Moving to sustainability

For businesses, pressures are mounting to act on sustainability. The social trend is strong and pushed by the workforce, clients and investors alike. The gathering sense of urgency is supported by the scientific consensus that the next ten years are key for climate change.

However, commendable exhortations to do more, more quickly often run straight into the realities of business and budgets. Claims that doing good for the planet will create financial value are hard to justify when the time comes for investment decisions. Data and evidence are missing or aggregated into broad ESG metrics which capture too much and are inconsistent with one another. There seems to be no basis for rational decision making.

What can senior executives do?