Jonathan Freeman, outgoing group sustainability director for the CareTech Foundation, bids farewell to his monthly Caring Times column.

After three years in my role as group sustainability director, and seven years as chief executive of the CareTech Foundation, I am moving on to an exciting new chief executive role outside the sector.

This, then, will be my last Sustainability Matters column for Caring Times. It’s an opportune moment to reflect on the sustainability journey that the sector has been on, and to offer some thoughts about the road ahead.

First things first, sustainability remains the issue of our age. Addressing with urgency the climate crisis, building strong and cohesive communities, putting people before profit, and rebuilding trust in business and the government have never been as important as they are today. Call it sustainability, ESG [environmental, social and governance], whatever you like – this is no fad.

Organisations – be they for-profit or otherwise – have to put sustainability at the heart of their businesses if they want long-term success. The smart ones do this willingly because they understand what the research shows: businesses built around purpose and sustainability are, quite simply, better businesses. A 2023 global survey by Bain & Company and EcoVadis of 100,000 businesses proved that “positive ESG outcomes are a trait of successful companies”. Put more plainly, the study shows that as well as benefitting the planet and society, businesses that take ESG seriously make more money.

Sadly, there are still too many businesses – and a diminishing number of investors – that focus on short-term financial gain and see only the short-term costs of sustainability-related action. It astounds me that business leaders too often can’t see beyond the end of their noses, with a three- or six-month perspective being the extent of their strategic business development horizon. It is dispiriting that this is also true in the social care sector, where companies enable individuals to live their best lives possible. (As a side note, if social care operators don’t take a long-term perspective, then what right have we to berate the government for not taking such an approach to the social care sector?)

The good news for those of us who care about the imperative of a long-term perspective to tackle sustainability issues is that the choice of whether to address sustainability challenges is being taken out of the hands of the reluctant. Governments, regulators, investors and customers are increasingly making organisations take responsibility for their impacts on the planet and society – and this will only accelerate.

In the UK, the perceived wobble by the last government on environmental issues was taken by some as a signal that they could put these issues on the back-burner; this was always wrong, and these issues are very firmly on the political agenda. There will be increasing pressure on businesses to shoulder their responsibilities – and financial penalties for those that don’t.

The fantastic Social Care Future’s vision for the sector is: “We all want to live in the place we call home, with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us.”

How can a sector rooted in this uplifting, exciting and positive mission not take sustainability seriously?

I am incredibly proud that, beyond the achievements that we have collectively delivered at CareTech (as set out in our recent ‘Purpose Report’), I have had the honour to serve as the founder and chair of the Social Care Sustainability Alliance. Over the past year or so, we have seen membership grow. We have helped other providers with key sustainability issues by collaborating to build an impressive set of papers.

My message to operators across the social care sector is clear. Do not come to these issues reluctantly or half-heartedly. Seize the initiative. Be at the front of the race rather than at the back. Because, as per the title of this article, you can run but you can’t hide on these issues.