Sustainability is a driver for new business opportunities and innovation

Sweden and Lithuania are getting more and more connected. And not only via NordBalt cable, increasing business and culture interactions, but also by Lithuanians, who when residing in Sweden, are active in engaging with Swedish people. Our club is yet another vehicle to foster such links beside its main purpose to better connect Lithuanians ans Swedes for professional development.

This Autumn we are accelerating activities and on 24 September we organised our second event. This time – it is the seminar-discussion on corporate sustainability as a driver for new business opportunities and innovation. In line with the idea of member’s self-education, the LPS member Neda Nordin, corporate sustainability, CSR and innovations expert, proposed to share her and her Swedish colleagues – Nicklas Ihren and Amanda Jackson – knowledge on this quickly expanding topic.

Nowadays sustainability is being translated into concrete business concepts that make better sense to companies. The topics of circular and shared economy, industrial symbiosis, product as a service and many others become popular on every conference floor. The speakers have focused on how sustainability innovations, new business models, and cross-sectoral partnerships can bring scalable impact for both – environment and society, and the business itself. There are many good examples that prove that sustaistainabily can be profitable. In US, the study named “Project ROI: Defining the Competitive and Financial Advantages of CSR” completed in 2015, shows the return of well performed sustainability programmes. In such companies, for example, market value increased by 4-6%, sales increased up to 20%, and employee turnover rate reduced by 25-50%.

The seminar has been attended by members of LPS and Swedish professionals interested in sustainability. We saw many business cards being exchanged between the participants and hope for more success stories! We believe that each of us can contrubute to make this world a better place.

The event took place at the sustainable Swedbank HQ premises and was moderated by Egle Obcarskaite.