AMPLIFY  VOL. 38, NO. 1
  

In November 2024, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which oversees the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), sent a message to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the body responsible for implementing the Paris Agreement. The message emphasized that biodiversity conservation and climate action must go hand in hand to achieve meaningful progress.¹

It’s no secret that the nature and climate crises are interdependent. As the communique from CBD to UNFCCC stated:

A thriving nature keeps carbon stored where it naturally belongs and not in our planet’s atmosphere. Biodiversity enhances adaptation capacity and resilience, including in disaster-risk reduction. Climate change, on the other hand, is one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss.

It’s also no secret that the policies to address them remain separate and unequal in terms of resources, engagement, and awareness.

This separation traces back to the foundations of the Rio Conventions in 1992 and the different routes through which these multilateral instruments were established. It exemplifies a global systems challenge that echoes from the Conferences of the Parties to corporate boardrooms, where climate, nature, water, and social impact are siloed by function, budget, and focus — often causing ambition to fall out of sync with implementation.

This systems challenge remains a major obstacle to fully integrating sustainability into business models, preventing the efficient use of resources, the leveraging of co-benefits, and the creation of streamlined pathways for meaningful change.

This issue of Amplify, Part I of a two-part series, shines a light on the challenges and opportunities of unifying sustainability efforts and showcases pragmatic approaches for greater impact.

In This Issue

Kelly T. Cooper and Neil C. Hawkins open the issue by warning that “large corporations tend to overlook the fact that successful integration of sustainable business models consistently results in product innovation, new market entry, and commercial longevity.” They elevate the concept of purpose by combining the “what” and “why” of vision, mission, and strategy with the “how” of implementation to create a constancy of purpose. The article internalizes a whole-of-business approach to sustainability, which recognizes that ups and downs, headwinds and tailwinds, and expansions and contractions are normal to any business cycle. Wading into the evergreen discussion about the ROI of sustainability, Cooper and Hawkins assert that organizations with constancy of purpose center their ROI on value preservation, opportunity, and the cost of inaction. They provide clarity through four success enablers: (1) translating priorities into actionable plans, (2) focusing on value-driven approaches, (3) innovating on purpose, and (4) enlisting the corps.

Enlisting the corps — a company’s employees — is crucial. Often overlooked, the corp can be a powerful engine of innovation when activated. Leaders who understand the drivers of human behavior are three times more successful in driving transformation. In other words, those who effectively engage their workforce achieve better results. Empowering individuals fosters accountability and embeds a shared purpose throughout the organization. However, the authors emphasize that this must begin with purpose-driven leaders and be sustained across generations.

This type of leadership forms the heart of our second piece. In their article, Matt Mayberry, Scott Tew, and Laura Asiala contend that a lack of strategic alignment between leadership and management is the root cause of failure in sustainability transformations — when sustainability is treated as an add-on, it remains separate from core business operations. Using Trane Technologies as an example (and pulling from the experience of coauthor Scott Tew, Trane’s chief sustainability officer), the article highlights a common pitfall: once executives roll out a strategy, leaders expect strategy execution to propagate naturally across the enterprise, but without structured alignment, implementation falters. This gap often leaves ambitious sustainability goals unheard or unheeded across the enterprise because of the distance — both actual and metaphorical — between the corporate boardroom and operations.

Mayberry et al. propose a four-step integration process: (1) setting an aspiration, (2) developing a strategy, (3) creating an enabling environment through “chartering,” and (4) executing. Most failures occur between strategy and chartering, where alignment breaks down. Trane, as a purpose-driven company, uses tools like the Sustainable Value Creation Map (SVCM) to bridge this gap. Such a map acts as a charter that creates alignment along the corporate vertical by connecting C-suite ambition to operations and along the horizontal axis by identifying interdependencies that can lead to silo eradication or minimization. The SVCM also promotes a culture of learning and build competencies. By embedding sustainability into all business areas — beyond engineering into communications, marketing, and supply chains — this approach ensures shareholder and customer needs are met while considering broader system stakeholders.

Next, in a sector-specific article, Shannon Ames and Whitney D. Stovall demonstrate how a whole-system approach can transform hydropower by expanding project evaluations beyond reliability and longevity to embrace multiple priorities that deliver additional value. The authors illustrate how, when designed effectively, hydropower can fulfill its renewable energy mandate while also supporting 24/7 demand matching, biodiversity protection and restoration, and positive community impact.

Ames and Stovall provide examples of how US hydropower operations are integrating outcomes that deliver green power with education opportunities for communities, support water supply protection through shared resources, protect native species from invasives, and restore riparian ecosystems.

While focused on hydropower, the article clearly illustrates how integrated design and implementation can generate co-benefits. With over 50% of hydropower located in or near environmental justice communities and a third of all licenses up for review in the next decade, designers, buyers, and operators have a real opportunity to align energy, nature, and community needs for greater impact.

Another industry sector that can benefit from integrated sustainability approaches is healthcare. Ali Alessandro Ayach and Farhan Mirza of Arthur D. Little (ADL) explore this in their insightful, fact-filled article. The healthcare sector is significant in terms of economic and environmental impact, accounting for 10% of global GDP and 4.4% of net emissions — ironically contributing to the very health issues it seeks to prevent and cure. According to the authors, the sector is pursuing sustainability both in response to regulatory pressure and as a moral imperative. The benefits — financial, reputational, and health-related — are clear, but so are the challenges, given healthcare’s complexity and heavy regulations. In this sector, sustainability can only be embraced if quality of care is not compromised.

Ayach and Mirza propose a three-step approach: (1) green practices, where healthcare facilities seek energy efficiency to reduce emissions by as much as 2,000 kg CO2e per hospital per year; (2) green initiatives, such as telemedicine, which can lower the sector’s carbon footprint; and (3) green environment, which fosters cultural change to focus on well-being and preventive care. Real-world examples from healthcare systems illustrate how sustainability can be effectively integrated into this complex industry.

While the authors highlight the key players responsible for driving sustainability strategies (regulators, providers, payers, and suppliers), Paul C. Godfrey and Vishal Gajjar, in our final article, explore how a newly appointed chief sustainability officer (CSO) can navigate complex sustainability challenges to deliver co-benefits, satisfy multiple stakeholders, and optimize resources. This can be achieved through the Sustainability Canvas, a strategic framework that acts as a compass.

The authors take us inside the world of a new CSO facing seemingly disparate issues — low maturity in sustainability reporting, water scarcity in operations, toxic chemicals in products, and a shallow community program that prioritizes philanthropy over genuine engagement. As the CSO plots sustainability approaches to address these issues, the Sustainability Canvas tool offers a structured approach for balancing compliance, costs, reputation, and customer expectations, viewing each challenge through both risk and opportunity lenses while addressing ROI concerns. As the authors point out, a truly integrated strategy using the canvas approach can eliminate the idea of a “sustainability tax” — the false choice between economic and social value or between shareholder and stakeholder interests. This tool helps evolve sustainability from a few time-bound, focused individual efforts into a long-term journey across several impact areas.

Conclusion

In our work, we have witnessed companies’ attempts to fulfill sustainability goals in different ways. Some have succeeded; some have not. The common elements in the success stories we’ve encountered are contained in the various approaches outlined in this issue:

• Sustainability — needs to be a strategy and not an initiative

• Purpose-driven leadership — needs to be multigenerational

• Corporate commitments — need to be connected to operational realities

• Sustainability competencies — outside the CSO function need to be built

• Integration across functions — needs to be mapped and understood

Many frameworks and approaches exist for companies at different stages of the sustainability maturity curve. In this issue of Amplify, we are thrilled to present several proven, practical examples that we hope readers will adopt or adapt to fit their needs. Understanding the relationship between climate, water, nature, and business has never been more essential, and addressing our planetary crises requires proven strategies; businesses that embrace this mindset have the potential to drive real, lasting impact.

Back to the global stage, the CBD, in adopting the GBF, recognized that a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach is crucial to “unlock everything nations have in the way of resources, action, innovation, and knowledge.”² Likewise, this issue of Amplify clearly shows how a whole-of-business approach to corporate sustainability can unlock the private sector’s power to advance sustainability in tandem with the environment.

References

¹ “Cali’s Message to Baku: Biodiversity and Climate Action Must be Delivered in Tandem.” Convention on Biological Diversity, 11 August 2024.

² Convention on Biological Diversity (see 1).