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Blog | Tuesday August 5, 2025

Ten Lessons on Developing Effective Sustainability Strategies

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Business sustainability roles are evolving from siloed functions to core strategic players, embedded within various departments, aligned to and integrated fully in a company’s business strategy. A strong sustainability strategy guides a company in managing its environmental, social, and governance priorities; maximizing value creation opportunities for the business; minimizing financial risk; understanding stakeholder expectations; and addressing the imperative to avoid harm to people, the environment, and livelihoods. Without an effective sustainability strategy, companies may face significant risks, including investor divestment, legal non-compliance, and lack of competitiveness in a rapidly evolving market, ultimately undermining their long-term resilience and the trust of their stakeholders. 

Based on BSR’s three decades of working with companies around the world and across sectors, we share ten lessons for companies on developing effective sustainability strategies that will enhance resilience and create business value.  

1. Sustainability strategy needs to be informed by, aligned with, and supportive of business strategy. A holistic sustainability strategy needs to account for how the company creates value as a business and for society, its business goals, and how sustainability can support value creation, resilience, and innovation.  
2. Sustainability strategy is informed by and takes forward materiality. A sustainability strategy with material issues at its core ensures key topics and issues are covered. However, not all material issues are strategic, and distinguishing between the two is key. Furthermore, as the materiality field shifts toward compliance with mandatory disclosure, it is essential that sustainability strategies go further to connect dots between issues, clarify the “so what for business?” questions beyond simply understanding what needs to be reported, and ensure that companies mitigate impacts and risks while capturing business opportunities.  
3. Use stakeholder insights as a compass. Gathering insights from key internal and external (where relevant) stakeholders and understanding the level of desired (or expected) ambition is instrumental in setting goals, targets, and action plans. Doing so helps guide leadership on what is most important and why to act. 
4. Benchmarking can help illustrate what might be possible and identifies examples of leadership. Benchmarking shows various industry practices, commonalities, and examples of leadership within sustainability practices and performance. However, benchmarking has its limitations. It is important to refer to external context, standards, and frameworks to gain a more holistic understanding of what "good" looks like and avoid convergence to the middle. 
5. Strategic foresight enables business resilience and long-term value creation. Looking ahead is essential for creating strategies that are guided by a clear vision and built for long-term change. ”Futures thinking” can help make companies more resilient to volatility and shocks by helping their leaders better anticipate both risks and opportunities for value creation.   
6. It is essential to invest time in listening and communicating internally. The biggest challenge to most sustainability strategies, once leadership buy-in and alignment is achieved and the strategy is set, is implementation. Enabling ownership and uptake across business units and functions; listening to and retaining existing goals, work, and programs; and building off successes and avoiding repeated mistakes are key to creating strategies that work in practice. 
7. Clear governance and accountability systems are critical to success. Clarifying responsibilities, integrating operational execution of goals and targets into the organizational culture, and building relationships will enable a smooth transition from strategy creation to execution. A robust governance model promotes a continuous dialogue with the board to obtain their input and oversight, with a focus on long-term value.   
8. Continuous upskilling is needed internally, with structured engagement externally. Amid shifting investor expectations and rising regulatory demands, sustainability issues and its broader landscape are evolving rapidly. A company culture of continuous upskilling helps staff understand emerging issues, like the impacts of AI, biodiversity, and the just transition, and act with agility in responding to new risks and opportunities. This approach, coupled with structured and continuous external engagement, also keeps companies apprised of changing stakeholder expectations and attuned to potential collaboration opportunities. 
9. Begin with the end in mind. Start your strategy by defining what “good” (or even “great”) looks like. Ground this vision in stakeholder expectations, ambition-setting exercises, and comprehensive disclosure frameworks’ requirements. Having clarity on the end goal and long-term objective will ensure that your strategy is both aligned with business value creation and built to deliver long-term impact. 
10. Strategic partnership enhances impact. Effective sustainability strategies are not built in isolation. Success comes from combining a company’s deep understanding of its business, governance, and culture with an external partner’s objective perspective, sustainability expertise, and forward-looking approach. Working collaboratively enables both efficiency and greater impact. At BSR, we act as trusted partners, often seen as an extension of our members’ teams, helping to co-create strategies that are grounded in business realities while shaped by broader trends and stakeholder expectations. This partnership model supports long-term value creation and implementation success. 

