Sustainable at the core - Seeding bright futures 

A quarter of organizations are putting sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) at the heart of their transformation journey and reporting making great inroads. And one in three executives have diversity, equity and inclusion DEI tied to their own performance ratings. Yet, as organizations busily reinvent themselves, it is clear they need to anticipate and fulfill unmet needs; globally, 24% of the workforce are not confident they can afford the healthcare their family needs, for instance.

Organizations want and need to ensure sustainability is at the heart of business transformation — from company purpose, work standards and investment strategies to circular economy aspirations, environmental impact and supply chain standards.

The challenge is for organizations to live by their pledges to new work standards. How? By ensuring that these statements are the start of a journey towards becoming sustainable at the core — in other words, transforming to deliver every area of the business in line with sustainability principles. To do this, organizations need to:

• Embed sustainability in their purpose and culture
• Transform for sustainability
• Establish people sustainability as the “social” in ESG
• Differentiate themselves through sustainable investments

Sustainable business is no longer an isolated, single sphere of responsibility, but rather a multi-stakeholder agenda and part of a collective social and environmental ecosystem.