Sustainable Value: How Mainstream Companies Do Well by Doing Good

Published 31 January 2008

A small but influential group of mainstream global industry leaders are now reinventing the role of business in society. They are shifting the focus away from minimizing negative impacts to offering new solutions to global problems that the public sector has been unable to tackle alone. In this new competitive environment, societal challenges such as climate change or the alleviation of global poverty are not only risks, but huge business opportunities, not only for niche players, but for mainstream business.

These leaders are creating ‘Sustainable Value’. They are creating it through the provision of value to both their shareholders and their stakeholders — an ever-growing list of diverse constituents impacted by the social, environmental, and financial performance of global business. In short, they are doing well by doing good.

In this outstanding book, Chris Laszlo defines, illustrates, and shows how business can action ‘Sustainable Value’ in three profoundly different ways. First, a management fable looks at the experiences of a dynamic business leader as she grapples with the new business realities of managing stakeholder, as well as shareholder pressures. Second, with the real thing — inside stories from some of the largest corporations in the world that are successfully integrating sustainability into their core activities, not only from a sense of moral correctness, but because it makes good business sense. And, finally, with frameworks, tools, and methods that will make sustainable value creation concrete for business practitioners everywhere.

This book is a masterful synthesis — part novel and part executive briefing — a refreshing kind of prophetic pragmatism, helping leaders anticipate and see the future in the context of the actual. In ‘Sustainable Value : How Mainstream Companies Do Well by Doing Good’ Chris Laszlo speaks with resounding clarity to the living challenges, the real dilemmas, and haunting questions of CEOs everywhere.

Publication Date: January 31, 2008

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Chris Laszlo is the author of The Sustainable Company: How to Create Lasting Value through Social and Environmental Performance, published by Island Press in October 2003 (paperback July 2005). more…  US / UK
A co-founder and partner of Sustainable Value Partners, he has trained thousands of Fortune 500 executives in “sustainability for business advantage” inside companies and at leading business schools around the world. He is a partner of Blu Skye Sustainability, the leading strategy consulting firm.