Innovation for sustainability – can we meet the challenge?

Mallen Baker needs to consider the toughest question, with the business environment changing so dramatically.
Poverty, along with climate change, shapes the market, something which cannot be changed.

Adapting to circumstances and using innovation to fuel success seems to be the corporate response to such problems.

Three key elements are to be highlighted, when discussing innovation in companies to approach sustainability:

• Boardroom commitment to sustainability helps build a framework for robust corporate governance.
• Investors are becoming increasingly receptive to sustainability.
• Sustainability offers a proven and legitimate framework for exploiting new avenues for innovation.

According to statistics, 90% of CEOs say that they are doing more now, than they were five years ago towards environmental, social and governance issues.

The problem is, do companies adopt strategies to become more successful or is it the fact that more successful companies are already well managed?

This leads us to the point where it seems an extra cost rather than a beneficial investment, and sustainability programmes just blunt the competitive edge of a company.