Sustainability leaders are facing significant headwinds, including regulatory uncertainty, ESG backlash, resource constraints, and shifting leadership priorities. These dynamics test the resilience of even the strongest strategies.  

While the above still hold, they require nuance. For example, benchmarking can be a trap if peers are retreating from their ambitions or are not sharing their work publicly. Now more than ever, it’s about spotting where quiet leadership and continued progress can enable business differentiation without creating new risks. Materiality must go beyond compliance to connect issues, anticipate future priorities, and guide action. Ambition and foresight are strategic assets when others are pausing; they help companies navigate future risk while staying anchored to current purpose. In short, a sustainability strategy today must be principled, adaptive, and built to endure.  

BSR works with member companies to build structured strategic approaches, grounded in foresight and sustainability expertise, that boost long-term business value. If you’re interested in refreshing or designing your next sustainability strategy, or simply seeking quick feedback, please reach out to BSR’s Sustainability Management team.

Insights+ | Wednesday July 30, 2025

Beyond the Business Case Debate: Reasserting the Strategic Value of Sustainability

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Blog | Tuesday July 29, 2025

Effective Remedy in Jeopardy? Lessons from the UNGPs, CSDDD, and EU Omnibus Proposal

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According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), companies are responsible for providing and cooperating in enabling access to effective remedy for harm associated with their operations and business relationships. Upholding this responsibility helps companies align with international standards and emerging regulations, while enhancing risk management and trust with affected stakeholders. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) represents a comprehensive attempt to harmonize corporate responsibility to respect human rights and environmental impacts, including on access to remedy. While the CSDDD generally aligns with the UNGPs on this topic, the recent Omnibus undermines key CSDDD provisions intended to ensure effective remedy for victims.  

Elements of Access to Remedy: What Companies Need to Know 

Based on our experience working with companies on access to remedy and the development of effective grievance mechanisms, the following elements of the UNGPs and the CSDDD merit particular attention from companies. Relevant sections of the Omnibus that modify CSDDD remedy provisions are highlighted where applicable: 

• Scope of Business Responsibilities: Access to remedy is a human right, and a company’s failure to provide or enable remedy after harm occurs can itself constitute an adverse human rights impact. This underscores the expectation that companies take action not only when they cause or contribute to harm, but also when harm is directly linked to their operations, products, or services through business relationships. Under the UNGPs and the CSDDD, companies are expected to provide or cooperate in remedy when they cause or contribute to an impact (“jointly caused” under the CSDDD). Remedy is understood as restoring affected rightsholders as closely as possible to their situation before the harm occurred. Where the impact is caused solely by a business partner, the CSDDD asks companies to: (i) voluntarily provide remedy, and (ii) use their influence to enable effective remedy. This reflects the broader principle that companies should use leverage to prevent and mitigate human rights impacts, including those tied to failures to provide remedy.
• Proportionality: Both frameworks stress that remediation should be proportionate to the gravity of the impact and the company’s involvement in the adverse impact.
• Remedy Ecosystem: The UNGPs promote a remedy ecosystem with complementary judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. The CSDDD promotes a remedy ecosystem through both civil liability provisions (for intentionally or negligently failing to comply with due diligence obligations) and non-judicial mechanisms. However, the EU Omnibus removes the civil liability provisions from the CSDDD, overriding the requirement for Member States to prioritize the CSDDD’s harmonized liability framework. As a result, each EU country will rely on its own laws, which increases the risk of jurisdictional fragmentation and creates complexity for companies facing lawsuits under differing standards. Additionally, the EU Omnibus removes the CSDDD’s explicit provision allowing trade unions and NGOs to file claims on behalf of victims, potentially limiting their access to remedy.
• Remediation Mechanisms: Both frameworks expect companies to establish and/or participate in accessible grievance mechanisms (“complaints procedure” under the CSDDD) that allow individuals to raise legitimate concerns about actual or potential impacts. These mechanisms also serve as early warning systems. The UNGPs outline key effectiveness criteria of grievance mechanisms (legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable, transparent, rights-compatible, and a source of continuous learning), which the CSDDD reinforces. The CSDDD also mandates that companies provide an accessible “notification mechanism” for persons and entities to submit information or concerns about actual or potential adverse impacts, including options for anonymity and safeguards against retaliation. Companies can meet these requirements through joint initiatives, including those led by industry associations, multi-stakeholder platforms, or global framework agreements. While the Omnibus retains the requirement for effective grievance mechanisms, it introduces a maximum harmonization principle, preventing Member States from setting higher standards. 

