If you manage sustainability, it makes sense that you would be very interested in your company's business continuity plan. Why? It's the effort that seeks to maintain operations during abnormal events – tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, terrorist incidents, etc. Each of these events has the probability of risking the business. The business continuity plan should also include the concepts of business resilience and long-term performance. While these may not risk the business, they are at the heart of any sustainability program. Never heard of continuity planning? If you are not engaged, it makes your business risky by nature! It is important that continuity is included as one of the five basics of sustainability.

Risk management incorporates practices that have more traditionally gone under such terms as continuity, contingency and disaster recovery planning into an organization-wide activity. However, continuity is now extended beyond the traditional process of just writing a continuity or recovery plan. With the involvement of sustainability planning, business continuity is now about managing risk while providing for business success. There is a growing awareness that abnormal operations can have a profound negative effect on employees, their families and the wider community and the community within such organizations operate. The management of operational risks is a proactive approach whereby the organization provides the critical resources to ensure that the critical business objectives continue to be met in the face of ANY disruption. Managing for sustainability provides an organization with a structured capability to continue to operate effectively in the face of potential significant business disruption. This is a sea change for many sustainability and corporate responsibility managers.

The attributes for an effective continuity management effort include the following:
- Senior managers are committed to continuity management and sustainability.
- Recognition that there are two kinds of risk – an opportunity for gain as much as a potential negative event or lost opportunity.
- Shared care and concern for issues and their impacts on people, the organization and its key stakeholders.
- Relisting and flexible practices about continuity planning and operational risk management.
- Continual reflection on changing environments and practice through vigilant monitoring, analysis and feedback systems.

Leading sustainability programs now regard continuity not as a costly planning process, but as a key value-added improvement process firmly integrated within risk management. Continuity now provides significant advantages in those scenarios