Business families are increasingly focusing on sustainability, demonstrating how to embed best practices, create shared value, gain a competitive advantage and achieve long-term growth, a recent report showed.

A global family business report from KPMG Private Enterprise and the STEP Project Global Consortium, titled “A road well-traveled – How family businesses are guiding the sustainability journey” brings together personal insights from the sustainability experiences of top 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 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.

Raajeev B Batra, Partner and Head of Private Enterprise, KPMG Lower Gulf, said: “The UAE’s family businesses have displayed a commitment to communities, and now is the time for them to make sustainability performance a part of responsible business practices, aligned with the government’s vision. UAE family businesses that deliver on their sustainability goals are more likely to see their reputations enhanced, attract, and retain top talent and generate new business opportunities.

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’.

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Somshankar Bandyopadhyay