The Sustainability Imperative

Ryan Flaim and Maureen Wolff offer detailed advice on how to combat anti-ESG sentiment. Acknowledging that ESG has become a political tinderbox, the authors say companies can still reap the benefits of their ESG initiatives. They suggest a three-pronged solution that starts with closely aligning ESG goals with corporate strategies, as Trane Technologies and Adidas have done. Second, tell a cohesive, integrated ESG story, including how your company refers to these efforts (use “ESG” or maybe go with “impact” or “sustainability”), using KPIs and case studies and ensuring your metrics are validated. The latter is not only the best antidote to greenwashing accusations, it’s also been shown to lead companies to make more carbon-emission reductions than companies that don’t externally verify their data. Third, Flaim and Wolff advise taking a proactive, creative approach to stakeholder engagement. One-on-one meetings with analysts and stewardship teams, ESG investor briefings (perhaps less controversially called “Sustainability Days”), and developing employee ambassadors could all be in the mix. Recent backlash doesn’t necessarily mean an ESG strategy isn’t relevant, assert the authors. Rather, by focusing on strategy, transparency, accountability, and performance, ESG can be a meaningful competitive advantage and an enabler of responsible business.

Ryan M. Bouldin and Elizabeth Levy look at corporate responsibility through the lens of product design. The authors point out that when sustainability considerations are incorporated at the end of design, inefficiencies and excess costs often result. One reason these efforts come so late is that two-thirds of chief sustainability officers report through functions far from product decisions, such as corporate affairs, general counsel, or HR. Bouldin and Levy suggest a new framework for incorporating corporate responsibility into product design; its categories include equity and justice, transparency, health and safety impacts, circularity, and climate and ecosystem impacts. The authors explain how this method results in an inclusive design process that embodies corporate responsibility. Done this way, product design would include verifying worker protection, specifying greenhouse gas emissions alongside chemical and material-safety data, and choosing chemicals and materials for their lack of hazards. Finally, the authors note, although companies should be transparent about their circularity goals, they should not market their initial efforts as sustainable, as this could open them up to greenwashing claims.

Punit Arora considers how companies might live up to various environmental commitments, a topic where we need more insight. Arora takes us into the motivation behind corporate environmental disclosures — specifically the practices of greenwashing and “brownwashing” and their relationship to innovation. The author points to brownwashing firms, which are either content with their sustainability performance or hesitant to acknowledge it for fear of backlash. These firms don’t exhibit a significant appetite for what Arora calls “ecovation” (the relationship between environmental disclosure and environmental innovation). At the other end of the spectrum are “greenwashers,” companies that express false environmental commitments. Although the press is keen to report on these instances, Arora points out that we don’t yet have data on the long-term effects of greenwashing. What the author calls “green highlighting” may be the answer: a balance of substantive action with symbolic disclosures that research suggests makes firms more likely to live up to their environmental commitments.

The buzz around the circular economy is not new, but the pandemic and climate change have led to more serious discussions and activities for large companies like Apple, Nike, and Unilever. This Advisor explores how these companies and others are supporting circularity and communicating their progress.

This Advisor explores the relationship between urban density and transport-related energy consumption and offers strategies for decarbonizing urban transportation systems.

Sk. Riad Bin Ashraf, Denis Daus, and Tobias Kuester-Campioni delve into transport-oriented development (TOD) by describing a proposal to municipal authorities in Dortmund, Germany, to help the city achieve its sustainable development objectives. Although Dortmund has a comprehensive public transportation system, it’s not convenient enough to discourage private car use, especially given the city’s urban sprawl. The proposal includes adding micromobility hubs at major transit points; installing AI-based adjustable bus routing; adding pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly infrastructure; and adding high-density, mixed-use development near transit hubs. Finally, the authors point to TOD projects in India, China, Indonesia, and Australia that can serve as examples for urban planners as they work on their sustainable development objectives.

Kerstin Kopal and Dirk Wittowsky holistically examine the interaction between societal benefits and public health aspects. As integrated as these functions are, public health concerns are usually included too late or not at all in urban planning processes today. The authors use a survey on walkability conducted in 2021 in Essen, Germany, to show how cities can identify key relationships between the built environment and healthy mobility behavior. The goal is to promote active mobility interventions by city planners; along the way, Kopal and Wittowsky describe how walkability data can be used by stakeholders like real estate companies and public transportation operators.

François-Joseph Van Audenhove and Hans Arby look at recent MaaS trends and detail four causes for slow progress: lack of demand, offerings that don’t match demand, suboptimal enablement, and lack of viable business cases. The answer, they believe, lies in cities setting priorities to help extract value at the system level. Van Audenhove and Arby advocate for a comprehensive framework that includes framing dimensions (e.g., mobility patterns and system characteristics and creating the right conditions for mobility service providers) and enabling dimensions (e.g., integration support, regulations that allow open collaboration, and systems to ensure learnings from experimentation are extracted and shared). “One size fits all” is not the answer for MaaS, write the authors. Rather, comprehensive approaches and increased collaboration between public and private stakeholders are needed.