Embedding a Culture of Sustainability

The pressure is increasing for enterprise action around climate change. Employees, consumers (particularly younger ones), and government regulations are shining a brighter spotlight as to how sustainable practices are incorporated into day-to-day business decisions and processes. Opportunity for brand differentiation, new market extensions, and supply chain efficiencies are in play. Questions remain as to what sustainable steps are most impactful and how business executives can leverage sustainable investments in the best possible way.

We started by gaming out several hypotheses in a workshop environment with key client stakeholders and subject matter experts – using design thinking exercises. These hypotheses become the core pillars in the eventual survey design and analysis plans. Online surveys were conducted with 2,000 executives across 15 countries to measure reaction, interest, and progress being made towards key climate metrics.

Executives were modeled into ‘leader’ and ‘laggard’ categories to determine business impact on key investments in order to highlight those activities with the greatest potential to move the needle. A ‘playbook’ was established to help business executives understand the sustainability choices at their disposal and provide a comparative view as to how other executives (in different countries and industries) were performing against key climate-related metrics.