Approaches to Sustainability

There are many approaches and frameworks for thinking about Sustainability. Our focus is on understanding the difference between tactical initiatives versus strategic sustainability for true competitive advantage.

Strategic Sustainability is integral to the business model, a source of differentiation, hard to copy, specific to the firm and focused on building value both internally and externally.

Tactical Sustainability, on the other hand, is not a source of differentiation; every company can do it. Carbon reduction measures, for example, are considered tactical if viewed in isolation without the context of an overall Sustainability strategy.

Linking Strategic and Tactical Sustainability is Process Sustainability which focuses on improving key cross-functional and organisation-wide processes in order to make the organisation more sustainable.

These three levels of Sustainability: Strategic, Process and Tactical are linked together as illustrated in the diagram below: