In most organisations, the products or services are the core driver for most activities. Consequently, these products and services should be the main starting point for increasing the overall sustainability performance of the organisation and contributing to a more sustainable lifestyle. Key advantages of this approach are:

• Generation of cost reduction potential (e.g. energy and/or resource efficiency);
• Demonstrating responsibility and contributing to sustainable development;
• Improved risk management (from supplier selection to employee motivation);
• A move towards future-proofing the organisation;
• Input for strategy development and support in decision-making processes;
• Strong brand, improved image, clear competitive differentiator.

To me, the challenge of developing more sustainable products and services is a journey, on which you first determine your starting point, define specific goals and then carefully plan the individual stages of your route. Once underway it is important to look back on your achievements, talk to others about them and keep moving. What matters is the journey, not the destination.

A Buddhist economist would consider the approach 'a maximum of well-being through a maximum of consumption' excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.

 Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, British economist, 1973 in „Small is Beautiful“