This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Despite the economic downturn and tenuous recovery, more than two-thirds of businesses are strengthening their commitment to sustainability, according to a new global study by MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group, as reported in this article. The study found that 69% of companies surveyed plan to step up their investment in and management of sustainability this year. Just over one-quarter (26%) plan no change, and only 2% intend to cut back on their commitment. The study also found that a two-speed landscape is emerging, with a gap between sustainability "embracers"-those who place sustainability high on their agenda -and nonembracers or "cautious adopters,"who have yet to focus on more than energy cost savings, material efficiency and risk mitigation. Embracers are significantly more confident about their competitive position than nonembracers are. Seventy percent of embracers said they believe their organizations outperform industry peers. By contrast, only 53% of cautious adopters described themselves as outperformers, and 14% admitted to lagging behind peers -more than twice the percentage of embracers who made the same claim (6%). In addition, nearly three times as many embracers (two-thirds of them) as cautious adopters said that their organization's sustainability actions and decisions have increased their profits. "What's fascinating is that these findings depict a business landscape in general that's tilting hard toward where the embracers already are,"says Michael Hopkins, editor-in-chief of MIT SMR and a coauthor of the report. "So the embracers have handed us a kind of crystal ball. Their insights and behaviors suggest a blueprint for how management practice and competitive strategy will evolve." The report identifies seven specific practices exhibited by embracer companies, which together begin to define sustainability-driven management.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. MIT Sloan Management Review's second annual Sustainability & Innovation survey -exploring the current and projected sustainability-related practices of organizations and executives -was fielded during a year of bad public news for sustainability advocates. Between last year's much-publicized delay in reaching an international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen and the continuing economic malaise, it was hard to predict how sustainability would fare as a management priority. Would companies begin to scale back their efforts to adopt more efficient business practices and become less focused on sustainability-related issues? Would they put existing programs on hold? What assessments would they make about the implications for managers of the changing sustainability landscape, and how were their strategic plans for competing in the future being affected by sustainability concerns? This article is a first look at the results of the 2010 Sustainability & Innovation Executive Study -focusing especially on 12 top-line observations drawn from the survey data and separate in-depth executive interviews. The survey respondents included more than 3,107 managers and executives, representing every major industry and region of the world. This article offers answers to such questions as, Where does sustainability now fit on top management's agenda? Do top-performing companies see things differently? Who drives the agenda within companies? What does the C-suite think? And how do top managers go about making sustainability-related investment decisions when tangible information for weighing costs and benefits is often lacking?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Sustainability is garnering ever-greater public attention and debate. However, the business implications of sustainability merit greater scrutiny-and scrutiny of a different kind than the "green"-oriented focus that's most common. Will sustainability change the competitive landscape and reshape the opportunities and threats that companies face? If so, how? How worried are executives and other stakeholders about the impact of sustainability efforts on the corporate bottom line? What -if anything -are companies doing now to capitalize on sustainability-driven changes? And what strategies are they pursuing to position themselves competitively for the future? To begin answering those questions, MIT Sloan Management Review and collaborator The Boston Consulting Group conducted in-depth interviews with more than 50 global thought leaders, followed by the Business of Sustainability Survey of more than 1,500 worldwide executives and managers about their perspectives on the intersection of sustainability and business strategy, including their assessments of how their own companies are acting on sustainability threats or opportunities right now. The study identifies three major barriers that impede decisive corporate action: a lack of understanding of what sustainability is and means to an enterprise; difficulty modeling the business case; and flaws in execution, even after a plan has been developed. The study also reveals that while novice practitioners think of sustainability mostly in environmental and regulatory terms, with any benefits stemming chiefly from brand or image enhancement, practitioners with more knowledge tend to consider the economic, social and even personal impacts of sustainability-related changes in the business landscape.