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June has been an exciting month filled with travel, networking, and connecting with diverse communities all working towards a common goal. From Corporate Governance to Circular Economy, including Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), and Regeneration beyond Sustainability. I've been receiving inspiring stories that paint a colorful picture of challenges and opportunities in our global village! These experiences touch all of us as we transition from traditional business practices to long-term strategies that aim for thriving beyond mere survival.

I invite you to share your sustainability journeys and insights to further enrich this collective narrative.

To kick off, let's start with Company X

(which wishes to remain anonymous.....for now)

Dear Sir/Madam,

Our Sustainability Adviser has started to speak a different language from the rest of the workforce. It sounds like our native language but is punctuated with strange terms like triple bottom line, carbon footprint, climate change, true cost accounting, zero harm, materiality assessment, taxonomy, green infrastructure, natural capital, and circular economy.

It all sounds important, but we are hesitant to engage for fear of not understanding or looking foolish.

Can you advise?

Our Response to Company X

Dear Boardroom X,

There are NO stupid questions!

It is never a ‘right’ answer in sustainability challenges, but boardrooms can start the communication process by asking the ‘right’ questions of their internal advisors.

As for the language issues, many sustainability advisors need more time spent helping them to understand the higher-level management processes that you are so familiar with. Give them your active support and provide mentoring to help them position your business sustainability issues clearly into the organizational context. You will soon see the benefits that arise when it is truly integrated into other business systems, and how real financial, reputational, and process value can be obtained.

Finally, talk to them beforehand about sustainability issues of genuine interest that are on your corporate radar. Slowly the language barriers will begin to disappear.

Carpe diem!

Yours sincerely,

Beyond Sustain-Ability

Memo to the Boardroom:

Start Asking the Right Questions about Sustainability!

While this question might seem silly, it highlights a critical issue: Are board members getting the information they need about sustainability in a comprehensible format?

The serious question we must address (personally and collectively) is whether boardroom members are now obtaining the information they need, in a format they can understand, and in a language that aligns with their problem-solving and decision-making skills.

The Growing Importance of Sustainability

Many businesses are striving to become increasingly sustainable, especially in the service and premium brand sectors. As the quote goes, "You Snooze You Lose."

Indeed, in many boardrooms, sustainability has become too embedded in the fabric of the business – and essential for competitive performance – to be left to junior managers and the company’s Environmental Management System (EMS) alone. As a result, many senior executives are now expected to engage with sustainability issues as part of the day job, and in boardrooms across the globe, their strategic view of how sustainability will shape their organization’s economic future is starting to take its first tentative steps.

As boardrooms turn their attention to sustainability issues, they are increasingly running into a dialogue problem.

They are increasingly asking questions that seek to ensure they focus organizational and financial resources on the right issues, but often are confused by the language of sustainability, its constantly changing jargon, and how ‘issues’ will transform into operational concerns.

If we are to encourage active boardroom involvement and commitment, which is undoubtedly the key mechanism to change management towards sustainability and the route to investment, then communications between boardrooms and sustainability advisers must improve.

Boardrooms need to master the basic language of sustainability and its core trends, but equally, many sustainability advisers need help in developing a dialect that can be understood by senior leadership teams – one focused on business outcomes, value, and competitive advantage.

With a higher degree of linguistic fluency between the two parties, leaders in both camps can make better decisions about how to expand an organization’s most successful services and brand initiatives and when to pull the plug on those that will fail future sustainability tests or audits.

The Dialogue Problem

(In a Nutshell)

As boardrooms turn their attention to sustainability, they often struggle with the complex and evolving jargon. They need to ask the right questions to focus resources on relevant issues but are often confused by the language and concepts.

To foster better engagement, both board members and sustainability advisers need to improve their communication. Board members should learn the basics of sustainability, while advisers must translate these concepts into business outcomes, value, and competitive advantage.

Key Questions for Boardrooms!

Board directors are likely to obtain better answers if they routinely ask key questions relating to predicted benefits – and expect evidence-laden replies in return.

