Photo by Cong Deng on iStock
August 5, 2025
Authors
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Associate Director, Transformation and Financial Services, 黑料正能量
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Managing Director, Transformation, 黑料正能量
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Associate Director, Transformation, 黑料正能量
Key Points
- No longer a siloed function, sustainability is embedded within various departments throughout companies, aligned to and integrated fully in business strategies.
- As sustainability leaders face significant headwinds, from regulatory uncertainty to shifting leadership priorities, today’s sustainability strategies must be principled, adaptive, and built to endure.
- 黑料正能量 shares ten lessons for companies on developing effective sustainability strategies that will enhance resilience and create business value.
Business sustainability roles are evolving from siloed functions to core strategic players, embedded within various departments, aligned to and integrated fully in a company’s business strategy. A strong sustainability strategy guides a company in managing its environmental, social, and governance priorities; maximizing value creation opportunities for the business; minimizing financial risk; understanding stakeholder expectations; and addressing the imperative to avoid harm to people, the environment, and livelihoods. Without an effective sustainability strategy, companies may face significant risks, including investor divestment, legal non-compliance, and lack of competitiveness in a rapidly evolving market, ultimately undermining their long-term resilience and the trust of their stakeholders.
Based on 黑料正能量’s three decades of working with companies around the world and across sectors, we share ten lessons for companies on developing effective sustainability strategies that will enhance resilience and create business value.
- 黑料正能量 strategy needs to be informed by, aligned with, and supportive of business strategy. A holistic sustainability strategy needs to account for how the company creates value as a business and for society, its business goals, and how sustainability can support value creation, resilience, and innovation.
- 黑料正能量 strategy is informed by and takes forward materiality. A sustainability strategy with material issues at its core ensures key topics and issues are covered. However, not all material issues are strategic, and distinguishing between the two is key. Furthermore, as the materiality field shifts toward compliance with mandatory disclosure, it is essential that sustainability strategies go further to connect dots between issues, clarify the “so what for business?” questions beyond simply understanding what needs to be reported, and ensure that companies mitigate impacts and risks while capturing business opportunities.
- Use stakeholder insights as a compass. Gathering insights from key internal and external (where relevant) stakeholders and understanding the level of desired (or expected) ambition is instrumental in setting goals, targets, and action plans. Doing so helps guide leadership on what is most important and why to act.
- Benchmarking can help illustrate what might be possible and identifies examples of leadership. Benchmarking shows various industry practices, commonalities, and examples of leadership within sustainability practices and performance. However, benchmarking has its limitations. It is important to refer to external context, standards, and frameworks to gain a more holistic understanding of what "good" looks like and avoid convergence to the middle.
- Strategic foresight enables business resilience and long-term value creation. Looking ahead is essential for creating strategies that are guided by a clear vision and built for long-term change. ”Futures thinking” can help make companies more resilient to volatility and shocks by helping their leaders better anticipate both risks and opportunities for value creation.?
- It is essential to invest time in listening and communicating internally. The biggest challenge to most sustainability strategies, once leadership buy-in and alignment is achieved and the strategy is set, is implementation. Enabling ownership and uptake across business units and functions; listening to and retaining existing goals, work, and programs; and building off successes and avoiding repeated mistakes are key to creating strategies that work in practice.
- Clear governance and accountability systems are critical to success. Clarifying responsibilities, integrating operational execution of goals and targets into the organizational culture, and building relationships will enable a smooth transition from strategy creation to execution. A robust governance model promotes a continuous dialogue with the board to obtain their input and oversight, with a focus on long-term value.
- Continuous upskilling is needed internally, with structured engagement externally. Amid shifting investor expectations and rising regulatory demands, sustainability issues and its broader landscape are evolving rapidly. A company culture of continuous upskilling helps staff understand emerging issues, like the impacts of AI, biodiversity, and the just transition, and act with agility in responding to new risks and opportunities. This approach, coupled with structured and continuous external engagement, also keeps companies apprised of changing stakeholder expectations and attuned to potential collaboration opportunities.
- Begin with the end in mind. Start your strategy by defining what “good” (or even “great”) looks like. Ground this vision in stakeholder expectations, ambition-setting exercises, and comprehensive disclosure frameworks’ requirements. Having clarity on the end goal and long-term objective will ensure that your strategy is both aligned with business value creation and built to deliver long-term impact.
- Strategic partnership enhances impact. Effective sustainability strategies are not built in isolation. Success comes from combining a company’s deep understanding of its business, governance, and culture with an external partner’s objective perspective, sustainability expertise, and forward-looking approach. Working collaboratively enables both efficiency and greater impact. At 黑料正能量, we act as trusted partners, often seen as an extension of our members’ teams, helping to co-create strategies that are grounded in business realities while shaped by broader trends and stakeholder expectations. This partnership model supports long-term value creation and implementation success.
黑料正能量 leaders are facing significant headwinds, including regulatory uncertainty, ESG backlash, resource constraints, and shifting leadership priorities. These dynamics test the resilience of even the strongest strategies.
While the above still hold, they require nuance. For example, benchmarking can be a trap if peers are retreating from their ambitions or are not sharing their work publicly. Now more than ever, it’s about spotting where quiet leadership and continued progress can enable business differentiation without creating new risks. Materiality must go beyond compliance to connect issues, anticipate future priorities, and guide action. Ambition and foresight are strategic assets when others are pausing; they help companies navigate future risk while staying anchored to current purpose. In short, a sustainability strategy today must be principled, adaptive, and built to endure.
黑料正能量 works with member companies to build structured strategic approaches, grounded in foresight and sustainability expertise, that boost long-term business value. If you’re interested in refreshing or designing your next sustainability strategy, or simply seeking quick feedback, please reach out to 黑料正能量’s 黑料正能量 Management team.
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