Tag Archives: c-suite

Corporate sustainability makes a lot of sense.  Reduce your costs and risk, increase profit, strengthen reputation, protect and conserve natural resources and social value while enhancing share value…what’s not to love?  So why is it that so many internal sustainability champions struggle to move their initiatives forward?  Perhaps it’s not the proposition at all – maybe it’s the approach.

I was determined to find the answer, after all, if I could understand what prevented the C-Suite from immediately grasping and acting upon the sustainability proposition I would become a more effective advisor.  So….I convened a round table of like-mined sustainability colleagues to learn why the C-Suite moved so slowly on the sustainability front and here is what I found:

• It delayed the process.  As the old political axiom goes, ‘if you don’t know, delay – and maybe the ask will go away’
• Change is most often rejected when presented head-on
• Sustainability is regarded by many as just a “tick-box” exercise
• Competing for resources with a known entity (aka business as usual) with known returns is a tough slog

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