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Foreword

Georg Kell, Executive Head, UN Global Compact

Businesses are challenged as never before by the unrelenting and ever-increasing

demands posed by the global economy and the marketplace to address the concerns of

a wide range of critical stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, employees,

and communities, both locally and around the world.

Technology and deregulation have unleashed an unprecedented expansion of business

activities over the past quarter of a century. Many companies have gone global

while governments have remained local. Businesses, large and small, are learning to

integrate into a global marketplace that offers scale and efficiency gains.

New markets have been developed and much progress has been made in bringing

hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. At the same time, poverty persists

in many parts of the world, inequity has been on the rise, and the impact of human

activities on the natural environment threatens our survival as a species.

We cannot predict the future, but the certainty of the major disruptive forces we are

witnessing every day makes a compelling case for us to reexamine our fundamental values,

shift our priorities, and shape a new strategic direction to create a more sustainable

world.

How will we master this global transformation to a sustainable future? Where will

leadership come from? Will we be able to extend the benefits of productivity gains to

those who need them most while safeguarding our natural environment? Will openness

as an economic and political idea prevail, or will we fall back into discriminatory behavior,

building walls and creating enemies? Will we be able to provide stewardship that

thrives on and cultivates the creativity of people and enterprises while safeguarding the

common good? Are we willing — and are we capable enough — to change our patterns

of consumption and lifestyles so that they meet our most basic human needs while considering

those of future generations? Can we build incentive systems that reward and

reinforce good environmental, social, and governance performance?

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Never before have we been so dependent on each

other.

There is always hope that policy-makers will eventually provide leadership. But all

too often they are concerned with territorial constituency building or the sheer desire

to maintain a hold on power. Few policy-makers are able, or willing, to take on global

perspectives or a long-term vision that goes beyond election cycles.

Business can hardly afford to wait for this to happen. The changing landscape has

made it imperative that business help architect and execute the solution. The notion and

practice of business responsibility and the search for practical solutions has evolved

over the past two decades. Business increasingly understands that the search for sustainability

is not just about avoiding costs; it is increasingly about creating business

value and inventing models that deliver societal and market success.

Clearly, the role of business is undergoing a profound transformation. The most obvious

is the need to manage risks in an interdependent world. As business has become

global, it can no longer take refuge behind one home government. It needs to learn to

deal simultaneously with different regulatory and societal realities. At the same time,

the pursuit of global integration and the sophistication of dispersed supply chains has

created new vulnerabilities — as have the scarcity of natural resources and the unfolding

of climate change–related regulatory and lifestyle changes.

New business models that understand how to build markets for the one billion people

that remain excluded, that thrive on energy efficiency and environmental stewardship,

and that build societal goodwill and support are likely to be the winning models

of the future. Such enterprises will not only succeed in their own right, they will also

make an enormously important contribution to the future of humanity.

We are called to support and promote business efforts that embrace sustainability

strategies as a modus operandi. Many small and large innovations and alterations are

needed to bring about a change on the scale required to safeguard our future. Human

creativity and the will to shape the future are our best hope. This Fieldbook opens the

door for business leaders and managers to the most appropriate and practical pathway

for themselves and their enterprises to forge a more sustainable future. It takes us on a

thoughtful journey through the eyes of 29 passionate, experienced practitioners inspiring

us all to step up to the plate, create a plan, and move forward with velocity, intention,

and commitment. It provides the tools, cases, best practices, learnings, and understandings

— at once profound and practical — to equip and enable every manager and

leader to play a role in the reinvention of the world.