Enough - A review of corporate sustainability, in a world running out of time

In this report, we trace the idea of corporate sustainability back to its conceptual origins in the late 1980s and explore its course over the peaks and troughs of the next 30 years, looking at how it had to adapt in the face of these events. We look at the parallel rise of corporate management theory, and the tensions and paradoxes that have emerged as the former is slowly subsumed by the latter.

We look at the common structure and mandate of corporate sustainability functions, and the logic that underpins them. We look at the primary preoccupations of these functions, in particular the rationale and utility of ESG reporting and analysis and the extent to which they service a meaningful end.

As corporate sustainability professionals ourselves, we wholeheartedly acknowledge the extraordinary successes and resilience of our industry; however in this review we also call out clear aspects that need to change. More importantly, we propose a number of questions with which we want to engage civil society and the scientific community to inform a more effective and collective model of corporate sustainability for the crucial decades ahead.

We’ve reflected on our own collective experience working in and around corporate sustainability, and we’re questioning the status quo. Is business ready to properly internalise the true social and environmental cost of doing business, both directly and across its value chain? Or will corporations continue to mask the extent of the problem through incrementalism and self-congratulation? We hope that by sharing this report, we can learn from those who might already be engaging this problem, and from those who wish to contribute to solving it. 

This report is our best effort to start the much-needed conversation about corporate sustainability, in an attempt to openly explore new ideas on the shifts and transformations that we, and the business world, need to make, in a world running out of time.