Global Leaders Debate The Sustainable OrganizationSetting the agenda for business sustainability

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Foreword by Pierre Nanterme, Chief Executive Officer, Accenture

By 2050, the world will need to support a population of 9 billion people. In preparation, business leaders will be called upon to take bold actions—in driving efficiencies, cost savings and differentiation in their markets—in order to achieve business sustainability.

Today, businesses around the world share an obligation to run their organizations more effectively for the future of our planet and for the future of generations to come. We, at Accenture, believe that global discussions about business sustainability—including multiple stakeholders—are becoming more critical and more urgent than ever before.

In May 2012, Accenture hosted Sustainability 24, a unique virtual conversation involving business, government and civil society leaders from more than twenty countries around the world. Over the course of a day, speakers and participants came together to debate the importance of business sustainability in a fast-changing and converging world, and to discuss how sustainable practices can help companies drive long-term growth.

Our objective was to help business leaders address these responsibilities, and also to challenge them to make breakthrough innovations and scale current sustainability solutions for long-term success.

This report draws on the insights from Sustainability 24 and combines them with Accenture’s wide-ranging research into sustainability. It examines ways in which modern sustainable business practices are helping organizations achieve high performance, cope with resources limitations and embed best practices across their strategies and operations.

The testimonies, examples and ideas presented within this report offer a glimpse of some of the current approaches that respond to broad and complex challenges related to business sustainability. We hope you find this content relevant to your organization and that you will continue the dialogue with us.

Sustainability 24

Pierre Nanterme Chief Executive Officer Accenture

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Foreword by Bruno Berthon, Global Managing Director for Accenture Sustainability Services

Sustainability has become an imperative for business. There is substantial and consistent evidence supporting this fact, including Accenture’s 2012 research, Long-Term Growth, Short-Term Differentiation and Profits from Sustainable Products and Services, which polled 250 leading executives. The study found that more than three out of four (78%) now believe sustainability plays a “vital” role in the future growth of their businesses, while 83% see expenditure on sustainability as an investment, rather than an additional cost burden.

Yet even as sustainability pilots and innovative programs proliferate, and as organizations make progress with resource efficiency, the global footprint of human activity continues to expand. Moreover, with many economies struggling to emerge from recession, the growth imperative often appears to run counter to many sustainability goals. These factors have important implications. Business must re-think traditional commercial practices and develop innovative and scalable sustainability solutions that foster human development, conserve natural resources and drive profitability.

Setting the agenda for effective business sustainability calls for bold leadership. As this report suggests, business leaders must take a long, hard look at how to turn good intentions regarding sustainability into scalable programs that deliver tangible and deep transformational results. Moreover, they must embed these practices across every aspect of their business. Success will require companies to re-consider their entire value chain by developing products and services that are environmentally sustainable throughout their entire life-cycle of production, distribution and consumption.

It is also clear that no one stakeholder can tackle sustainability alone. Many businesses ought to look for opportunities to collaborate with a broad range of non-traditional partners, including other corporations, non-governmental organizations, civil society groups and governments. By working together in this way, companies and other stakeholders can create the messages and incentives that will encourage consumers to do the right thing and support sustainable business practices.

In this report, we examine how companies can respond to the current sustainability agenda across every key aspect of their business, including strategy, operational models, resource management and energy consumption. We recognize that meeting these challenges will not be easy, but we believe that we can play an active role in helping companies to make the transition to a new, more sustainable era. We hope you find this report valuable, and look forward to continuing our conversations with you.

Bruno Berthon Global Managing Director Accenture Sustainability Services

Sustainability 24 is an annual daylong global debate linking leading thought leaders together from around the globe via the internet in a live open-to-everyone interactive broadcast. The 2013 debate will take place on May 15th. Find out more at www.accenture.com/sustainability24.

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This report reflects the views of 53 executives and experts from Accenture’s 2012 Sustainability 24, a daylong debate with a 12-hour live broadcast, while also drawing on our growing body of sustainability-related research. In doing so, it collects the views of a large number of global thought leaders across industry, civil society and government to capture the latest thinking on sustainability.

Some of the specific themes this report addresses include:

Sustainable strategies, innovation and business modelsHere we explore the scalable models of business and new forms of collaboration that are needed to take sustainability from pilot projects to mainstream activity. Also considered are the appropriate forms of financing and regulation needed to foster a low-carbon economy.

Sustainability and operational excellence, including supply chain and sustainable consumptionBy scrutinizing operations, supply chain transparency not only optimizes resource consumption, but also helps promote innovation. It can also boost the bottom line. Meanwhile, building human capital is essential as a means of underpinning sustainable growth.

Energy and resource optimizationResource efficiency must be addressed by re-examining both consumer demand and global supply chain practices. Shifting the energy landscape is essential to providing universal access to reliable power sources, to accelerate energy efficiency improvements and to increase the share of power sourced from renewables.

Given the increasing risks of resource scarcity, future growth through a business-as-usual approach cannot work. The topic of the moment is how to scale promising sustainability-related models and pilot projects and bring them into the mainstream—whether it entails new models of shared ownership or closed-loop manufacturing processes or other best practices. These need to stop being standalone sustainability solutions, and simply become the best ways of doing business.

About this report

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About this report 3

Sustainability 24 speakers 7

Sustainability strategies 11

Sustainability and operational excellence 17

Energy and resource optimization 25

Conclusion 29

Contents

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“Intelligent companies are beginning to ask: ‘How do I get ahead of the change in the business model and reinvent it?’ Most businesses understand that they have to address this reality because we are going to run into absolute limits. It’s just a question of when and how.” - Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive Officer, Kingfisher

“ If we’re going to talk about business entering a new paradigm that’s fit for the future, it has to be very much focused on helping people obtain what I call eudemonic goods—that is, the stuff of a meaningful good life.” - Umair Haque, director, Havas Media Labs

“We approach development challenges very much through the lens of our core competence, which is in the realms of healthcare and how that intersects with the development agenda.” – Dorje Mundle, Global Head of Corporate Citizenship, Novartis

“ More and more, you’re seeing companies working with non- governmental organizations and governments—and going beyond traditional, comfortable roles.”

– Karin Ireton, Director of Group Sustainability Management, Standard Bank

“People don’t want a forest friendly product or a recycled bag. They want something that isn’t just green – they want green gilded. They want something that really taps into their fundamental desires and aspirations.”

- Peggy Liu, Co-Founder of the Joint US- China Collaboration on Clean Energy

“ Companies who put closed-loop practices at the center of their strategy will be the winners of tomorrow. Those who don’t will be either stuck in the middle or lose.”

