The COVID-19 pandemic
has profoundly shaken the world economy and changed the way we do business. We
have never been so exposed, never so interconnected. We are facing a crucial set
of decision points as we begin the journey of ‘building
back’:
How do we accelerate sustainable development and sustainable business? What do
we need to do differently? Where aren’t we doing enough? How can we overcome the
barriers? How can we build back better brands?
Over the past year, we conducted an extensive research
project
engaging in over 100 conversations with sustainability leaders from Asia,
the US and Europe (including Christopher Miller, Head of Global
Activism Strategy at Ben & Jerry’s; Andrew Winston, author, advisor and
speaker; Sally Uren, CEO of Forum for the Future; Dave Stangis,
founder & CEO of 21C IMPACT and former Chief Sustainability Officer at
Campbell Soup Company, among many others — find more details on our
website).
We wanted to understand how they thought sustainable business would evolve after
the pandemic.
To help put a robust structure and framework of reference behind this challenge,
we used the SB Brand Transformation
Roadmap^SM^
(BTR). We applied the Roadmap to the entire series of conversations and
organized all the fresh insights we collected under its five key pillars:
Purpose, Brand Influence, Supply Chain, Innovation and
Governance. We then engaged in serious reflection and synthesis in order to
give an overall post-pandemic picture for each of these five dimensions. We also
made sure to note the maturity levels of the ideas involved by distinguishing
between low/medium maturity (levels 1-3) and high maturity (levels 4-5). This
system of levels 1-5 reflects the journey from business-as-usual (level 1) to
becoming a truly sustainable brand (level 5), as per the BTR.
Let’s take a minute to review each pillar briefly (with the full report
available
here):
OK, Now What?: Navigating Corporate Sustainability After the US Presidential Election
Join us for a free webinar on Monday, December 9, at 1pm ET as Andrew Winston and leaders from the American Sustainable Business Council, Democracy Forward, ECOS and Guardian US share insights into how the shifting political and cultural environment may redefine the responsibilities and opportunities for companies committed to sustainability.
Purpose, the first dimension, might sound obvious at first glance, but it
definitely isn’t. While we are currently living in the ‘era’ of purpose and many
companies are working on establishing a powerful and well-phrased
purpose,
relatively few have been able to concretely bring purpose to life and
successfully embed it into full-blown strategies and action plans. It is the era
of purpose, but the term is often misused or not applied comprehensively; and it
is therefore advisable to go back and have a deeper look.
At Quiero, jointly with Sustainable
Brands™ and its global network, we believe Purpose should lead all the
way to a clear delivery point. Otherwise, it runs the risk of becoming an
endless journey of aspiration without enough action — which ultimately fails to
engage people (both internally and externally) and create meaningful impact. As
Sally Uren told us: “Brands and businesses need to ask themselves how to
manifest their purpose declaration: How can they be socially useful and help to
build a resilient environment?”
What is really needed is an actionable and transformational promise that
meaningfully connects with people, inspires real engagement and thus
constitutes a true people mobilizer. Furthermore, Purpose need not be static
— just like the organization it belongs to, it is subject to continuous
improvement. Purpose should be reassessed periodically, in parallel with
society’s changing demands. It is fully alive and keeps evolving over time.
The second dimension is Brand Influence — which is fundamentally based on
new forms of leadership seeking to activate customers and other stakeholders in
broad systemic changes in any given industry, and with respect to the economy as
a whole. Through Brand Influence new powerful relations with customers and other
stakeholders are established on the basis of a set of authentic brand
values. In this sense, we need to go beyond the mere definition of people as
consumers, extend the area of focus beyond transactions and consumption,
consider what sustainable lifestyles and behaviors mean to them, and magnify
their roles as citizens and change
agents.
Selling a product to a consumer is no longer enough — we now need brands that
can speak to and engage with citizens at deeper
levels.
As Christopher Miller said: “We want to help our fans take action and become a
part of social movements.”
The third dimension is Innovation, which can achieve its best when catalyzed
by the principles of sustainability and
regeneration. The
key to progressing further in this dimension lies in advancing both
well-established methodologies (such as life cycle assessment) and new,
bottom-up experimentation powered by next generations of data and technology.
