How Companies Capture the Value of Sustainability: Survey Findings
What makes the difference between a sustainability program that produces business value and one that doesn’t? A new McKinsey survey identifies practices that distinguish value-creating companies from others.
Sustainability endeavors often make good business sense, promising to deliver revenue gains, cost savings, and other benefits that lift enterprise value. In our survey, 22 percent of respondents—the value-creating group that this article focuses on—say their companies realized modest or significant value from sustainability in the past five years.
The survey results highlight practices more widely followed by companies that are creating value from sustainability than by companies that aren’t. Experience also suggests that companies with effective sustainability programs tend to plan and manage these programs with the same discipline and commitment that they apply to other business initiatives.