- Stef Kranendijk, Chief Executive Officer, Desso

Global Thought Leaders on Business Sustainability

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“One of the biggest problems facing us in the 21st Century is that businesses and consumers today depend on the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use. This means that it now takes the earth more than one and a half years to produce what it takes us, the human beings, only one year to consume. Needless to say, our consumer culture has to change. Bigger is not always better, but doing more with less is.” – Connie Hedegaard, Commissioner for Climate Action, European Commission

“When companies are first asked to be transparent by investors or major customers, they often start the journey somewhat begrudgingly. But as they become more transparent, they discover all sorts of things about their business. So the most interesting gem of transparency is that it leads to new insights, which leads to innovation.” - Nigel Topping, Chief Innovation Officer, Carbon Disclosure Project

“I believe that to have a social revolution, an environmental revolution, and an economic revolution, we need a revolution in education. We should start from scratch. And that needs real revolution, with government, corporations and citizens joining hands together.”

- Celso Lemme, Professor, Coppead Graduate School of Business

“ We’re seeing a lot more customers becoming interested in sustainability reporting. It’s really becoming an expectation in today’s world, as opposed to years ago, when it was more of a voluntary thing.”

- Pat Browne, Corporate Sustainability Program Manager, UPS

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Sustainability 24 Speakers

Paulo Alonso Executive Secretary Petrobras Prominp

Gib Bulloch Executive Director Accenture Development Partnerships

Scott Becker Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Nissan

Bruno Berthon Global Managing Director Accenture Sustainability Services

Patrick Browne Corporate Sustainability Program Manager UPS

Angel Cabrera President George Mason University

Alexandre Chavarot Managing Partner Adviser Clean Infra Partners LLP

Ian Cheshire Chief Executive Kingfisher Plc

Jo Confino Chairman and Editorial Director Guardian Sustainable Business

Sue Ells Director, Transformation and Change BT

Mark Fulton Head of Climate Change Investment Research Deutsche Bank

David Frantz Director, Loan Programs Office U.S. Department of Energy

Lois Guthrie Technical Director Carbon Disclosure Project

Umair Haque Director Havas Media Labs

Connie Hedegaard Commissioner for Climate Action European Commission

Stefan Henningsson Senior Adviser WWF Climate Innovation International

Karin Ireton Director, Group Sustainability Management Standard Bank

Helge Janzon Senior Manager Daimler

David Jones Chief Executive Officer Havas

Yoshimitsu Kaji Director of Global Communications Strategy Prime Minister’s Office, Japan

Stef Kranendijk Chief Executive Officer Desso

Barbara Kux Chief Sustainability Officer Siemens

Peggy Liu Chairperson Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE)

Celso Lemme Professor Coppead School of Business

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Dorje Mundle Head of Corporate Citizenship Novartis

Pierre Nanterme Chief Executive Officer Accenture

Sarita Nayyar Managing Director, Head of Consumer Industries World Economic Forum

Philip Ong Deputy CEO Singapore National Research Foundation

Jim Motavalli Journalist

Thomas Ramge Staff Write brand eins

Henrik Riby Coordinator Business for DevelopmentSwedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Conor Riffle Head of Cities Carbon Disclosure Project

James Pessoa Chief Executive Officer Vale Soluções

Mikael Salo Editor-in-Chief Miljöaktuellt

Larry Rillera Senior Clean Technology Development Manager California Energy Commission

Paul Simpson Chief Executive Officer Carbon Disclosure Project

Nigel Topping Chief Innovation Officer Carbon Disclosure Project

Sander van’t Noordende Group Chief Executive Accenture Management Consulting

Adam Werbach Chief Sustainability Officer Saatchi & Saatchi

Dan Vogel Chief Executive Officer Enablon

Andrew Steer Former Special Envoy on Climate Change, The World Bank

Nick Whitcombe Director, ATVM Loan Program U.S. Department of Energy

Bruce Whitfield Journalist

Martin Wright Editor-in-Chief Green Futures

Annie Xu Senior Vice President, Smart Cities Schneider Electric

Cheng Hsing Yao Deputy Executive Director Centre for Liveable Cities

Fikre Zewdie Director, Southern Africa Oxfam GB

Astrid Zwick Head of Corporate Sustainability Munich Re

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Pressure to deliver on growth has rarely been as intense as it is right now. The question of how to reignite economic activity is a hot topic for companies and policymakers the world over. Yet this imperative is set against the need to curb energy consumption and preserve the world’s natural resources. Accenture research highlights that a “peak metals” scenario could put as much as US$2 trillion of economic output at risk by 2030, if business doesn’t change, as just one example2. What is becoming clear is that reconciling these opposing forces of growth and resource constraints can only be achieved through the development of new or improved business models—those that are not only innovative but that can also achieve sufficient scale to transform entire economies.

The overriding goal here is to find ways to decouple the future growth of business from the related growth in energy and resource use. This is starting to happen. According to a recent report from Accenture and the Carbon Disclosure Project, 90% of the latter’s members now include climate change considerations in their procurement criteria, up from 74% in 2009.3 However, this process remains at an embryonic stage today. “Intelligent companies are beginning to ask: ‘How do I get ahead of the change in the business model and reinvent it?’” says Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive Officer of Kingfisher, the home improvement retailer. “Most businesses understand that they actually do have to address this reality because we are going to run into absolute limits. It’s just a question of when and how.”

Once this is understood, the challenge for companies is to prevent sustainability efforts from becoming stuck in what Peter Lacy, the Asia Pacific Managing Director of Accenture Sustainability Services, calls “pilot paralysis”. This is a scenario in which many innovative initiatives emerge, but few are genuinely scaled up. “How to reinvent a model for growth is one of the big topics of the day,” adds Bruno Berthon, Global Managing Director for Accenture Sustainability Services. “There are many solutions available, but the challenge to scale these remains extremely important.”

Given the organizational structure of large multinationals, much of this will require disruptive change. Part of the answer here is to go beyond the development of individual technologies and promote systems innovation. Take, for example, the design of new transport networks. Getting this right not only requires new vehicles, such as electric cars or hydrogen bus fleets, but also a reshaping of the “refueling” infrastructure that can support these. It also requires a change in consumer behavior, with redesigned routes and traffic patterns, as part of a wider rethink of how transport works.

Here, collaboration across a broad range of stakeholders is often also a pre-requisite for change. When it comes to large-scale infrastructure, such as transport systems or power generation, companies cannot act alone. Government intervention – whether through regulation or the investment of public funds – is typically needed too. “We all need to work together

to co-create our future,” says Lois Guthrie, executive director of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and technical director to the International Integrated Reporting Council. “We need to collaborate on how to create the structures that are going to support a more sustainable world,” she adds.

