The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiation

The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiation

by Eric Lowitt
Released September 2011
Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
ISBN: 9781118074527

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Book description

Enhance business performance by using sustainability for competitive advantage

The Future of Value reveals what it takes for companies to grow and outperform the competition in today's growth-constrained, sustainability conscious world. The author shows leaders how to use sustainability as a powerful, pragmatic lens to enhance business performance. He also explores how to craft and oversee a portfolio of effective tools, develop competitive strategies, and adjust value chain activities, talent management practices, and corporate policies to help organizations execute powerful sustainability strategies.

He provides a systematic, yet instantly familiar, model all companies can use to connect sustainability with their growth and competitive strategies. In this way, the author shows leaders how to shape, color, and own The Future of Value.

  • Outlines the keys to implementing sustainability in organizations to achieve business success today and tomorrow

  • Reveals how to engage stakeholders in day to day sustainability management as a means to shape and fuel efforts to continuously renew their sustainability strategies

  • The author is a 15-year veteran of sustainability and strategy management consulting, having worked with clients in the US, Japan, Australia, and Europe. He has an MBA in Strategic Management from The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and writes a regular column for Sustainable Life Media and GreenBiz, two of the world's most heavily trafficked sustainability news and thought leadership portals

The author draws useful and accessible conclusions from a rich, diverse set of corporate interviewees. A core part of his research was the selection and interrogation of more than 25 Global Fortune 500 companies' sustainability, strategy, and finance leads.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Praise for The Future of Value
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright page
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword
  7. Preface
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. About the Author
  10. INTRODUCTION
    1. Why This Book and Why Now?
    2. A New Way of Thinking About Sustainability’s Role in Value Creation
    3. Why You Should Read This Book
    4. How to Read This Book
    5. Call to Action: Embrace Sustainability to Create Value Today and Tomorrow
  11. Part One: HOW SUSTAINABILITY CREATES VALUE
    1. 1 SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES ARE MARKET LEADERS
      1. Sustainability as Competitive Advantage: Three Examples
      2. Are Many Other Companies Also Competing on Sustainability?
      3. Research Findings
      4. Conclusion
    2. 2 SUSTAINABLE MARKET LEADERS COMPETE ON SUSTAINABILITY
      1. Monadnock: From ISO to Sustainable Market Leader
      2. Connecting Sustainability with Corporate Strategy
      3. Sustainability and Competitive Strategy: The Five Forces Model of Competition
      4. Sustainability as Vehicle to Capture Customers
      5. Sustainability as Market Entry Strategy
      6. Conclusion
    3. 3 COMPETING ON SUSTAINABILITY CREATES VALUE
      1. Three Reasons to “Wing It”
      2. Translating Advantage into Performance
      3. Increasing Revenue
      4. Reducing Expenses
      5. Creating Tangible and Intangible Value
      6. Conclusion
  12. Part Two: HOW TO CREATE VALUE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION
    1. 4 CRAFTING SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY
      1. Strategy Formulation
      2. The Need for Sustainability Strategy
      3. Integrating Sustainability with Strategy
      4. Conclusion
    2. 5 LEADING STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT EFFORTS
      1. Sustainability Governance at Herman Miller
      2. Sustainable Market Leaders’ General Approach to Governance
      3. How Widespread Is the Installation of Sustainability Governance Structures?
      4. Conclusion
    3. 6 EMBEDDING SUSTAINABILITY INTO THE VALUE CHAIN
      1. Sustainability as Catalyst and Source of Agility
      2. Five Functions to Retool
      3. Conclusion
    4. 7 ANALYZING AND COMMUNICATING PERFORMANCE
      1. The Fine Art of Crafting Sustainability Performance Systems
      2. When and How to Communicate Progress
      3. Sustainability Performance Management Can Drive Business Value
      4. Identifying Best Practices
      5. Identifying Product Improvement Opportunities Through Life Cycle Assessments
      6. Conclusion
    5. 8 RENEWING SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS
      1. eBay Engages
      2. Relationships with Employees
      3. Relationships with Customers and Interested Communities
      4. Relationships with Value Chain Partners
      5. Relationships with Competitors
      6. Relationships with Nongovernmental Organizations
      7. Conclusion
    6. 9 KEEPING SUSTAINABLE AND AGILE
      1. Stakeholders Emerge as Initiators of Imperatives
      2. The Sustainability Era and Society as Stakeholder
      3. A Payoff in Agility
  13. Appendix A: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
    1. Phase 1: Identifying Sustainability Among the 2010 Global Fortune 500
    2. Phase 2: Identifying Sustainable Market Leaders
    3. Phase 3: Seeking Deeper Understanding of What the Leaders Do
  14. Appendix B: INTERVIEWEES
  15. Appendix C: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
  16. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiation
  • Author(s): Eric Lowitt
  • Release date: September 2011
  • Publisher(s): Jossey-Bass
  • ISBN: 9781118074527