The Sustainability Imperative
As organizations struggle to define a strategy that balances purpose and profit, opportunities are increasingly emerging to take the lead in sustainability initiatives. Front-line advances in areas such as net-zero emissions, AI-powered solutions for the underserved, precision agriculture, digital healthcare, and more are delivering business benefits, while simultaneously contributing to the realization of the UN’s 17 SDGs. We provide the expert thinking, debate, and guidance to help your organization reposition and transform in the era of sustainability.
Insight
This Advisor explores how lifecycle assessment (LCA), when integrated with digital technologies like BIM, IoT, and AI, enables construction firms to measure and minimize environmental impact across a project’s entire lifecycle. By enhancing accuracy, insight, and decision-making, digital-enabled LCA supports sustainable design, regulatory compliance, and long-term efficiency from planning to end-of-life.
Through candid storytelling and sharp analysis, François Pumir shows how fear-based planning, driven by old narratives and past failures, inadvertently breeds fragility instead of true readiness. He invites us to replace exhaustive frameworks with a new leadership practice rooted in clarity and direct perception, offering practical steps to cultivate a culture that responds fluidly to emergent realities. It’s a transformative reminder that true resilience starts within by shifting mindset from fear to clarity.
In this Advisor, we explore how farmers face intertwined sociocultural, technical, and ecological barriers to adopting AI for climate-resilient agriculture. It highlights how a conjoint learning approach — blending traditional knowledge with AI — can overcome these challenges, enhance local relevance, and support more adaptive, trusted, and ecologically sound farming practices.
This Advisor follows Mary Jacobs, the newly appointed chief sustainability officer of Exactibrate Corporation, as she confronts the challenge of unifying fragmented sustainability efforts into a program that delivers both economic and societal value. Rejecting the outdated notion of a “sustainability tax,” Mary embraces a model where shareholder and stakeholder interests align. Using the Sustainability Canvas, the piece demonstrates how targeted actions across four strategic quadrants generate value, reduce risk, and strengthen competitive advantage.
This Advisor explores how Trane Technologies turned ambitious climate goals into a clear, executable strategy. Anchored by its 2030 Sustainability Commitments and the bold Gigaton Challenge, the company aligned sustainability with core business performance. By developing a robust playbook, Trane operationalized its net zero ambitions — establishing where to play, how to win, and the capabilities needed to lead on climate action.
In this Advisor, ADL’s Ali Ayach and Farhan Mirza explore how the healthcare sector can embrace sustainability without compromising care quality or patient experience. It highlights the role of green technologies, international standards, and cross-industry collaboration in reducing environmental impact. Case studies from leading hospitals and health systems demonstrate tangible benefits — such as cost savings, emission reductions, and operational efficiencies — while national action plans in the US and UK reinforce a global drive toward net zero healthcare.
This Advisor introduces a practical, integrated methodology for evaluating the holistic benefits of nature-based solutions (NbS). It addresses the shortcomings of current valuation approaches — either overly simplistic or excessively complex— by combining qualitative and quantitative measures within a structured multi-criteria analysis framework. The proposed benefit-screening method enables decision makers to transparently assess NbS across environmental, social, and economic dimensions.
This Advisor explores the often-overlooked sustainability potential of hydropower — highlighting how long-standing facilities are evolving to support environmental stewardship, community engagement, biodiversity, and transparent governance. From adaptive river management to educational outreach and innovative turbine designs, hydropower is demonstrating its capacity to deliver more than just renewable energy.