• Stakeholder Engagement: Both frameworks call for remediation based on engagement and dialogue with stakeholders. The EU Omnibus narrows the definition of “stakeholder”  to “directly” affected workers and their representatives, individuals, and communities whose rights or interests could be directly affected. However, it still retains the requirement to consult with affected individuals when providing for and cooperating in remediation, as well as in the development and operation of effective grievance mechanisms. This narrower scope may hinder companies’ ability to identify impacts deeper in the value chain, reducing victims’ opportunities to access effective remedy.

Facilitating and Providing Effective Remedy  

By meeting the UNGPs’ expectations, companies will be well positioned to align with CSDDD requirements. Based on our experience in helping companies navigate these shifts, we recommend that companies:  

Know and strengthen their remedy ecosystem. Mapping the remedy ecosystem, including  peer and multi-stakeholder initiatives with grievance mechanisms, helps companies design effective grievance mechanisms, use leverage to address harm, engage business partners and key stakeholders, and plan for a responsible exit if needed. A strong remedy ecosystem can expand the company’s reach, offer creative solutions where direct oversight is limited, and improve access to remedy for rightsholders.  

Develop and maintain effective grievance mechanisms. As the Omnibus limits access to civil liability and narrows proactive due diligence to a company’s own operations and subsidiaries, internal grievance systems will become a critical channel for victims and a key tool for due diligence. Companies must still act on “plausible information” of harm involving indirect partners, making grievance mechanisms essential for identifying and addressing risks. Effective systems should handle complaints tied to indirect partners and align with the UNGPs and CSDDD to ensure accessibility for all stakeholders.  

Conduct meaningful stakeholder engagement. Engaging with stakeholders is essential to understanding and strengthening a company’s remedy ecosystem, and the CSDDD outlines UNGP-aligned criteria for such work. Despite the Omnibus changes discussed above, we recommend that companies proactively engage with stakeholders, including civil society, who raise concerns about actual or potential human rights impacts, including those arising from indirect business partners. 

Provide effective remedy. This includes requiring companies to assess their role in causing, contributing to, or being directly linked to adverse impacts. International standards recognize multiple forms of remedy—such as restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition—which may be used individually or in combination. From the perspective of affected rightsholders, an effective remedy should be accessible, affordable, adequate, and timely.  

We recommend that companies remain committed to developing effective grievance mechanisms and using leverage to enable remedy in line with the UNGPs, OECD Guidelines, and other international standards. Aligning with these frameworks positions companies to meet the CSDDD requirements and an evolving regulatory environment. If you have questions on designing your company’s remedy ecosystem approach and providing access to remedy, please reach out to BSR’s Human Rights team.   

