Managing Sustainability

CHAPTER 4

Creating a Leading Program

Any business, if it wants to be sustained over time, must maximize its profits but do so in a manner that meets the needs of the stakeholders that allow it to remain successful. When those needs change, businesses have a responsibility to adapt their behaviors accordingly. At the same time, as we have seen, strict legal compliance is not a leadership position, because doing so can only put the organization “in with the pack.” This also fails to recognize that when any company in a sector fails to meet its obligations in a spectacular fashion (such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill), the entire industry is tainted by the same brush.

Employees want more than a paycheck.

Communities want the company to ...