Businesses increasingly see the value of sustainability initiatives and continue to develop new and innovative sustainability strategies. Yet something is holding many businesses back from deploying those efforts.

  Several weeks ago I wrote a post on corporate responsibility reporting and ended it with this thought – “More targeted metrics that tell the story of how CR initiatives have impacted both communities and the business would be at least a step in the right direction.”  I recently came across some work done by two professors at the Harvard Business School that explores a burgeoning development in reporting which could prove to be one of these progressive steps.  This development would help companies to better communicate their social impact in a more material and holistic way.  

According to Accenture’s “A New Era of Sustainability” report, CEOs around the globe have begun to embrace sustainability and are bringing sustainability concepts out of their strategy groups and pushing them through their operations and supply chains.   The report summarizes the findings of an extensive survey of more than 700 UN Global Compact members on sustainability topics.  The report is optimistic, pointing to signs that business are starting to see the implications of not implementing sustainability efforts, and therefore starting to actively work towards operationalizing these efforts.