From our experience, these "better answers" can be obtained by asking the following six key questions about sustainability initiatives:

1. How does this sustainability initiative integrate with, and benefit, the core business strategy or annual business plan?

2. What are the Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental (PESTLE) advantages of this initiative?

3. Does this investment in time, money, and people focus closely and align with what our customers really want and value, and how does it position us relative to competitors? (How much will our customers gain, save, or improve, and where does this place us concerning our competitors?)

4. What financial and intangible Return on Investment (ROI) will the organization get from this sustainability project?

5. What long-term assets or organizational improvements does this proposal offer? (What does this proposal solve or offer in terms of long-term assets or organizational improvement?)

6. What impacts or benefits to corporate culture will accrue, and what buy-in have you secured from internal stakeholders? (A nice way of saying ‘what buy-in have you got already from internal stakeholders,’ and ‘why should the senior team buy into this?)

These questions help generate focused conversations about sustainability, required management decisions, and resource allocations, balancing emotional arguments with rational justification.

By systematically considering each question, a board member can generate an objective and focused conversation about the sustainability issues under consideration, the required management or investment decision, and its resourcing requirements in terms of people and money. In addition to understanding what needs to stop or change.

The core languages of business revolve around performance and value.

These questions can help executives understand what value sustainability initiatives bring with them and the performance rewards or risks offset that can be expected, particularly in respect to comparison with competitors.

The costs associated with sustainability initiatives or asset performance must remain an important topic in the boardroom and cannot be swept aside just by emotional argument. They have to be rationally and objectively justified, even when the issue itself is emotive and subjective in essence.

Hence also the need to monitor returns on significant projects.

Making these questions a formal part of sustainability discussions can also help sustainability advisors adopt a more value-driven position and determine exactly what qualitative and quantitative evidence relating to sustainability issues (and subsequent metrics) will be most useful to the leadership teams.

Traditional Business Education vs. Sustainability!

Get familiar with the Impact of Business Education on Sustainability Efforts

Traditional business school-trained professionals and MBAs often prioritize financial metrics and short-term gains, which can hinder sustainability efforts. Their training typically emphasizes maximizing shareholder value, often at the expense of broader environmental and social considerations.

This mindset can be a significant barrier to integrating sustainability into core business strategies, as these professionals may undervalue or overlook the long-term benefits and necessity of sustainable practices.

Traditional business education often prioritizes short-term financial gains over long-term sustainability. MBAs trained to maximize shareholder value may struggle to appreciate the broader environmental and social impacts, posing a significant barrier to integrating sustainability into core strategies.

Most Institutions are now integrating Sustainability into Business curricula.

Aligning New Reporting Standards with Strategic Management Tools

New reporting standards, such as those introduced by the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure, Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, are not radically different from traditional strategic management tools like SWOT, PESTLE analysis, etc.

These standards provide structured frameworks for evaluating environmental impacts, societal influences, and governance practices, much like PESTLE analyzes political, economic, sociological, technological, legal, and environmental factors.

By viewing these new standards through the lens of familiar strategic tools, business leaders can more easily integrate sustainability into their existing decision-making processes. This approach helps demystify sustainability reporting and aligns it with the strategic management practices that executives are already comfortable with.

These frameworks provide structured ways to evaluate environmental, social, and governance practices, helping businesses integrate sustainability into existing decision-making processes.

BEYOND SUSTAIN-ABILITY!

Bridging the Communication Gap is a Collective Effort

Bridging the communication gap between sustainability advisers and boardrooms is crucial for driving meaningful initiatives. By asking the right questions and aligning new standards with familiar traditional strategic management tools, businesses can better integrate sustainability into their core strategies, ensuring long-term success and competitiveness in a rapidly evolving market.

At Beyond Sustain-Ability, we encourage organizations to look closely and leverage their internal leadership strengths, and adopt an inquisitive mindset, supporting how sustainability can support and align with long-term business strategies.

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