NEWS RELEASE
CITY OF LONGMONT
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The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic required unprecedented health measures across all geographies, with business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders disrupting the global economy at a scale never seen before.
The crisis limited the operations of many businesses and had implications for employees, supply chains, cash flows, and investor returns. Yet, it has also highlighted the importance of effective and sustainable continuity planning for business resilience to future global pandemics, and to other potential types of future shocks (impact of climate change, lockdowns in case of political unrest, etc.).
The Sustainable Business Program would like to share some research-based factors businesses can take into account to recover and open doors in a more sustainable and equitable fashion.
- Reopen the business responsibly: Example include: maintain employee health & safety through reopening, responsibly leverage government relief & stimulus programs, adapt your business to maintain customer safety & well-being
- Support your stakeholders & rebuild business strength: Examples include supporting your employees & maintaining a diverse & inclusive workforce, pivoting to new business models to support customer resilience & serving new post-pandemic markets, understand ing vulnerabilities in your value chain & building resilience in value chain partners
- Leverage sustainability to advance your competitive advantage: Examples include retaining flexible working practices beyond the crisis, digitalizing your products or services to increase equitable access, ensuring your products address existing or COVID-related sustainability trends
- Capture the sustainable & financial value of your impact: Examples include creating a sustainability narrative that incorporates your COVID response actions, identifying opportunities to communicate your impact to develop or strengthen relationships with the public sector to advance sustainability in your jurisdiction
- Support advocacy efforts to ensure the fair distribution of stimulus benefits to under-represented business groups (e.g. minority-owned businesses)
The Sustainable Business Program will continue providing businesses with opportunities and resources to implement inclusive, equitable, environment-friendly, and regenerative economic actions to recover and build back a better Longmont.
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