Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva
Consumers, employees, and investors are beginning to demand socially and environmentally-savvy products without compromise, while radical transparency is putting every company under a microscope.
In recent years three big trends – declining resources, radical transparency, and increasing expectations – have redefined the way companies compete. The linear throw-away economy, in which products and services follow a one-way trajectory from extraction to use and disposal, can no longer be supported, as we are simply running out of things to unearth and place to landfill. Consumers, employees, and investors are beginning to demand socially and environmentally-savvy products without compromise, while radical transparency is putting every company under a microscope.
“Embedded Sustainability is the incorporation of environmental, health, and social value into the core business with no trade-off in price or quality – in other words, with no social or green premium.”
With a new set of pressures on hand, what is business to do? We are not talking about the Body Shops and Ethical Banks of this world but rather the Unilevers and HSBCs: industry leaders pursuing middle-of-the-road customers, who find themselves often blindsided by ecological and social burdens. So, how are we as business units and functional managers to treat social, health and environmental demands in the mainstream?
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(Article originally published in The European Financial Review, April-May 2011 edition)