Yoshimutsu Kaji, director of global communications strategy at the Japanese prime minister’s office and Conor Riffle, Head of Cities for the Carbon Disclosure Project, both agree. They argue for a new level of “inclusiveness” that can bring in all participants from business and government to civil society and the general public, and that the approach to sustainability and innovation should be integrated into processes, technology, infrastructure, planning systems, risk mitigation and other business disciplines.

Sustainable strategies Reigniting growth though innovation and new models

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* From the various debates throughout Sustainability 24, a range of insights, guidance and advice has been captured. These are highlighted throughout the report.

Key lessons: From pilots to transformation*

•Aswithanyotherstrategicbusinessinitiative,companiesneedtoassesswhichprogramsarehavinganimpactandwhichare not. Those that are, need to be given the necessary backing to help them scale up fast.

•Businesssustainabilityshouldnotbeseenasaconstraint,butasamechanismforgrowth,costsavingsandinnovation.Inessence, it needs to be seen as one of the new strategic paths to growth.

•Companiesmayneedtoconsidercompletelynewmodelsforboththeproductsandservicestheyproduceandhowtheyproduce them. This will involve re-examining long-held beliefs and re-thinking well-established processes, as part of a wide paradigm shift.

•Inthesenewbusinessmodels,companiesmayneedtoworkwitharangeofnon-traditionalpartners,includingthosewithwhom relationships may previously have been adversarial rather than collaborative.

Research insights: A new direction for corporate strategy

A striking shift is taking place in corporate attitudes to sustainability. This emerged from a global survey of business executives across eight countries Accenture conducted to accompany its Sustainability 24 global leaders debate. The research found that while nine in ten executives say sustainability is either “critical” or “very important” to their business, the reasons for believing this are changing . Companies are starting to go beyond traditional motives such as compliance or reputation. Instead, consumer expectations (selected by 62% of respondents) and business growth (60%) are becoming key considerations.

This is a striking contrast to the conclusions of our 2010 survey of 800 chief executives, conducted with the United Nations Global Compact5. Then, the main driver of sustainability was brand and reputation. Today, sustainable growth tops the agenda, with many more executives seeing sustainability initiatives as investments rather than costs.

Of course, turning such investments into revenues will not be easy. Close to six in ten (56%) said it was more expensive to operate as a sustainable business, while few are succeeding in generating sufficient returns (see chart). Furthermore, nearly half said margins were lower on sustainable products and services, with a similar proportion affirming that customers remain unwilling to pay higher prices for these products and services.

Even so, when companies look ahead, they are optimistic. Many see demand for sustainable products and services as likely to grow and are responding by adding new product lines and promoting their sustainability credentials. Before companies can really start to profit from sustainability strategies, though, they will need to achieve greater scale while simultaneously lowering their resource consumption and environmental footprint. This fundamental rethink in approach forms the core of the sustainability challenge that many businesses face in the decade ahead.

Figure 1: To what extent do you agree or disagree that it is more expensive to be sustainable as a business?

Among all56

US

Japan

European markets

Emerging markets

Base: Total=250; US=60; Japan=40; European markets=75; Emerging markets=75

Agree Neutral Disagree

27 16

58 25 16

60 30 10

54 31 15

56 24 20

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While innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors are essential in advancing sustainability, collaboration can only achieve so much. Through their lending and underwriting practices, investors and financial institutions provide a critical foundation that is essential to scaling sustainable growth. Regulation is often also a prerequisite for widespread adoption of sustainability practices. A growing number of experts, policymakers and business leaders agree, for example, that until a price is put on carbon emissions, few firms will have an incentive to invest in low-carbon equipment and infrastructure. If finance and new financing models are the glue for the green economy, it is regulation that will really make it stick.

Meanwhile, investors are becoming more interested in companies’ performance on sustainability. Without regulatory certainty, though, putting a price on sustainable corporate performance remains tricky. Initiatives such as the Carbon Disclosure Project help, but knowledge gaps persist. Furthermore, an ongoing focus on quarterly results continues to hinder longer-term strategies. For example, some companies, such as Unilever, have opted to reduce the frequency of their financial reporting, to explicitly emphasize its longer-term focus. “It is hard to take decisions today that have impacts in the long term. So we’ve got to face up to that,” says Andrew Steer, the former Special Envoy on Climate Change at the World Bank and now the President of the World Resources Institute. For financial markets to play a bigger role in underpinning sustainable growth, a change in mindset will therefore be essential.

Certainly, the number of investors integrating sustainability factors into their investment strategies is rising. The

United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, a coalition of global investors from 12 countries, is collectively responsible for managing more than US$3 trillion of assets. The Carbon Disclosure Project now works with 655 institutional investors holding US$78 trillion in assets. But for far too many investors, sustainability considerations are simply not prioritized.

A good place to start changing this is by increasing knowledge of the risks and opportunities inherent in sustainability. “It’s all about awareness,” says Alex Chavarot, Managing Partner of Clean Infra Partners and former Advisor to the Clinton Climate Initiative. “It’s about ensuring that players in the financial markets are aware of the risks that their clients and the corporates they lend to face. The more aware you are, the more you’re going to take into account the impact of climate change.”

The World Bank’s Mr. Steer argues that change is also needed in the way that such issues are communicated to consumers. He cites an example of creating electricity tariffs based on renewable sources. If providers simply created a new default tariff for all consumers, which included renewables, far fewer would go through the process of moving away from it, despite a higher cost, compared with the proportion that would proactively select such a tariff on their own. “In other words, it’s how you package it—and here again there is a role for the private sector,” he says.

Collaboration between sectors will also be needed to build a financing infrastructure for sustainability initiatives, with public funds playing an important role in reducing investor risk and stimulating markets. Ultimately, though, markets will not shift drastically until regulatory frameworks create incentives for investors to value

sustainable performance. “Fiduciary duty is currently determined as the maximum financial return,” says Paul Simpson, Chief Executive Officer of the Carbon Disclosure Project. “So financial markets are struggling with their purpose and, clearly, regulation has a role in ensuring that purpose is really delivered,” he says. Systemic issues also need to be addressed, such as putting a price on carbon. “If governments get their act together on carbon pricing, we’ll see a lot more investment flow into low-carbon solutions,” says Mr. Simpson.

Finance and regulatory systems underpin business sustainability

Sustainable strategies

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Key lessons: Sustainability is good practice for better results

•Forcompaniespreparedtosetlong-termgoals,sustainabilitypracticestypicallypayoffwithsuperiorrisk-adjustedreturns and lower cost of capital.

