What is happening to the sustainability movement within the business context? This report on the third annual Sustainability and Innovation Executive Study by MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group has three important findings: 70% of respondents say that sustainability has a permanent place on their management agendas. Many respondents also say that their sustainability activities are adding to their companies’ profitability. Moreover, companies that are reaping rewards from their sustainability activities have, at a much higher rate than others, changed their organizational structure, their business models and their operations to support more sustainable business practices.
The report is based on survey data from more than 3,000 corporate leaders in 113 countries and on 29 in-depth interviews with industry experts and academic scholars. The resulting snapshot of sustainability-related practices offers a glimpse inside a worldwide phenomenon that is affecting a broad spectrum of activities: from what consumers eat and wear to how businesses select supply chain partners.
The report identifies three major lessons that businesses can learn from a group that the authors call Harvesters, respondents who say that their companies’ sustainability activities are adding to their profits. These lessons include: creating organizational structures, such as cross functional senior management committees, which support sustainability; linking sustainability activities with performance metrics; and, becoming more collaborative not only with customers and suppliers but also with local communities, NGOs and competitors.
The authors conclude that sustainable business practices have gained so much traction across industries and geographies that sustainability is nearing a tipping point, the point at which a substantial portion of companies are seeing the need for sustainability and deriving financial benefits from related activities.
