive advantage and achieve long-term growth.
"A road well-traveled - How family businesses are guiding the sustainability journey", brings together personal insights from the sustainability experiences of some notable family business leaders combined with sustainability performance data gathered from 2,439 family businesses across 70 countries and territories. The report which uses both qualitative and quantitative research, cites a multi-generational commitment to create value for all stakeholders as one of the underlying reasons enabling many family businesses to excel as sustainability leaders, reflecting an important shift in mindset away from considering sustainability measures an additional cost of business, but an essential investment in the future.
The report positions sustainability as a familiar concept within business families and an important part of the family legacy, a claim supported with key analysis across varying jurisdictions and sectors that reveal just how embedded sustainability practices have become in family values and business models. Investing in sustainability and operating in a sustainable way is not only viewed as the 'right thing to do', but it's also becoming an essential engine and catalyst for company growth.
Andrea Calabr?, STEP Project Global Consortium Academic Director, says: "Companies that are able to anticipate and meet rising environmental and societal expectations are also more likely to improve their reputations, attract and retain top talent and generate new business opportunities. Sustainability is now a business imperative, as much as it is a stewardship one, and the companies that fail to adapt may struggle to compete in a new, low-carbon world."
"The Global Family Business Report emphasizes some of the key requirements to help businesses to unlock improved sustainability performance - the essence of which can serve as a blue-print to guide sustainable and responsible business practices, many lessons of which are applicable across industry. While every requirement holds significance, it is the combination of these factors that truly impacts the sustainable performance of family businesses," said Sasithorn Pongadisak, Partner, Head of Private Enterprise, KPMG in Thailand.
Tom McGinness, Global Leader, Family Business, KPMG Private Enterprise, KPMG International, says: "I truly believe that family businesses that successfully engage with all their stakeholders on this sustainability journey will not only survive but prosper. Those that don't step up are likely to be left behind and the choice for companies may be that binary. Family businesses have prospered based on core sustainability principles across several generations, and there are many lessons that everyone can take away from their experiences."
The report concludes that no-one can solve the world's biggest environmental and societal issues alone and considers the time to be apt for companies across the world to tap into the experiences and know-how of business families, and to do what's right for generations to come by making sustainability strategies their 'business as usual'.
Source: KPMG Thailand
