Jerry Hogan, Organizational Development Coach and president of The Resource Development Group LLC of Warsaw, recently delivered the opening keynote address at the national conference of The Institute for Sustainability.

Speaking before an international audience of sustainability professionals, Hogan’s speech “What it Takes to Build a Sustainable Consulting Practice” adopted the principles of sustainability for use in a professional organization, and built upon his 12 years of successfully consulting with hundreds of businesses to grow profitably.

Hogan explained that Sustainability has been hailed by MIT scholars and others as the next “mega-trend” in business, in the footsteps of previous “mega-trends” such as Quality, Employee Empowerment, and ISO certification.

Although not widely understood, Sustainability is “A business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental, and social developments.”  In other words, according to Hogan, sustainability is a holistic approach to business, and thus is applicable to businesses of all sizes, ranging from one-person consulting firms to very large businesses such as Wal-Mart and General Electric.  A business that ignores environmental and social issues is also ignoring huge profit potential, since waste in these areas equates to waste at the bottom line.  Although most people think of sustainability in terms of manufacturing, the concepts are applicable to all industries and individual companies.

For more information, or to receive a free sustainability business assessment, contact Hogan at (574) 269-4207, or visit the Resource Development Group website.