Climate change, resource scarcity and loss of biodiversity are forcing companies to look around the corners of their business and to think ahead in order to see not only risks but also opportunities.
Companies need to re-evaluate their roles in current and future value chains. The most proactive companies are already working to identify their core capabilities that can serve as growth engines in the future. This capability can be a company’s customer network, its infrastructure or its R&D. By re-positioning its core, a company can challenge markets with new products or by finding new customers.
“ We are living at a pivotal moment when sustainability becomes an integral part of strategy and topics related to sustainability become strategic drivers.
While the most serious global risks facing businesses are all environment or climate related, the past 15 months have forced us to look at the relationship between people and the natural world in a new way. The mistakes that have been made in the debate concerning climate change will hopefully not be repeated when the world starts paying serious attention to biodiversity loss. Companies impacted by or creating impact with the natural world will likely see a quick shift in sentiment and public opinion. Strategy cycles will become shorter and many companies will move to continuous strategy work as mounting global risks make the world around us more unpredictable.
We have long understood that the traditional view of sustainability being about compliance, PR & marketing is incomplete. For many companies across different sectors, the concept of sustainability is now more about costs, margins and market shares.
We are living at a pivotal moment when sustainability becomes an integral part of strategy and topics related to sustainability become strategic drivers. Investors who ask both about profits and sustainability at the same time are asking the right questions. And the most proactive companies will find the correct answers.