Life cycle assessment can highlight the areas in which innovation is needed the
most, playing a critical role in refocusing companies’ efforts in line with
sustainability- and regeneration-driven
strategies.
New data and technologies are challenging traditional innovation processes and
forcing companies to involve key stakeholders much more and much sooner.
Finally, sustainable Innovation will bring
circularity
and other new operating models that will fundamentally transform the way we
do business. “To be more innovative, companies need to think more dynamically
about circular systems and more expansively about the idea of value,” says
Chris Grantham, Executive Director of Circular Economy at IDEO.
The fourth dimension is Supply Chain, which works as a ‘multiplier’ on many
levels. A sustainable Supply Chain distinguishes itself first of all for its
end-to-end
transparency.
It comes with a full understanding of all social and environmental impacts
generated along the value chain of a given company’s products and services. It
also seeks ways to improve by measuring progress and identifying needed
actions with increased rigor and accuracy. Ideally, that means a Supply Chain
that rethinks and redefines itself, establishing new dialogues and alliances
with its suppliers (tier 1, 2, 3, …), focusing on human value creation and
addressing socio-economic inequalities. The maximum level of maturity in this
dimension is reached with regeneration, where we successfully move from
value extraction to value
creation
in every sense. As Juan José
Freijo,
VP of Global Head of Sustainability and EMEA Government Affairs at Brambles,
said: “Regeneration is a powerful solution to the challenges we can face
along the value chain… To me regeneration is inevitable, because an
impact-reduction strategy is no longer sufficient.”
The fifth and final dimension is Governance — which, experts tell us, can no
longer be detached or passive when it comes to a company’s impacts on the world
or its greatest challenges. We are in urgent need of new models of Governance —
ones that truly support sustainability and regeneration, capable of empowering
influential sustainability leaders inside and outside the company while ensuring
cohesion with the company’s purpose. As Dave Stangis asserted: “Taking
positions is uncomfortable: Think about what resonates with your brands and
do not fear to stand up for
things
that are good for business and society — do stand up.”
New Governance models need to guide us through the full integration of
sustainability and business strategy and goals, not merely in reporting. A
company’s performance should be measured and evaluated with integrated,
multicapital
approaches;
and financial markets need to become excellent at recognizing and rewarding
companies, accordingly.
A company or brand journey towards sustainability is certainly not easy — seeing
as significant improvements are generally needed in multiple dimensions at the
same time, as demonstrated above. However, the set of changes described above is
indeed necessary and experts predict it will play a big role in determining our
chances of surviving the future. It is therefore not surprising to see new
emerging models in all five dimensions. In upcoming
SBMadrid21 events, we will take a deep
dive into each dimension together with our local and international partners —
including B
Lab,
Fundación SERES, NESSI, Impact Hub and AECOC — and review
practical examples of how to successfully advance towards the North Stars
identified in our research.
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
Partner, Innovation & Research Director
Quiero
Sandra Pina, General Director at Quiero, is also the Director of Sustainable Brands Madrid, Sustainability speaker and advisor, Associate Professor at Instituto de Empresa Business School and member of the Advisory Board of Sustainable Brands Global. She has previous global experience in FMCG multinationals: Kellogg’s and Danone.
Advisor and Co-Lead, Global Content Strategy & Thought Leadership, Sustainable Brands
Dimitar is a senior sustainability and regeneration strategist, educator, executive advisor and mentor. He currently holds the following active roles: Advisor and Co-Lead, Global Content Strategy & Thought Leadership at Sustainable Brands; Senior Strategist, Content Development & Product Innovation at Sustainability Hub Norway; Executive Advisor at rePurpose Global; and Senior Content Advisor at Integrate2033. He co-led the creation of the SB Brand Transformation Roadmap, a comprehensive navigation tool mapping the whole journey from business-as-usual to a sustainable brand, and co-designed an accompanying assessment process that measures progress in five dimensions: purpose, brand influence, operations and supply chain, products and services, and governance.
Published Jul 14, 2021 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST