Advisor

Jim Brosseau

This Advisor explores the deep connection between organizational culture, leadership, and power dynamics. It highlights how cultures often develop unintentionally, reinforcing existing leadership behaviors — both good and bad. While many organizations rely on coercive or reward-based power, a shift toward collaborative and participatory leadership fosters adaptability and long-term success.

Advisor

Brian van Laar, Angela Greco, Hilde Remøy, Vincent Gruis, Mohammad Hamida

In this Advisor, we explore how AI is transforming adaptive reuse decision-making. The Reincarnate project integrates AI tools with traditional scenario methods and participatory workshops to develop 15 circular building reuse scenarios. Leveraging ChatGPT-4 for narrative insights and DALL-E for visualizations, these scenarios enhance early design stages, align stakeholder priorities, and support more informed policy and project decisions.

Advisor

Curt Hall

This Advisor explores how leading companies are advancing AI-driven large world models (LWMs) to enhance robotics and AVs. It examines the efforts of start-ups and tech giants, highlighting their innovations in virtual world simulation, AI training, and real-world applications. While LWMs remain an emerging technology, their rapid development is poised to revolutionize AI-powered automation, decision-making, and interaction in complex environments.

Advisor

San Murugesan

In this Advisor, Cutter Expert San Murugesan reflects on the enduring legacy of Steve Jobs, a visionary innovator who transformed technology and redefined industries. As he would have turned 70 this month, we revisit his pioneering spirit, unconventional leadership, and relentless pursuit of excellence.

Advisor

Christina Bidmon, Laura Piscicelli, Iryna Susha

This Advisor highlights the critical need to align the green and digital transitions, emphasizing that while both will reshape society and the economy, they follow distinct trajectories. To ensure a just and effective twin transition, industry and policymakers must address key challenges, including data fragmentation, overreliance on technology, power imbalances, and policy alignment.

Article

Shannon Ames, Whitney Stovall

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.

Article

Matt Mayberry, Scott Tew, Laura Asiala

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.

Article

Paul Godfrey, Vishal Gajjar

Paul C. Godfrey and Vishal Gajjar 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.

Article

Ali Ayach, Farhan Mirza

Ali Alessandro Ayach and Farhan Mirza of Arthur D. Little (ADL) explore integrated sustainability approaches to healthcare. The industry 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 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.

Article

Kelly Cooper, Neil Hawkins

Kelly T. Cooper and Neil C. Hawkins warn 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.

Article

Margaret O'Gorman, Frank Werner

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. It 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.

Advisor

Hossein Sahraei, Ramila Peiris, Luc Nguyen, Olivier Moureau

This Advisor introduces a practical, scalable, and sustainable data analytics tool developed by the data science team at Sanofi. The tool helped the pharmaceutical manufacturing team transition from reactive modes of data analytics to a proactive approach through prescriptive analytics.

Advisor

Frank Jan de Graaf

Establishing and maintaining corporate purpose is not limited to grand gestures but is shaped by everyday actions and governance decisions. This Advisor presents five principles that can help organizations guide deliberation about corporate purpose.

Advisor

Alessia Falsarone

Best-selling author Alessia Falsarone highlights the critical but often-overlooked need for digital talent to manage sustainability solutions effectively. To unlock the benefits of digital sustainability and mitigate unintended consequences, organizations must prioritize building a strong talent base. This can be achieved by following three best practices.

Advisor

Curt Hall

Cutter Expert Curt Hall explores the transformative potential of large world models (LWMs), advanced AI systems designed to simulate real-world environments. LWMs use massive datasets to create virtual, 3D representations of the physical world, enabling more accurate and efficient training for robotics and autonomous vehicles (AVs). Their applications include improving navigation, enhancing perception, optimizing obstacle avoidance, and enabling greater autonomy for robots and AVs in complex or hazardous environments.

Advisor

Vanessa Patrick, Murali Kuppuswamy

As this Advisor highlights, purpose is vital for direction and unity. Beyond foundational steps, the ability to say no — empowered refusal — is essential for aligning decisions with organizational identity. By fostering this skill, organizations can ensure their actions consistently reflect their stated values.

Advisor

Jonatan Pinkse, René Bohnsack

This Advisor explores the dual impact of AI on sustainability, highlighting its potential to drive energy efficiency, waste reduction, and long-term value creation. Using the “butterfly effect” as an analogy, it introduces a framework to help managers leverage AI responsibly, balancing its transformative opportunities with the risks of environmental impact, data privacy issues, and social responsibility challenges.

Advisor

Enjoud Alhasawi, Denis Dennehy, Yogesh Dwivedi, Guoqing Zhao, Sean Coffey

This Advisor highlights how AI transforms agri-food supply chains by enhancing forecasting, optimizing processes, and enabling proactive risk mitigation. With AI-powered tools, organizations gain real-time insights for planning, adaptability, and resilience across all stages — readiness, responsiveness, recovery, and adaptability.

Article

Noah Barsky

This issue of Amplify looks at how leaders can best balance digital era stewardship and growth. That future hinges on strong management in the next five years. Each article addresses the universal question that challenges boards and C-suites: will leaders shape the future, or allow it to define them?

Article

Eystein Thanisch, Greg Smith, Michael Papadopoulos

Arthur D. Little’s Eystein Thanisch, Greg Smith, and Michael Papadopoulos address talent management and career planning by asking, “Someone using AI will replace you, but who will replace them?” Their intriguing piece explores which everyday tasks can be augmented or automated by AI. They extend the discussion by examining skills needed across professions and encourage workplaces to reflect on and assess talent needs. Imagining future workflow, technology needs, and employee composition is an overdue dialogue — especially as AI capabilities accelerate.