Blog | Thursday July 17, 2025

Strengthening Supply Chain Sustainability: Eight Dimensions for Responsible Business

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Impacting billions of livelihoods and ecosystems around the world, value chains are a critical lever for business action and progress on climate and sustainable development. The pandemic, geopolitical tensions and wars, extreme weather events, and increasing and then diverging corporate sustainability regulations are just some of the disruptive events that have impacted the daily realities of supply chain management professionals and communities along the value chain. We have reached a point where the need for action is ever more urgent, yet the context for decisions and investments is growing increasingly more complex and seems to be in a constant state of flux.   

In these chaotic times, it’s imperative to take care of the fundamentals (e.g., supplier relationships) that enable supply chain resilience and efficiency. It's impossible to accurately predict how current trade tensions will play out or what crises will come next; however, strong foundations and enduring value chain relationships will best equip companies to navigate these challenging times.  

Informed by 30+ years of working with companies on downstream and upstream impacts across industries, our freshly updated Value Chain Leadership Ladder outlines how to advance business leadership in value chain sustainability. It is designed to help companies assess the maturity of their value chain sustainability processes and programs across eight fundamental dimensions, which enable solid supply and/or value chain management and sustainability progress. Performing the assessment helps evaluate the extent to which companies have a robust program in place and informs key actions in each of these areas.  

The Ladder’s internal dimensions focus on actions that companies can take within their own organizations: 

1. Value chain knowledge and understanding: Knowledge is power. Having a better understanding of your value chain and the people, organizations, relationships, ecosystems and dynamics within not only supports effective and context-specific sustainability action, but also enables companies to anticipate the implications of shocks (e.g., tariffs, climate events) and allows for effective contingency planning. 
2. Strategies and processes: Increasing integration between companies’ sustainability and supply chain strategies ensures they are actively addressing material business risks (e.g., supply security) and capturing opportunities for sustainability-related competitive advantage and innovation. 
3. Commercial terms and buying practices: Approaching these with principles of fairness and shared value positions companies for collaborative relationships that (i) can support navigating value chain volatility and (ii) don't undermine business partners’ ability to make investments that support their buyers (e.g., investments in innovation, in excellence, and in addressing sustainability risks to which buying companies are also exposed). 
4. Governance and management: Appropriate oversight and institutional capacity and incentives are essential to achieve a company’s supply chain and sustainability objectives. 

The external dimensions highlight how companies can pursue progress on sustainability goals beyond their own operations: 

1. Business partner engagement: Considerate and collaborative supplier and business partner engagement is a critical path for developing innovative sustainability solutions, mitigating sustainability and human rights-related risk, and conducting due diligence. 
2. Value chain worker and community engagement: Meaningful engagement with workers and communities along the value chain can help companies anticipate emerging issues, address long-term business risks (e.g. low farming incomes deterring young farmers), and identify and address serious human rights violations. 
3. Collaboration: Working collectively can help deepen and amplify progress on mutual sustainability goals. By sharing resources and knowledge with each other, companies can solve business-critical risks together that they might not be able to address alone. 
4. Reporting: Disclosure on various topics, whether specific (e.g., forced labor) or broad (e.g., sustainability and due diligence measures), remains and is becoming more important for regulatory compliance in many countries. Furthermore, decision-useful reporting helps investors and other business-critical stakeholders understand and gain confidence about the company’s value chain context and management of related issues.  

Recommendations for Companies 

Sustainability and supply chain leaders are operating in a turbulent context. With new regulations, growing interest in responsible value chains, and continued instability, companies need to take a more collaborative approach to supply chain sustainability and supplier engagement, stepping away from expensive, data-intensive practices. With these challenges in mind, the Ladder encourages companies to work in these ways:  

