BSR Insight | Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World

The world stands at a unique inflection point. On the one hand, the rise of emerging markets and technological innovation present the opportunity for historic social and economic progress. At the same time, natural resources constraints, climate change, and the distrust of the private sector mean that “business as usual” will no longer suffice. In this context, it is clear that sustainable, responsible business is more important than ever, and the businesses that embrace “sustainable excellence” will be the ones that survive and thrive in the years to come. This is the central theme of the new book by BSR President and CEO Aron Cramer, Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World (Rodale Books). Cramer spoke about why he wrote the book, the meaning of the term sustainable excellence—and why companies should embrace the concept—in a discussion with Mats Lederhausen, BSR’s chairman, and founder and CEO of Be-Cause.

Lederhausen: Why did you write the book?

Cramer: I wrote the book, along with my co-author, Zachary Karabell, for two main reasons.

First, I wanted to show the mainstream business audience that sustainability has become an imperative for every company. In my view, no company can succeed today without making sustainability a strategic priority. We tell stories in the book about how Best Buy, Unilever, IBM, and others have done exactly this. So, my hope is that we have demonstrated to people outside the CSR or sustainability function how sustainability contributes to excellence, and how it is central to their companies’ future. We want our readers to take this message inside their companies because everyone—whether they are in product development, marketing, finance, or any other function—can be a chief sustainability officer.

I also wrote the book to help reframe the sustainability debate. In my 15 years at BSR, my colleagues and I have gained insights as to what works and what doesn’t—and I illustrate that with the stories in the book. I want to reinforce the view that sustainability is a great opportunity for business, not simply a way to manage risk and reputation. If everyone in the sustainability community who reads the book gets just one idea that sparks a new way of thinking about what’s possible, the book will have great impact.

Lederhausen: Why should CEOs read this book?

Cramer: Any CEO who reads this book will gain a better understanding of how sustainable excellence can help them lead their company more effectively. One of the most important jobs a CEO has is to anticipate changes that will shape his or her company’s future success. The best CEOs see trends and opportunities before others do. Our book shows that many of the most important forces shaping the businesses environment in our globalized, resource-constrained, transparent, and interconnected world are directly related to sustainability. These are things that CEOs are increasingly focused on.

Even more importantly, I hope that any CEO reading this book will see how sustainability can be translated into opportunities. For too long, many people have understood CSR as minimizing risks. Risk management is of course crucial, but what gets CEOs excited is the opportunity to build. And we devote a lot of the book to showing how sustainability creates market opportunity. We interviewed the CEOs of companies who are doing exactly that—like Nike, eBay, and Google—and in the book we show how they have achieved success with this approach.

Lederhausen: How do you respond in the book to those who believe that companies shouldn’t meddle in the affairs of civil society?

Cramer: The plain fact is that the world’s most important challenges won’t be met without business playing a strong role, so the notion that companies shouldn’t meddle in the affairs of the world around them is outdated thinking. Business innovation is crucial to tackling environmental dilemmas like energy, climate, water scarcity, and biodiversity. Creating dignified livelihoods for the nine billion people we will have by 2050 won’t happen without market solutions. As we show in the book, many of the most exciting and promising initiatives to address social and environmental challenges in recent years have come from collaboration among business, government, and civil society. We make the point that no business can achieve sustainable excellence without collaboration—and that society won’t achieve its public goals without serious engagement by business.

Lederhausen: How have changes in the world in the past 10 years made it more important for companies to take the sort of integrated and holistic approach you’re talking about?

Cramer: The pace of change in the world is intense. It’s hard for any company, or NGO or government, for that matter, to stay ahead of the game. Business leaders have to navigate fundamental changes that arise from multiple directions, often all at once. The world has grown infinitely more connected, transparent, and global in the years that I have been at BSR. When BSR got started, for example, transparency was considered a value, and companies could address it through discrete actions. Today, transparency is simply a condition of life. Businesses that understand this, and embrace it, get a trust dividend—and are more innovative than those that don’t. The same is true for globalization. Business has an immense opportunity to succeed in high-growth markets, but that won’t happen automatically. The companies that focus on meeting the needs of aspiring populations, radically reduce natural resource inputs, and listen carefully to the distinct needs and expectations of new markets and new communities will prosper. Those that don’t, will see the promise of emerging markets evaporate.

All these changes are intense, and often point in multiple directions at once. That’s why the subtitle of the book is “The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World.”

Come hear Aron Cramer speak about Sustainable Excellence at one of his upcoming book tour events, and contact Amon Rappaport if your company would like to host a private event. Follow these links to learn more about the book or to order it.