With the world gripped by crisis, sustainability is more important now than ever before

To say that the world has been impacted by COVID-19 is an understatement. The global crisis has hit many industries hard, both financially and culturally. Over the last few months, many employees have been working from home or found their jobs put on hold. Uncertainty has characterised this period of unprecedented change both in our professional and personal lives.

Yet, this upheaval has also brought to the fore important issues that companies need to start addressing as we enter a stage of recovery. At Epson, we’ve already begun to examine what values we want to uphold, and have extended this to look at the expectations and intentions of others around us, asking what will drive us all forward in this new world we find ourselves in.

What’s emerged from our initial review is that sustainability remains a beacon, not only for us but for many other organisations and individuals as well.

Over the last months, we’ve been working alongside research specialist B2B International to capture the views of over 4,000 employees and decision makers alike, to understand the extent to which sustainability is being embedded into business recovery. But we also wanted to understand how aligned organisations’ sustainability efforts are with the expectations of their employees and customers. This approach will enable us to gather a completely holistic view of the sustainability issue and the sentiment surrounding it within EMEA.

Our initial findings prove our hypothesis that sustainability remains critical for many organisations. While recovery and financial stability are undoubtedly primary objectives, for over a quarter of those we interviewed, sustainability is cited as a top three priority.  

We’re now taking the views and statistics gleaned from our research, and testing them against groups of our partners, customers and third-party experts, leveraging their thoughts and experiences to round out the collective view. Such an approach enables us to better understand the practicalities and drivers for implementing sustainable solutions.

Over the coming weeks, we will be hosting a series of forums, debates and roundtables, taking place in over 20 countries with the purpose of unearthing the motivations, expectations and opportunities of sustainability in a world that needs it now more than ever.

I cannot wait to share more of what we have discovered around sustainability and its importance in rebuilding and reshaping our society.