•Thefinancialsectorknowshowtounderstandandpriceriskandcancreateattractiveproductsforinvestors.Thesesameskills are needed to develop financial products and mechanisms that can foster sustainability. The recent launch of the Green Growth Action Alliance, a public-private partnership to help scale up investment into areas such as clean energy, is a useful example of what will be feasible here.

•Companiesinthefinancialsectorwillneedtodomoretoeducateconsumers,establishstrongerconnectionswiththemand make both the products and language of sustainable finance more accessible.

•Thefinancialsectorhasanimportantroletoplayinhelpingcompaniesselectandintegraterelevantnon-financialindicators into their corporate reporting.

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If cross-sector collaboration is sometimes needed to manage the overall footprint of human activity, this is especially true when it comes to global development. In recent years, a marked shift has taken place in the way the private sector, governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups engage with each other. Accenture calls this cross-sector convergence6. It goes well beyond environmental sustainability, to an approach that addresses the most important issues facing humanity today—hunger, malnutrition, health, access to education, and energy—while also creating opportunities for growth and enhanced brand recognition.

Certainly, a convergence of interests is evident in efforts to promote sustainable growth. “Not only can public and private sectors successfully collaborate to spur sustainable technology advancements,” says David Frantz, Executive Director of the US Department of Energy Loan Program Office, “it’s an absolute requirement that they do so.”

According to a study from Accenture, conducted with the United Nations Global Compact, global business leaders see cross-sector collaboration as critical

to both meeting sustainability goals and business success7. This convergence implies new forms of partnerships between the public and private sectors in the pursuit of shared development goals. “This is a fundamental rethinking of the structures and organizations needed to deliver development outcomes,” explains Gib Bulloch, Executive Director of Accenture Development Partnerships, the nonprofit consulting arm of Accenture that provides services to non-governmental organizations and nonprofit groups in developing countries.

Take Africa’s Standard Bank, a leading financial services organization, as one example. It has partnered with microfinance institutions to establish a business providing financial services to under-banked communities. As well as extending loans to informal businesses, it offers financial literacy training programs for consumers8. “You can’t just have one model that works for a certain kind of economy. You need to be responsive to the particular client base that you deal with in the economic challenges of the countries in which you operate,” says Karin Ireton, the bank’s Director of Group Sustainability Management. “More and more, you’re seeing companies working

with non-governmental organizations and governments – and going beyond traditional, comfortable roles.”

In such activities, companies are also able to bring their own experiences, networks and areas of expertise to bear on development challenges, as Dorje Mundle, Global Head of Corporate Citizenship at Novartis, explains. “We approach this very much through the lens of our core competence, which is in the realms of healthcare and how that intersects with the development agenda,” he says. In India, for example, his firm worked with village leaders and non-governmental organizations to develop Arogya Parivar (which means “healthy family” in Hindi), an initiative designed to reach the 740 million people living on the breadline in rural India, to deliver both social and business benefits. The program now offers 11 therapeutic areas, almost 80 pharmaceutical, generic and over-the-counter products, and a range of vaccines9.

Business and development opportunities in cross-sector convergence

Key lessons: Tapping developmental goals for innovation and market access

•Makeuseofdevelopmentstrategiesasasourceofexperimentationandinnovationwithinthebusiness.

• Inmanyemergingmarkets,commercialopportunitiesmaybecloselylinkedwithdevelopmentalones.Expandingthesupply chain to smaller informal suppliers, for example, can boost local business, while securing local sourcing.

•Ascompaniesarefundamentallylinkedtothewelfareofthecommunitiesinwhichtheyoperate,securinga“sociallicense to operate” is an important component of their investment strategy in developing countries.

•Whilebusinessescanbringtheirowncompetenciestobearonbigglobalproblems,theywillalsoneedtopartnerwithaid agencies, non-governmental organizations and local community groups, as well as other industrial sectors and companies, for tapping into a range of ad hoc capabilities relating to improved access.

Sustainable strategies

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The need for cross-sector collaboration is equally urgent when it comes to safeguarding dwindling supplies of the world’s natural resources. These resources are needed not only as raw materials for business but also by public sector providers and the communities they serve. This shared use demands shared conservation efforts—efforts that are becoming increasingly important given rising demand from the vast new middle class of consumers emerging within rapid growth markets as their desire increases for a similar standard of living to that of mature markets.

Yet, as Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Labs, a marketing and communications thought leadership hub, points out, people tend to believe that they will be happy when gross domestic product per head is at about US$70,000, 7-8 times more than the current global GDP which is between just US$8,000 and US$10,000 per person. Universal global happiness will therefore remain a distant dream if it relies on ever-expanding consumer consumption. “It’s probably not possible for us to continue growing in the same way, so the question is really what does growth mean?” asks Mr. Haque. This points not only to a need for fundamental changes in consumption patterns, methods of production, and the reuse of materials but also a shift in how happiness is measured.

Some argue that the first step is helping consumers understand what is meant by sustainable consumption so that they can make informed choices. “The

arrival of mobile social media presents a huge new opportunity for businesses that has never existed before,” says Kingfisher’s Mr. Cheshire. “What this creates is a level of transparency and an opportunity for information that wasn’t there before,” he says.

However, promoting sustainability to consumers requires a delicate balance. “People don’t want a forest friendly product or a recycled bag. They want something that isn’t just green – they want green gilded,” says Peggy Liu, co-founder of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy. She argues that people want a sustainable lifestyle, but one that still “really taps into their fundamental desires and aspirations”10.

This highlights the inherent difficulties in trying to bring about changes in consumption patterns. The “fundamental desire” she talks about is one of the most powerful drivers of consumption—and the underlying basis for many companies’ current business models. In grappling with this fundamental shift, companies can take advantage of the convergence of several trends:

•Greaterscopetoinfluenceconsumersvia social media. In China, for instance, Sina Weibo (a Chinese social network, similar to Twitter and Facebook) has reached 100 million people in just a year and a half. This offers new opportunities to shape the emerging aspirations of a new generation of consumers.

•Anincreasedfocusonefficiency-relatedinnovation. Whether cars or packets of laundry detergent, companies have considerable scope to make them more efficient—both environmentally and in terms of product performance. Many firms are now exploring the potential for such gains.

•Amovefromdisposablemodelsof consumption to shared and/or reusable ones. Some companies are now thinking about how collaborative forms of ownership can be applied to new products, while increasing consumer convenience. For example, home improvements retailer B&Q is now experimenting with a program to charge for micro-usage of tools, rather than a one-time sale.

