«Executive Summary
Many companies claim that sustainability is embedded in their DNA or sits at the
heart of their business. The reality is that very few corporations have fully integrated
or embedded sustainability into their business models. While corporate sustainability
programs have made significant progress on initiatives like reducing carbon emissions,
conserving water and improving labor conditions, few have broken out of the
sustainability silo and been embedded into the company’s main strategy to form a
fundamental part of business value creation.
The need for integrated sustainability is urgent: in order to address today’s pressing
global issues such as resource scarcity, climate change and inequality, the private
sector must integrate environmental and social considerations into every business
decision. Embedding sustainability into business not only helps secure a sustainable
future but it also benefits companies, enabling them to prepare for future risks, act on
opportunities and create more value for the business and its stakeholders. And yet, we
acknowledge the challenge business faces in trying to do this as it operates within the
larger global system of markets, policies and stock exchanges in which financial capital
is ranked above all other forms of value. This larger system discourages attempts to
integrate sustainability in ways that are material. We therefore see the need to integrate
sustainability simultaneously into business and larger global systems.
In Sustainability Incorporated we focus on ways in which business can integrate
sustainability into its core strategies and business models. In order to do this, our
research indicates that the commitment of senior leadership is critical to making
substantial progress. Yet even in the absence of such leadership we see opportunities
for sustainability practitioners at all levels to move ahead and advance sustainability into
their business in diferent ways. Through our research we highlight five pathways that
practitioners can leverage to further integrate sustainability into the business. While
these pathways are not the only ways to embed sustainability, they have proven useful for
numerous companies and align in practical ways with many of the existing responsibilities
of practitioners. We summarize these five pathways on the following pages».
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