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Services
The Natural Step engages with organisations to transform the way they do business by integrating sustainability principles into their core strategies, decisions, operations - and bottom line. We help companies understand how the current state of the world is impacting business systems, and how, in turn, business systems are impacting the state of the world.
What We Do
Our team is a unique combination of scientists, business people, researchers and educators offering multi-disciplinary expertise to our clients. Together we create an innovative blueprint for sustainability that will:
- Improve productivity and save money
- Introduce new product and service design
- Increase shareholder value
- Give companies a competitive advantage by strengthening brand value, securing customer loyalty and trust and reducing risk
- Move the company, the broader industry, and society at large toward long-term sustainability.
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How We Do It
We achieve these goals by providing business leaders and managers with the following:
- A deeper understanding of sustainability as a business opportunity - not a liability. We show them how economic, environmental and social systems are interdependent and how to use this analysis to drive business strategies that will lead to a competitive advantage in today's evolving marketplace.
- The practical tools and information necessary to forge a path toward sustainable business practices and systems.
- Access to an extensive global network of sustainability experts and business leaders committed to accelerating the world's transition to a sustainable and more prosperous future.
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Services We Offer
The Natural Step engages with its clients as intellectual partners in creating innovative solutions, strategies and products. We offer the following advisory services for your organisation:
Sustainability Briefings
A key first step to engaging in a sustainability initiative, these briefings provide a critical summary of the state of the world using social, environmental and economic markers. With these early-stage briefings, we help align key decision-makers in your organisation around a common understanding of the principles of sustainability and how these principles apply to your company's vision and goals.
Sustainability Assessment
This program involves conducting a comprehensive analysis of the major flows and impacts of current business system, as well as the organisation's positioning for change. By identifying critical sustainability issues specific to a company and industry sector, we can examine their business implications, highlight areas of risk and compelling opportunities for moving forward. By assessing the company culture and change dynamics, plans are designed for effective implementation and measurement.
Strategic Development
Knowing that sustainability work requires a long-term commitment and careful planning, we work with executives and their designated team to map out a sustainability vision for the organisation and collaborate with key decision makers and managers to create a strategy and action plan for getting there.
Performance Improvement
With strategic plan in hand, our advisory team supports the execution of specific initiatives with appropriate training and tools. We also help set up the metrics and method to evaluate the overall progress of sustainability efforts and modify as needed to systematically enhance performance. This may include broad initiatives to work with stakeholders, including supply chain management.
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Design
Over 70% of a product's impact is determined in initial design phases. Prior to sourcing materials or determining distribution, designers and engineers are making decisions that have ripple effects on supply chains, consumer demand, and product end-of-use.
Beyond considering the curve of a line or the thickness of an object, a designer's intent must adapt to a new context. Demands on natural resources are increasing as global awareness of immense unmet human needs grow. At the highest level, these are design problems. Designers, by affecting both demand and supply, offer a key pathway forward to making a new, more ecologically and socially sustainable world. A principled approach that considers sustainability is key.
Our staff build on understanding The Natural Step's principles and framework to direct designers toward new processes, tools, and methods for discovery and creation. As a not-for-profit, research driven organisation, we provide access to the most current thinking in the field. We also connect design teams with expertise in pertinent subject matter generated through academic, governmental, or corporate enterprise. Our reach extends to our 12 worldwide offices to communicate global innovation in a timely manner.
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Training and Education
To ensure that sustainability principles and the methodology that supports them become fully integrated into the organisation, we develop customized training programs and materials for training trainers, and for conducting ongoing workshops for employees at all levels, from management to service staff as well as supply chain contractors.
Specialist Seminars
The Natural Step offers customized sustainability seminars for groups of 15 or more. These seminars are designed for collaborative teams within a company, or for a mix of companies and other organisations tackling cross-industry problems such as sustainable hardware, energy, supply chain strategies, packaging, design, etc. The Natural Step advisory team may also draw upon our partners in the design and facilitation of these 2 - 4 day intensive sessions, as the topic and size demands.
The Sustainability Seminars are designed for teams of people interested in learning how to use 'systems thinking' and principles of sustainability to create a vision for sustainability in their organisation, and how to analyse, plan, launch and measure sustainability initiatives.
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