•Adrivetomakereuseandrecyclingmore attractive for consumers. Some beverage brands are experimenting with services through which consumers can place their empty cans in vending machines. These “reverse vending machines” reward recyclers with a cash fee, such as a top up on their smart transport card, or allow them to donate to conservation causes.

All of this is deeply challenging to companies and how they operate today. But as they tap into their creativity and innovation, new opportunities for resource efficiency can quickly become a powerful lens for improved competitiveness—and greater market advantage.

Sustainability and operational excellence Paths to sustainable resource consumption

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Key lessons: Sustainable business growth is achievable without solely focusing on increased consumer consumption and related escalating resource demands

•Tochangeconsumptionpatterns,companiesnotonlyneedtoreducetheimpactofthesupplysideoftheiroperations,butalso educate consumers on the nature and importance of sustainable products and initiatives.

•Consumersarerarelypreparedtopayapremiumforsustainableproducts,sotheseattributesneedtobeengineeredinatno extra cost, or else bundled and sold in new ways to incentivize consumers.

•Companiesneedtocreateamorecirculareconomy,whereconsumersarenotjustpurchasersbutalsorecyclersofconsumer goods.

•Ultimately,sustainableconsumptionmeansdevelopingwhollynewideasaboutwhatconsumerswant.Thismightresultinshared ownership models and leasing services, rather than purchasing and possessing.

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Key lessons: The supply chain is the primary driver for implementation of sustainability practices in companies

•Toembraceclosed-looppractices,companieswilllikelyneedtoworkacrossawiderangeofexternalsuppliersandbusiness partners, while also looking inwards to find ways of re-designing their products for easier recycling or reuse.

•Thereismuchopportunityhere.Forcompaniesengagedinresourceefficiencyacrossthesupplychain,thereareestimatedsavings of up to US$2 trillion across just three sectors (carbon, steel and iron) in the major economies alone .

•Bytacklingsupplychaininefficienciesandwaste,companiescannotonlycutcosts,butalsoprotecttheirbusinessfromboth price increases and greater price volatility in commodities.

As companies start to grapple with the challenge of disconnecting their resource consumption from their overall business growth, the supply chain becomes the inevitable point of focus. Most obviously, a tremendous opportunity exists for industry to scale up the closed-loop approach to manufacturing by developing supply chains that produce zero waste. In other words, working towards making products that can be endlessly recycled.

There is growing supply-side pressures to act on this. Research from Oxford Economics shows that if the world fails to respond to iron and steel shortages by raising the recycled content of world steel to 51%, some US$2 trillion of economic output could be put at risk in 2030 . At the same time, the research also shows that resource-efficient approaches to manufacturing and increased recycling rates could deliver savings of up to US$46.9 billion in 2030, equivalent to more than a 50% reduction in steel costs.

To achieve this, many companies have recognized that much of their overall footprint lies in the hands of their suppliers, rather than in their direct control. This makes embracing closed-loop supply chain practices tough, involving a laborious process of re-examining every material and

ingredient in a product and working with each supplier of that material or ingredient to ensure that it is recyclable or biodegradable. “It is very, very hard work. For example, we found out that one carpet tile has 700 ingredients,” explains Stef Kranendijk, Chief Executive Officer of Desso, the carpet manufacturer that has embraced closed-loop principles of production. Nevertheless, he believes the process is critical to achieving not only sustainable growth but also business success. “Companies who put closed-loop practices at the center of their strategy will be the winners of tomorrow. Those who don’t will be either stuck in the middle or lose.”

His predictions are borne out by recent Accenture research, which found that if consumer goods firms worldwide become more aggressive in seeking resource efficiencies, the result could be savings of US$7.1 billion in 2020, rising to US$37 billion in 2030 . In short, sustainable supply chains not only act as a clear means of risk mitigation, but can also generate a healthy bottom line.

The future shape of the supply chain

Sustainability and operational excellence

As companies dig deeper into sustainability, what becomes clear for many is that issues such as resource consumption and carbon emissions are closely linked to increased transparency and disclosure. Both regulators and consumers often expect companies to disclose the origins and ingredients of their products, as one example. Many others are obliged to measure and report on various aspects of the business, from energy or water usage through to carbon emissions, working environment, employee policies and more. All this is pushing firms towards greater transparency about the way they do business. “We’re seeing a lot more customers becoming interested in sustainability reporting,” says Pat Browne, Corporate Sustainability Program Manager for UPS, the global logistics company. “It’s really becoming an expectation in today’s world, as opposed to years ago, when it was more of a voluntary thing.”

Measuring and collecting sustainability-related data often starts out as an internal box-ticking exercise, aimed at simply satisfying reporting requirements. However, for those that have engaged in this, there is growing recognition that it can quickly enable businesses to go much further. Astrid Zwick, Head of Munich Re’s Corporate

Responsibility Department, explains that the insurer has closely measured its overall footprint and activities, but this is not its overarching aim. “The focus is on how to integrate those social, environmental and governance aspects into our core business,” she says. Dan Vogel, Chief Executive Officer of Enablon, a provider of sustainability performance management software, stresses that: “Reporting is a start, and will continue, but you have to be able to get financial value out of it also.”

The core point is that by measuring and collecting data on a wider range of business metrics, executives quickly gain the ability to identify and eliminate inefficiencies. “The opportunities to find abhorrent performance among the data is something really, really valuable,” explains Mike Nicholus, Accenture’s Global Operations Environment Director. “And when you start to run analytics on this data, you can start to manage things in a much more constructive way, while also better managing a lot of the risks too,” he says.

“There is an interesting hidden effect in how transparency often kick-starts a learning process within organizations,” says Nigel Topping, Chief Innovation Officer at the Carbon Disclosure Project. “When companies are first asked to

be transparent by investors or major customers, they sometimes start the journey somewhat begrudgingly. But as they become more transparent, they discover all sorts of things about their business. So the most interesting gem of transparency is that it leads to new insights, which leads to innovation.”

Of course, achieving all this is far from easy. One of the main challenges is that the underlying standards vary widely, not least given the multi-disciplinary nature of sustainability. As such, there is no shared language regarding sustainability, with a sharp need for increased standardization, argues the Climate Disclosure Standards Board’s Ms. Guthrie. “We need collaboration to find a way of sharing our understanding of the language with which we express sustainability, so that markets and stakeholders can effectively compare and use that information.”

Sustainability performance management: reporting and transparency

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Key lessons: Transparency and integration come to the fore

•Reportingneedstogobeyondcomplianceanddisclosure,orsimplytobolsteringacompany’sreputation.Itshouldbeusedto drive improved operational performance, innovation and cost-savings across the business.