1. Expand from “supply chain” to “value chain.” Companies can consider impacts on society and the environment all along the value chain, reflecting a growing recognition of the salience of downstream impacts and their inclusion in due diligence regulation. The Ladder enables a more dynamic assessment as companies/industries vary in where impact is greatest (upstream/downstream). 
2. Elevate the importance of solutions that are co-created with and led by suppliers and workers. While it’s been long acknowledged that partnership between suppliers and workers enables greater and more sustained impact, sustainability solutions have too often been centered on buying companies’ priorities, rather than leveraging the skills and ideas and catering to the needs of the groups who are most impacted. Companies can provide the most impacted people with a priority role in solutions development and take a collaborative and enabling role in co-creation and solutions led by relevant groups.    
3. Reinforce balance between data, measurement, and context. With the proliferation of digital tools, standards, and regulation, it is even more urgent to avoid overburdening suppliers with data collection. Companies need to be mindful of the context for suppliers, business partners, and workers; to focus on data that is meaningful and useful; and to recognize its limitations.  
4. Maintain responsibility when increasing agility. Agility is the watchword as 2025 continues, but it comes with implications for human rights and sustainability as supply chain and sourcing regions shift (e.g., loss of livelihoods). The Ladder encourages companies to integrate sustainability principles in making and implementing decisions, with due diligence and responsible onboarding and exit as key frameworks to follow.   

When companies are understandably forced by recent events into reactive decision-making, they may fail to consider the long- or medium-term implications for their relationships with suppliers and impacts on communities. Focusing on the fundamentals of value chain management, supported by tools like the Value Chain Leadership Ladder, can help companies move away from reactivity and into proactive, less transactional efforts.  

Interested in learning more about addressing today’s global challenges in your company’s value chains?  Contact BSR’s Supply Chain team to understand the strengths and gaps in your current supply chain approach. 

People

Alexa Roccanova

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Alexa works with the Marketing and Communications team, developing editorial and social media content, marketing materials, and other digital communications. 

Prior to joining BSR, Alexa managed communications, partnerships, and campaigns at the advocacy organization, Remake, where she developed high-impact content, resources, and multi-stakeholder initiatives to advance labor rights and climate justice in the global garment industry. She also worked with the international legal consultancy, Beyond Human Rights Compliance, to develop a technical guidance for fashion companies on meaningful stakeholder engagement. She has worked closely with frontline worker communities, civil society organizations, global apparel companies, and government agencies to facilitate cross-sector collaboration on intersectional sustainability solutions. 

Alexa holds a Master’s in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management and Bachelor’s degrees in Fashion Design and Literary Studies from The New School.

Blog | Thursday July 10, 2025

How Foresight Can Enhance Strategic Resilience in a Time of Turbulence

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Navigating a New Reality 

Over the past year, the world has entered a turbulent new era—marked by a set of abrupt shocks that are intersecting with, and complicating, enduring, long-term transformations. Sudden disruptions, like unpredictable tariffs and rapid AI advances, are colliding with longer-term shifts, such as intensifying climate impacts and diversifying societies, evolving faster than conventional strategies can adapt. 

In addition, growing alignment across short-, medium-, and long-term sustainability considerations has now fractured. For example, just a few short years ago in the United States, imperatives to act on DEI were increasingly aligned across all time horizons. The near-term political pressures to act, galvanized by movements such as Black Lives Matter, aligned with emerging policy directions as well as the growing diversification of society. Now, however, near-term political backlash against DEI in the U.S. may run counter to medium-term policy expectations or long-term demographic trends. Businesses must increasingly grapple with such tensions and tradeoffs across time horizons rather than planning in linear trajectories. 

At the same time, businesses are facing parallel fragmentation across geographies and jurisdictions. Where there was once a push toward global alignment—on climate disclosure, human rights expectations, and sustainable finance regulations—there is now a growing divergence. The result is a fractured landscape in which a company’s sustainability strategy may be celebrated in one market and penalized in another. 

Building Strategy for a Fragmented Future 

This is not just a more complex environment—it’s a different kind of strategic terrain, one that requires global companies to strategically navigate across divergent politics, timelines, and legal regimes.  

