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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In the final report of our 8-year study of how corporations address sustainability, MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group examine the crossroads at which sustainability now finds itself. Despite sociopolitical upheaval that threatens to reverse key gains, our research has shown that companies can develop workable -and profitable -sustainability strategies to reduce their impact on the global environment by incorporating 8 key lessons.

Consumer-facing companies in developed economies have experienced little to no growth since the global recession of 2008. As a result, the smartest of the bunch are now increasingly looking outward, trying to spur growth by turning to new sources of customer insight-including 'implicit' data such as biometrics, 'structured' batches of Big Data such as online behaviour and 'unstructured' data such as social media and call centre conversations. They provide advice for re-wiring the customer insight function in an organization.

Few people would argue that we live in a time of growing inequality and uncertainty. Societies are being challenged in ways we have not seen for decades-with nationalistic rhetoric and agendas from the far right and a deep distrust of business, globalization and technology from the far left. Many worry that such a polarization of public opinion and policy making could introduce new risks that deter investment-which is already far too low, judging by current interest rates-and undermine future prosperity. The authors, from The Boston Consulting Group, present a 'leadership agenda for shaping the future', consisting of six principles.

As evidence mounts that sustainability-related initiatives are key to a company's success over time, a growing number of investors are now paying close attention to environmental, social and governance ('ESG') metrics. That according to the authors, whose 2016 Global Executive Study showed that for a decisive majority of investors -more than 70 per cent of those surveyed- sustainability has become central to their investment decisions. With wide ranging examples from GE to Volkswagen to Mitsubishi, they show how leading companies are rising to the challenge.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Investors see a strong link between corporate sustainability performance and financial performance -so they're using sustainability-related data as a rationale for investment decisions like never before.

U.S. public companies are dying at faster and faster rates; in fact, they have a one in three chance of being delisted in the next five years. Why? They are failing to adapt to the growing complexity of their environments, the authors argue--misreading those environments, selecting the wrong approaches to strategy, or failing to support a viable approach with the right behaviors and capabilities. Drawing on their research at the intersection of business strategy, biology, and complex systems, BCG's Martin Reeves and Daichi Ueda, along with Princeton biologist Simon Levin, describe six principles that confer robustness in what's known as "complex adaptive systems"--principles that are directly applicable to business. Firms should: (1) Maintain heterogeneity of people, ideas, and endeavors; (2) Sustain a modular structure of loosely connected components; (3) Preserve redundancy among components; (4) Expect surprise, but reduce uncertainty; (5) Create feedback loops and adaptive mechanisms to ensure the variation, selection, and propagation of innovations; and (6) Foster trust and reciprocity in their business ecosystems. Rising corporate mortality is an increasing threat, and the forces driving it are likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future. Understanding and implementing the principles that create robustness in complex adaptive systems can mean the difference between survival and extinction.

Most businesses now understand that their sustained global success depends upon the economic, social and ecological contexts in which they operate. The problem is, the stability of those contexts can no longer be taken for granted: the physical environment is becoming increasingly unpredictable; our interconnected global economy is altering social conditions; and technological innovation is transforming the nature of both consumption and production. As a result, corporate sustainability has evolved significantly, and now involves addressing critical business issues involving a complex network of strategic relationships and activities. The authors show how companies like Intel, BASF, Walmart and Stonyfield are partnering with other organizations-including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund-to find solutions to sustainability challenges in their communities.

