2Sustain

What is the state of sustainability in business today?

That’s a provocative question, and one that Deloitte explores in-depth in its new report, Sustainability in business today: A cross-industry view.

The 20-page report offers insights collected from phone interviews with sustainability leaders of 48 US companies with revenues of more than $1 billion across five major industry sectors: automotive, consumer products, process and industrial, technology and telecommunications.

And, as Deloitte concludes, the state of sustainability in business today is quite complex and still evolving. Clearly, large companies in the US continue to be interested and involved in sustainability. However, significant challenges remain as sustainability leaders work to align company practices with company principles and essentially, guiding their organizations to “walk the talk.” From the report:

What is the state of sustainability in business today? The answer. . . may depend on how one interprets the results. Our conversations with respondents left no doubt in our mind that these companies are interested and involved in sustainability, and most of them see a clear alignment between sustainability and their overall business strategy. On the other hand, our survey also suggests that many companies have a clear gap between their leaders’ aspirations with regard to sustainability and the way that sustainability is enabled within their organizations.

Among survey respondents, all but three said their sustainability priorities were at least partially aligned with their organizations’ business priorities. However, several respondents qualified their responses with the observation that alignment was an ongoing process that occurred at different rates in different areas of the business.

Deloitte sees this alignment as fundamental to a successful sustainability strategy. Specifically, the report recommends companies pursue four key factors to help leverage sustainability to increase business value. According to the report, companies need to:

• Align sustainability strategy with business strategy.

• Integrate sustainability into operations and process across the value chain, including the supply chain, the demand chain, emerging technology and new regulatory requirements.

• Structure non-traditional collaborations and extend existing collaborations.

• Establish a governance structure that is supported by a centrally managed infrastructure.

That sounds like good advice. Even though different companies focus on sustainability in different ways, a top-down, integrated approach appears to be universally beneficial to organizations looking to gain competitive advantage and improve business value.

More details are available in this podcast, “Three Things Your Chief Sustainability Officer Won’t Tell You,”  which Deloitte released to correspond to the report.