In this context, sustainability strategy must be adaptive rather than static. Long-term success will require companies to combine north-star vision with short-term agility—and to make regular, deliberate choices about how to navigate the tensions between them. 

This is where strategic foresight becomes essential. Foresight isn’t about making predictions—rather, it is a structured way of thinking about the future that can help companies make better decisions in the face of uncertainty. By understanding key drivers of change, stress-testing plans against divergent future possibilities, and articulating a guiding vision, foresight supports organizations in anticipating what’s coming, adapting to volatility with integrity, and staying grounded in long-term purpose. 

Companies should embed foresight into sustainability strategy across three time horizons: 

1. Short-Term: Adapting Without Losing Focus 

In today’s volatile environment, abrupt shocks—such as political pushback or regulatory reversals—can create reactive mindsets. Strategy should not change with the headwinds, yet also can’t ignore the current turbulence. The challenge is to discern what is transient versus what will have lasting impacts, and reconfigure the path to long-term goals. 

Structured foresight exercises can help teams identify where short-term developments create new risks, tradeoffs, or opportunities. These conversations can help surface the dilemmas organizations will need to navigate and help avoid reactive decision-making that undermines long-term vision. 

One way to explore short-term volatility is through future simulations—facilitated role-playing exercises that allow teams to rehearse responses to plausible near-term disruptions, such as regulatory shifts, AI governance dilemmas, or political backlash. These sessions help surface potential points of tension across functions, identify ethical and legal dilemmas, and clarify where contingency plans may be needed. 

2. Medium-Term: Preparing for Trends and Uncertainties 

In the rush to respond to short-term uncertainty, sustainability and business leaders should be wary of taking their eye off the horizon and losing sight of what’s still to come. The medium-term will be shaped by clearly discernible trends (established patterns of change with observable directionality over time), such as intensifying climate impacts, as well as countertrends, such as the anti-ESG backlash. It is also characterized by deep uncertainty around issues such as geopolitical relations and technology deployment. Strategy must aim to be both resilient and adaptive. 

Analyzing trends, countertrends, and emerging issues is an important way to help clarify the direction of travel. Here, it is particularly important to map out the collision of trends and countertrends, as well as their geographical specificities. What may look chaotic on the surface is often the result of coherent drivers of change interacting in complex fashion.    

For deeper uncertainties, the use of future scenarios can enable teams to develop resilient strategies that can succeed across a wider range of possible futures. Scenarios are structured, narrative-based depictions of multiple plausible future operating environments. They are not predictions, but tools to explore uncertainty, challenge assumptions, and stress-test strategies against divergent outcomes. 

Both trend and scenario analysis are vital. Using them together enables strategy teams to stress-test strategic priorities, right-size ambition levels, and build agility and flexibility into how they carry out their strategies in a world of accelerating change. 

3. Long-Term: Vision as a Decision-Making Tool 

Even amid turbulence, long-term vision still matters—and arguably more than ever. A strong sustainability vision should not only inspire but serve as a decision-making tool: guiding tradeoffs, prioritizing investments, and defining red lines that help the company act with clarity and consistency during moments of upheaval. 

Foresight frameworks can help companies articulate a transformative vision of the future and identify various innovation pathways to achieve it. For instance, Three Horizons, a foresight tool for navigating long-term transformation, can help organizations understand the current system (Horizon 1), explore transitional innovations (Horizon 2), and articulate a future vision aligned with emerging needs and values (Horizon 3). Reconnecting with that Horizon 3 vision, even (or especially) in moments of turbulence, helps organizations stay on course while remaining flexible about the route. 

Strategy for a Time of Transition 

The road ahead will be defined by rapid change and disruption, but it will also be shaped by the choices companies make today. 

By embracing foresight, companies can strengthen their ability to anticipate and adapt without losing sight of who they are and what they stand for. This is how futures thinking can support resilient, purpose-driven sustainability strategy and help business lead through crisis, rather than simply endure it.