Investing in sustainability improves the efficiency and competitiveness of the body and paint shop

Private clients and insurance companies prefer, more and more, to entrust their body and paint repairs to sustainability-oriented shops. Since in 2015 a total of 193 countries subscribed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's), launched that year by the United Nations (UN), sustainability has made its way into the concepts that contribute to the improvement of the competitive positioning of companies, including vehicle repair shops.

That multinational commitment achieved six years ago around the SDG's established, in addition, a very specific horizon towards its completion, known as Agenda 2030. Nowadays, we know that companies focusing on the SDG's included in this Agenda improve their efficiency and competitive edge. In addition, the SDG's play a bigger and bigger role in the client’s criteria regarding purchases and choosing a garage, whether this client is an individual or a company.

Do repair professionals know which SDG's have an impact on their efficiency and competitiveness? And, how can garages generate strategies and actions oriented towards those goals, in order to improve their competitive positioning in the market and their contribution to sustainable development? If we take into account that the last studies carried out in Europe, regarding the degree of knowledge that citizens have about SDG's, show that there is still a lot of work to be done, it is safe to assume that shop owners are not much more familiarized with them either. However, while citizens do not exactly know the 17 SDG's established by the UN, they do know that these are goals to improve people’s lives and they also expect the companies they buy products and services from to be focused on these goals. 

Amongst the eco-friendly aspects most valued by garage customers, we can find energy efficiency and the reduction in the environmental impact of vehicle maintenance and repair activities. From this point of view, it is more and more common that repair shops become committed to sustainability by updating their strategies. In addition to their typical improvement of production processes, they include other aspects, such as the installation of systems to generate photovoltaic electric energy for self-supply or the incorporation of electric vehicle charging stations. All in all, the addition of new elements to their environmental management system oriented to minimize the garage carbon footprint, and ultimately, achieve a neutral footprint.

But beyond these questions related to environmental sustainability, more and more shops and garage networks all around Europe are including in their strategies the sustainability aspects included in the 17 SDG's by UN and Agenda 2030, which work on elements such as employees’ health and welfare, gender equality, responsible employment, innovation or responsible production and consumption.

What are you waiting for to become familiar with those 17 SDG's and to think about how to incorporate them into your day to day professional and business activity?