Wouldn't it be great if there were an algorithm that could tell you when to develop a new business model or enter an emerging market? Unfortunately, one doesn't exist. However, it is possible to use the principles behind algorithms to continually retune your strategy and your organization. In online enterprises, algorithms constantly readjust the products and content shown to customers. They do this by operating three learning loops: experimentation, modulation, and shaping. Algorithms keep generating new options and testing reactions to them. But over time the algorithms modulate the rate of experimentation, scaling it back as they learn more about people's likes and dislikes. Algorithms shape preferences too, by introducing customers to products they might not have otherwise discovered. Critically, they do this all in a self-directed manner, without any human intervention. Now some internet companies have begun to regularly readjust their business models, allocation processes, and structures using the same self-directed learning loops. This approach works especially well in rapidly changing markets, like China. In this article, the authors look at how China's Alibaba grew from an 18-person start-up to an $8 billion empire by regularly resetting its vision, testing out new models, shaping opportunities, and building adaptive structures.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In the 2014 Sustainability Report, new research by MIT Sloan Management Review, The Boston Consulting Group and the UN Global Compact, shows that a growing number of companies are turning to collaborations -with suppliers, NGOs, industry alliances, governments, even competitors -to become more sustainable. Our research found that as sustainability issues become increasingly complex, global in nature and pivotal to success, companies are realizing that they can't make the necessary impact acting alone.. Authors: MIT Sloan Management Review, The Boston Consulting Group and the United Nations Global Compact.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In this 2013 report, new research by MIT Sloan Management Review and The Boston Consulting Group looks at companies that "walk the talk"in addressing significant sustainability concerns. So-called "Walkers"focus heavily on five fronts: sustainability strategy, business case, measurement, business model innovation and leadership commitment. For them, addressing significant sustainability issues has become a core strategic imperative and a way to mitigate threats and identify new opportunities.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Results from the fourth year of MIT Sloan Management Review's research collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group have found that managers who say sustainability has caused their organization to change its business model are also more likely to say that the organization's sustainability activities have added to profits. Respondents to the survey who not only changed their business model because of sustainability but also generated profits from their sustainability-related activities and decisions -"Sustainability-Driven Innovators"-represented 23% of the survey pool. The survey results suggest that business model change, top management support, collaboration with customers and having a business case are associated with creating economic value from sustainability activities and decisions. Ninety percent of all managers who said their companies have all these characteristics also say that their sustainability activities add to their profits. The authors'research suggests several ways in which companies can become more effective at connecting business model change with sustainability-based profits. Based on the behavior of Sustainability-Driven Innovators, they make three recommendations for how managers can improve their odds of profiting from their sustainability activities. First is to be prepared to change the business model, which may involve extensive corporate change, require significant top management attention and entail setting multiyear goals. Second is to learn how your customers think about sustainability and understand what they are willing to pay for in connection with sustainable products or services. The final recommendation involves increasing collaboration both internally and externally with customers, businesses and groups beyond the boundaries of the organization to improve operations and competitive advantage.

Many executives rely on a process for devising strategy suited to stable, predictable environments even when they know conditions are highly volatile and mutable. Why? Because, the authors contend, they lack a systematic way to match their strategy-making style to the particular circumstances of their industry, business function, or geographic market. These three BCG consultants offer a framework to do just that. It identifies four "strategic styles": classical, adaptive, shaping, and visionary. Which of these is best suited to your situation depends on how far and accurately you can confidently forecast demand, corporate performance, competitive dynamics, and market expectations (predictability) and to what extent you or your competitors can influence those factors (malleability). A classical style, familiar to most managers and business school graduates, is well suited to an industry whose environment is predictable but hard for your company to change. Oil is a good example of this. An adaptive style suits an unpredictable industry, such as fashion, that players can't alter. A shaping style is best when the industry is unpredictable but your company or another has the power to transform it. And a visionary style fits a predictable industry that is nevertheless amenable to change. Too often strategists focus only on how predictable their environment is and not the opportunities they--or others--may have to change it.

Traditional approaches to strategy assume that the world is relatively stable and predictable. But globalization, new technologies, and greater transparency have combined to upend the business environment. In this period of risk and uncertainty, more and more managers are finding competitive advantage in organizational capabilities that foster rapid adaptation. Instead of being really good at doing some particular thing, companies must be really good at learning how to do new things. Those that thrive are quick to read and act on weak signals of change. They have worked out how to experiment rapidly and frequently not only with products and services but also with business models, processes, and strategies. They have acquired the skills to manage complex multi-stakeholder systems in an increasingly interconnected world. And, perhaps most important, they have learned to unlock their greatest resource: the people who work for them. The authors, senior partners at the Boston Consulting Group, review these four types of organizational capabilities, showing what companies at the leading edge are doing to create them. They also discuss the particular implications of this fundamental strategic shift for large corporations, many of which have built their operations around scale and efficiency-sources of advantage predicated on an essentially stable environment.

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.