•Non-financialreportinghasmanystandards,protocols,methodsandapproaches.WorkingwithorganizationssuchastheCarbon Disclosure Project, the Global Reporting Initiative and the International Integrative Reporting Council, can help provide clarity and standardization.

•Transparencyisagranularandlengthyprocess.Companiesshouldbepreparedtoworkwithmanysuppliersandbusinesspartners in the pursuit of this.

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One stakeholder group that is increasingly concerned with corporate transparency is the workforce. As companies push forward their sustainability agendas, human capital needs to be a key consideration. This encompasses two main areas. First, integrating responsible decision making into business processes and growth strategies requires specialized skill sets. Second, mounting employee interest in the environmental and social performance of their employers means that, more than ever, companies need to walk the talk in order to engage their workforce.

This is particularly true for younger individuals entering the workforce, who often want to know that any company they join is acting responsibly. “The Millennial generation in particular cares strongly about behavior and also the motivations behind it,” writes David Jones, Global Chief Executive officer of Havas Media Labs in his book Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business Is Better Business14. “They will not be satisfied with charitable donations made in the twilight of stellar careers—they want business to behave better right now.”

This means sustainable business practices can be a powerful means of enhancing employee engagement. “One of the greatest gifts to the corporate world that sustainability provides is a mechanism to engage employees,” says Adam Werbach, Chief Sustainability Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi, a global

integrated communications company. His firm worked with Walmart to create the Personal Sustainability Project, for example, through which individuals could commit to personal sustainability practices and the idea of zero waste. At BT, the telecommunications company, a program to work with business colleges in the UK has helped get staff more deeply engaged—with some surprising outcomes. “One of our senior guys got rid of his very large, very flashy car, which was quite shocking for everybody the weekend after the first training module,” says Sue Ells, Director for transformation and change at the company.

Setting an example is not the only role for senior executives. For example, as Accenture’s paper The Sustainable Organization: The Chief Strategy Officer’s Perspective15 argues, the Chief Strategy Officer has an increasingly important role in assessing how and where sustainability best fits in the organization, what changes it might bring to the overall business model and how to get there.

Nevertheless, the core aim here also lies in empowering a new generation that will grapple with the looming sustainability challenges, argues Mr. Jones. “We have to give tomorrow’s leaders the importance and the responsibilities needed to drive change—and then basically get out of their way.”

Building the human capital that underpins sustainable growth

Sustainability and operational excellence

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Key lessons: Sustainability is demanding new kinds of management skills

•Tomorrow’sleaderswillneednewskillsandcapabilitiestograpplewithbusinesssustainability,includingthecapacityforlateral thinking, cross-functional innovation and creative thinking. They also need the ability to collaborate widely, and with a range of stakeholders. Companies need to start building this talent pool now.

•Companiesshouldnotunderestimatetheextenttowhichsustainabilitygoalsimpactemployeeengagementandretention,productivity and advocacy. Conversely, companies that act in ways that conflict with such values will find it harder to retain those individuals.

•Companiesneedtorewardperformanceonsustainabilitybydirectlybuildingitintomanagers’measurementandincentives structures. Their performance here, as in other aspects of their job, should be tied to their compensation, as it is at Danone, the French foods group, where 40% of management compensation is linked to sustainability performance.

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In achieving the transition to sustainability, new tools will be needed. Whether for clean energy solutions, low-carbon transportation systems or environmentally lean manufacturing processes, technology will be a game changer. In future energy systems, for example, storage and battery technologies, as well as renewables and smarter grids, will all play an important role. Meanwhile, information technology will support the evolution of a low-carbon and resource efficient economy, with sensors and software helping track every aspect of our footprint, from carbon emissions to water consumption, while also helping to optimize the balancing of supply and demand.

In energy, the need to integrate a diverse portfolio of different fuel sources presents one of the greatest opportunities for technology to play a role—and help deliver growth. “The good news is, most of these technologies provide a very good business case, because at the end of the day, they will reduce energy consumption by double digit amounts,” says Barbara Kux, a Siemens board member and the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer. She explains that last year the company’s “green revenue” amounted to €30 billion—and was the fastest growing part of the business.

Of course, infrastructure, software and hardware developers are not alone in investing in the deployment of technology that enables sustainable growth. Other sectors are also participating. Take insurance, for example. Through a program it calls RENT (renewable energy and new technologies), Munich Re is investing €2.5 billion in renewable energy in the coming years. Insurers can also underpin these investments by assessing and mitigating risks. “As an insurance company, we are playing a very important role when it comes to technology deployment as we are taking over the risks of new technologies,” says the company’s Dr. Zwick.

Policymakers have a role to play in supporting sustainability technologies too. In the US, for example, the Department of Energy’s loans program aims to reduce financing barriers to the commercialization of innovative clean energy technologies for large-scale generation projects. At a high level, government can help set sustainability targets to aim for, along with incentives to reach these, while standing aside to let the market work out how best to get there. “It’s not about driving one technology or another – it’s about coming up with the right answer for the particular challenge at hand,” explains

Sander van’t Noordende, Group Chief Executive of Accenture Management Consulting. Across China, for example, a wide range of energy-related technologies are being developed as part of the country’s overall drive to power its ongoing growth and development. Depending on the region and local context, everything from nuclear, right through to wind, solar, hydropower and biomass, is being considered.

Technology as a key to unlocking business sustainability

Key lessons: Technology is part of the solution, even though it is not yet clear which part

•Acrossarangeofindustries,fromenergytovehiclestowater,adiverseportfoliooftechnologieswillneedtobedesigned and developed to tackle the sustainability challenges of the future.

•Collaborationacrossindustriesandbetweenthepublicandprivatesectorsiscriticalforfuturedevelopmentsinmanyareas of sustainability-related technology, such as energy.

•Policymakersplayacriticalroleinprovidingthetargetsandincentivesforinvestmentsinawiderangeofsustainability-related technologies, as well as helping remove financing barriers.

Sustainability and operational excellence

The sustainability challenges that business leaders face today are significant, but they often pale in comparison to the issues that city leaders face. They face rapidly growing demand for services, from energy and transport through to food, water and waste management systems, as the world’s urbanization continues unabated. At the same time, they must deal with historic infrastructure that was typically not designed for the new sustainability demands being faced.

Cities do have certain advantages, though. Their concentrated resources help them design policies and sustainability strategies that would be often harder to implement at a national or international level. “While nations have been unable to reduce their overall emissions or to agree on climate change, you’ve seen cities come to the forefront and really take the leadership on sustainability,” says the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Mr. Riffle.

