In the MITSloan Management Review report – Sustainability: The Embracers Sieze Advantage - the authors claim that:
…the new era of accountability means measurement and reporting of companies’ environmental and social impact will take on greater prominence.
So in the sustainability reporting ‘E’ Quadrant where exactly is your business?
The 4 Es of sustainability reporting are:
- Evangelists (bottom left)
- Engagers (top left)
- Embracers (bottom right)
- Embedders (top right)
Evangelists are characterized as organizations where there is no real executive (top-down) engagement with sustainability only individuals or single business units pursuing their own bottom-up agenda to raise the profile of sustainability in the organization through producing their own ad-hoc sustainability reports.
Engagers are talking the talk through vision statements and the like but have not put in place the organizational execution strategies to walk the walk. A sustainability agenda exists, and organizational engagement is ongoing – it’s just that nobody really takes it that seriously and sustainability reporting is not a co-ordinated enterprise effort.
The report authors’ define ‘embracers’ as companies that
…not only claim that sustainability strategies are necessary to be competitive – they also believe these strategies are helping them to gain competitive advantage.
In the section ‘How to do what Embracers Do’ they highlight key 7 practices. I would argue that ‘Embedders’ have executed on these and in particular:
- have de-siloed and integrated sustainability into all aspects of their organization
- have invented ways of measuring everything without waiting for others to do it for them
- do articulate the value of intangible benefits seriously in ways their stakeholders can appreciate
- ‘are’ rather than ‘try’ to be authentic and transparent
Embracers may be seizing the advantage but Embedders are genuinely living the dream.
