What if organisations of the future redefined their strategic choices to create long-term value for all stakeholders and abandoned short-term optimisation of performance to serve shareholders?
Topic
Sustainability reimagined
Unleashing the full potential of sustainability to make organisations fit for the future
Christian Romer Vingtoft
Martina Facino
Sheva Rostam
Clara Katharina Jensen
Morten Hejlesen
Sustainability is at the top of the strategic agenda everywhere. Trailblazing organisations are acting fast to reduce harmful impacts on people and the planet. And even those that have been slower to respond are being forced to act due to regulatory changes and stakeholder demands. Becoming more sustainable is now a given.
However, faced with a proliferation of stakeholder requirements, there is a risk that many organisations are merely scratching the surface of sustainability as they try to keep up. But what if we used the sustainability agenda to profoundly reimagine why our organisation exists and how we operate?
We believe that, instead of a “sustainability strategy”, organisations of the future will have a “sustainable strategy”. Instead of taking incremental steps towards what is good for them, they will dare to unleash transformational change towards a brighter future that is better for all of us.
Let us explore the future together and reimagine sustainability.
Perspectives on reimagining sustainability
#1 Value creation reimagined
What if organisations of the future redefined their strategic choices to create long-term value for all stakeholders – and abandoned short-term optimisation of performance to serve shareholders?
Strategy is about making choices and, in a world of constant change, every organisation must continually evaluate and renew strategic choices about where to focus and how to succeed. But to consistently make great choices, the process of making choices itself must be guided by a set of fundamental principles about what constitutes good or bad choices. If not, decision-making may be arbitrary or subject to biased opinions.
#2 Organisational purpose reimagined
What if organisations of the future reimagined their purpose by shifting their focus to solving deeply worthwhile problems – and refused to produce whatever their customers really wanted?
In essence, all businesses exist because they solve problems for their customers. They flourish if they either solve problems better than the customers themselves or do it better or cheaper than the alternatives already available on the market.
#3 Leadership decision-making reimagined
What if organisations of the future integrated multiple bottom lines and externalities in all decision-making processes to make truly sustainable choices – and asked the finance department to never produce a simplistic financial business case again?
Myriads of decisions are made in every organisation each day. Some decisions are tactical and simple, typically based on straight-forward intuition and experience. Other decisions are strategic and complex, often demanding sophisticated problem-solving and careful testing of critical assumptions.
#4 Collaboration and ecosystems reimagined
What if organisations of the future collaborated closely across value chains and ecosystems to accelerate systems-level change for a greater good – and stopped battling competitors and caring only about ‘what’s in it for us’?
Words and concepts matter. They frame our worldview and form the world around us. Examining the vocabulary of business strategy is a case in point and there appears to be an urgent need to rewrite the rules of business in an age of alarming planetary and societal issues. Let's stop talking about winners and losers and start caring about what's in it for all of us.
Cases
Insights
What does it take to put sustainability at the core of your strategy?
In March 2023, we engaged in three conversations together with strategist Roger Martin as well as leaders from Rio Tinto, Novozymes and Too Good To Go to get inspired by bold moves that emerge when you reimagine sustainability.
Keynote
What if we used the sustainability agenda to profoundly reimagine why our organisations exist and how we operate?
By Sheva Rostam and Christian Romer Vingtoft, Implement Consulting Group
Length: 10 min. 15 sec.
Bio
Roger Martin
Professor Roger Martin is a writer, strategy advisor and in 2017 was named the #1 management thinker in the world. He is also former Dean and Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada.
Roger Martin is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide, including Procter & Gamble, LEGO and Ford.
He has written 30 Harvard Business Review articles and several books, e.g.: A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness, When More Is Not Better, Creating Great Choices, Getting Beyond Better and Playing to Win.
EVP of Strategy & Business Transformation, Novozymes
Novozymes is the global market leader in biological solutions, providing enzyme and microorganism technologies to a wide range of industries. They use enzymes and microbes to help enable, accelerate or transform an industrial process or a consumer product for better lives in a growing world.
CEO, Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is a leading global mining and materials company. They operate in 35 countries and produce iron ore, copper, aluminium, critical minerals and other materials needed for the global energy transition and for people, communities and nations to thrive.
CEO, Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go is the world’s largest B2C marketplace for surplus food. Present in 17 countries, including the U.S. and Canada, more than 69 million people, and 130 thousand businesses use the app to save surplus food from going to waste. In 2022, TIME named Too Good To Go one of the 100 Most Influential Companies in the World.
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Morten Hejlesen
Clara Katharina Jensen
Christian Romer Vingtoft
Sheva Rostam
Martina Facino
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