Moreover, the sharing of resources such as transport systems and heating energy represents a highly efficient model of resource consumption. “The

high density model for cities lends itself to being more sustainable,” says Philip Ong, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Singapore’s National Research Foundation. “The challenge for that model is to make that livable at the same time.”

In some cases, the very pressures cities face become catalysts for action. One example is Singapore, with its ability to respond innovatively to issues such as public transport, water, and waste. “We keep everything pristine because we have to develop on a very small piece of land. So the approach is a continual balancing and optimization of economic, social, and environmental factors,” explains Cheng Hsing Yao, Deputy Executive Director for the Center for Liveable Cities.

Cities can also become living laboratories as places in which to pilot new sustainable technologies and incubate promising new systems and business models. In doing so, cross-sector co-operation is often an essential ingredient, as seen in the Amsterdam Smart City initiative, which unites citizens, businesses, academics and local

governments in piloting world-changing ideas on energy reduction, water consumption, and waste management. This initiative exemplifies the kind of collaborative action that Accenture’s Mr. Lacy thinks is essential for cities. “To achieve their potential,” he says, “harmonious urbanization will need to be citizen focused, technology powered, and collaboratively enabled.”

Cities as leaders in developing a sustainable future

Key lessons: Cities are both part of the problem and a source of solutions

•Citiesarealreadyresponsiblefor70%ofglobalcarbonemissions.Theyarethusbothpartoftheproblemandpartofthe solution.

•Citiescanactastestbedsfornewideasandapproachestourbansustainability.Whilecitiesdocompeteforinvestment,city leaders are still free to collaborate and share good practices, insights and lessons.

•Onekeyadvantageforcitiesistheirabilitytoextracteconomiesofscalefromtheirdensity.Increaseddensityallowsforgreater per capita resource usage. This provides new opportunities for city leaders to consider alternative models for how cities are run and structured, to take advantage of such opportunities.

•Citysustainabilityisnotsolelyfocusedonreducingimpacts,butalsoaboutgeneratingmorelivableurbanenvironmentsfor citizens—those that are cleaner, safer, and easier to navigate. In turn, this helps cities attract new investment, resources and talent.

•Smartsystems—fromelectricitygridsthroughtotrafficmanagementsystems—holdsignificantpotentialtoimprovehowcities are managed, while also reducing their overall impact.

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As with resource consumption, tackling global energy use involves a tension between satisfying growing societal needs and managing the environmental impact that goes with that. As a recent Accenture report highlights, providing universal access to clean and reliable energy is a critical development goal, but must be achieved while also curbing global energy consumption. These two seemingly divergent goals are in fact achievable, as many experts argue.

First, universal access to reliable energy has the potential to change lives within many of the world’s poorest communities. In part, this is helped by the fact that renewable and off-grid power solutions are often easier to install in places where legacy systems do not exist. “Entrepreneurs, policymakers, civil society and universities need to work together on how we make this future possible and enable the low carbon life,” says Stefan Henningsson, Senior Advisor on Climate Innovation at WWF International.

Next, a move to a low-carbon economy requires both energy efficiency improvements and increases in renewable power generation—both on a massive scale. Accenture research shows that measures such as implementing enterprise energy management processes to better understand and manage energy use have the potential to drive 10%-35% reductions in energy consumption across a range of sectors.

These kinds of strategies are at the heart of the Sustainable Energy For All initiative, a program launched by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The program has three major goals for 2030: universal energy access, doubling of energy efficiency measures and doubling of renewables in the power mix. To achieve these, the United Nations plans to harness the efforts of all sectors of society, with the private sector as a key participant.

But for these strategies to be turned into business models that can truly deliver clean energy on a global scale, new financing mechanisms will be needed—and greater efforts to convince institutional investors of the long-term merits of such investments. Nevertheless, some projects are achieving scale. For example, Vale Soluções em Energia, a Brazilian sustainable energy technology company, is developing ethanol-based hybrid drivelines for urban buses and delivery trucks and plans to partner with a major automotive company. “We can replace some 400,000 diesel based urban buses in Brazil with ethanol based hybrid buses,” explains James Pessoa, Chief Executive Officer of Vale Soluções em Energia. “That’s a step forward and applies to any major city in the world.”

Furthermore, countries such as South Africa have seen strong growth in private financing for clean energy projects, as Standard Bank’s Ms. Ireton notes. This highlights the vital role of

the private sector in helping to innovate, and in scaling up such initiatives. This is exactly what the WWF’s Mr. Henningsson believes the world needs to see more of. “We know the solutions are already there on a pilot scale,” he says. “But we really need to be innovative now and move implementation from small, successful pilots to getting big businesses involved.”

Energy and resource optimizationChanging the energy landscape

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Key lessons: Cleaner energy, greater energy efficiency, and improved energy access are key

•Sustainableenergyfacesmanyobstacles:policybarriers,entrenchedbusinessmodels,legacyinfrastructureandalackof financial mechanisms. To overcome these, partnerships with governments, civil society and others in the sector will be needed to reshape the system.

•Betterenergymanagementcanbeameansofmanagingrisk.Forexample,byhedgingagainstfuturerisesinenergyprices, potential instability of supply or the advent of climate change legislation such as a carbon tax.

•Betterenergymanagementalsobringsnewopportunities:buildingloyaltythroughnewenergy-efficientproductsandsustainable energy services, for example.

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In tackling the immense challenges of sustainability, business has a critical role to play. No one set of individuals or organizations will be able to come up with solutions that can work at local, national and global levels. Instead, collaborative, multi-disciplinary approaches will often be needed, accompanied by innovative technologies or applications and new ways of doing business. Part of the challenge also involves reevaluating long-held corporate practices and market expectations. Companies will need to think differently about their profitability goals, shifting from the traditional rush for short-term gains to the adoption of longer-term growth that is more sustainable—and thus ultimately more profitable.

They will need to redesign their products and processes to accommodate energy-efficient closed-loop manufacturing techniques that radically cut waste and/or create more effective service models. Collaborative approaches should also apply to relationships with consumers so that businesses work not only to design sustainable products and services that are appropriate for their markets but also to communicate with those markets in ways that encourage changes in consumption patterns.

Reporting will play an increasingly important role in measuring sustainability efforts. Standardization and a common language across multidisciplinary areas need to be developed and the effective management of multiple nodes of data will be critical to the process. Furthermore, a better alignment between targets or objectives, the appropriate metrics to track these, and the related incentives required, will be needed.

Until now, many of these ideas have manifested themselves in pilot projects. But what is urgently needed is for innovative ideas and alternative models to be significantly scaled up to avoid pilot proliferation, with multiple ad hoc schemes eventually losing steam and being cut off. This will likely require new incentives to encourage such intensive developments, as well as penalties, such as a carbon tax that will level the playing field for energy efficient investments. For companies, much of this will appear complex and difficult—and will likely require increased agility and anticipation on their part. But without such efforts, corporate leaders will increasingly find themselves operating in a new business environment, with challenging new assumptions, for which they are not appropriately equipped. Over the long term, a greater focus on sustainability will be the only way to survive and prosper.

Conclusion

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“It’s all about awareness. It’s about ensuring that players in the financial markets are aware of the risks that their clients, and the corporates they lend to, face. The more aware you are, the more you’re going to take into account the impact of climate change.” - Alex Chavarot, Managing Partner of Clean Infra Partners and Former Advisor to the Clinton Climate Initiative.

“Reporting is a start, and will continue, but you have to be able to get some other value out of it, which is also financial value.” - Dan Vogel, Chief Executive Officer, Enablon

“ Last year US$250 billion was invested in clean energy; financial markets made that possible. There’s fantastic innovation out there. So I don’t think we need to say we’re in a world of failure. What we need to say is we need to triple what’s happening now and we need to do it very quickly.” - Andrew Steer, former Special Envoy for Climate Change, The World Bank, current president, World Resources Institute

“ We have to give tomorrow’s leaders the importance and the responsibilities needed to drive change – and then basically get out of their way.”

- David Jones, Global Chief Executive Officer, Havas

“Not only can public and private sector successfully collaborate to spur sustainable technology advancements; it’s an absolute requirement that they do so.”

- David Frantz, executive director, US Department of Energy Loan Program Office

“ One of the greatest gifts to the corporate world that sustainability provides is a mechanism to engage employees.”

- Adam Werbach, Chief Sustainability Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi

Global Thought Leaders on Business Sustainability

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“ The pension funds, who are vast owners of capital, have not deployed huge amounts of money for instance, into clean energy yet. But they are looking at sustainability. We’ve seen US$25 trillion signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. So it’s starting to happen.”- Mark Fulton, Global Head of Climate Change Investment Research, Deutsche Bank

“While nations have been unable to reduce their overall emissions or to agree on climate change, you’ve seen cities rise to the forefront and really take the leadership on sustainability.” - Conor Riffle, Head of Cities, Carbon Disclosure Project

“We keep everything pristine (in Singapore) because we have to develop on a very small piece of land. So the approach is a continual balancing and optimization of economic, social, and environmental factors.” - Cheng Hsing Yao, Deputy Executive Director for the Center for Liveable Cities

“ The good news is, most of these technologies provide a very good business case, because at the end of the day, they will reduce energy consumption by double digit amounts.”

- Barbara Kux, Siemens’ Chief Sustainability Officer and Board Member

“ We can replace some 400,000 diesel based urban buses in Brazil with ethanol based hybrid buses. That’s a step forward and applies to any major city in the world.”

- James Pessoa, chief executive officer, Vale Soluções em Energia

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References

1 Long-Term Growth, Short-Term Differentiation and Profits from Sustainable Products and Services, A global survey of business executives, Accenture, 2012

2 More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency, World Economic Forum Report with Accenture, January 2012

3 CDP Supply Chain Report 2012, A new era—supplier management in the low-carbon economy, Carbon Disclosure Project and Accenture, January 2012

4 Long-Term Growth, Short-Term Differentiation and Profits from Sustainable Products and Services, A global survey of business executives, Accenture, 2012

5 A New Era of Sustainability: UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study 2010

6 Convergence Economy: Rethinking International Development in a Converging World, Gib Bulloch, Peter Lacy and Chris Jurgens, Accenture, 2011

7 A New Era of Sustainability: United Nations Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study 2010

8 Standard Bank website: http://corporateandinvestment.standardbank.co.za/sa/sector/comm_banking.jsp

9 Novartis website: http://www.novartis.com/corporate-responsibility/access-to-healthcare/our-key-initiatives/social-business.shtml

10 “Moving from green to green-gilded in China”, Sustainable Brands, 20 June 2012

11 More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency, World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture, January 2012

12 More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency, World Economic Forum Report in collaboration with Accenture, January 2012

13 More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency, World Economic Forum Report with Accenture, January 2012

14 “Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business Is Better Business”, David Jones, November 2011

15 The Sustainable Organization: Lessons From Leaders Series: The Chief Strategy Officer’s Perspective

16 Sustainable Energy for All: The Business Opportunity. A comprehensive analysis of priority actions across 19 industry sectors, Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, June 2012

17 Sustainable Energy for All: The Business Opportunity. A comprehensive analysis of priority actions across 19 industry sectors, Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, June 2012

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Acknowledgements

Many people contributed to the debate and discussion that is the basis of this report and we thank them for their input. A special word of thanks goes to our speakers for driving the debate and discussion, our partners that assisted in ensuring the success of Sustainability 24, and the Accenture teams from around the world for their contributions.

About Sustainability 24

Sustainability 24 is the day when Accenture places business sustainability solidly on the global agenda through facilitating debate and discussion regarding the opportunities and challenges of business sustainability. The highlight of the day, a 12-hour online broadcast, brought together global thought leaders to discuss best practices to harness innovation, drive growth and achieve high performance. With 53 speakers and 9 moderators, joining the discussion from 21 broadcast locations, as well as four client events, held in Singapore, Johannesburg, London and Rio, linking in, the debate focused on the various aspects of “The Sustainable Organization”. Besides the live event attendees, more than 2700 delegates attended the online broadcast.

Participants in Sustainability 24 included thought leaders from business, government, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and various other stakeholders and the discussions were extended to various social media channels as well.

The next Sustainability 24 event will take place on May 15th 2013. More information can be found at www.accenture.com/sustainability24 or by joining our Facebook group: “Accenture Sustainability Services”.

About Accenture Sustainability Services

Accenture Sustainability Services helps organizations achieve substantial improvement in performance and value for their stakeholders. We help clients leverage their assets and capabilities to drive innovation and profitable growth while striving for a positive economic, environmental and social impact. We work with clients across industries and geographies to integrate sustainability approaches into their business strategies, operating models and critical processes. Our holistic approach encompasses strategy, design and execution to increase revenue, reduce cost, manage risk and enhance brand, reputation and intangible assets. We also help clients develop deep insights on sustainability issues based on our ongoing investments in research, including recent studies on consumer expectations and global executive opinion on corporate sustainability and climate change. Find out more at www.accenture.com/sustainability.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with 257,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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