The challenges and opportunities associated with Sustainability will disrupt and change business every bit as radically as the digital revolution. No sector, no organization, no leader will be spared, and most have started to respond with considerable amounts of Sustainability activity.

There are 4 factors that make the Sustainability Imperatives truly different to previous business disruptions.

• Sustainability forces organisations to measure, manage and account for new forms of resources beyond financial capital. Natural resources, human & social capital, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions have now become critical factors on the balance sheet.
• The impact of Sustainability extends beyond the traditional remit of what organisations can directly control, and into broader areas of indirect value chain and ecosystems. For example, thanks to Scope 3 considerations, organisations now need to disclose – and reduce - the carbon emissions across their supply chain. This expanded responsibility carries significant implications for operations, reputation and commercial strategy.
• With so much at stake, Sustainability is now everybody's business, with new risks and pressures coming from different stakeholder groups. It will be these stakeholders who will determine future success or failure, voting every day with their actions, loyalty and wallets. Get it wrong and talent may boycott you as an employer; retailers may delist you; investors may take over your Board; financiers may refuse to fund you; regulators may limit access to markets; and customers may abandon you for more sustainable alternatives. Conversely, organisations who get it right will enjoy competitive advantage via access to better talent, cheaper finance, preferred partners and customers.
• If managing that complexity was not challenging enough, any Sustainability Responsiveness plan inevitably costs considerable money and resources. Everything from the capital investment to generate more sustainable manufacturing processes, to equalizing pay and conditions across genders, to renegotiating new and more equitable supplier and partner contracts. There seems to be no clear path to achieve an immediate commercial return on those investments.

How, then, should organisations respond in a way that maximises positive impact and return for their Sustainbility effort? Below we outline 4 key actions that organisations should undertake in their Sustainability response to improve outcomes, impact and success.

1. Develop a Sustainability strategy for your organization, built on a Sustainability landscape

Strategy helps organisations make evidence-based decisions and choices that are in the best interests of their own future. So it should be with Sustainability, following a set of well-known questions:

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be?
• How will we get there?

Marketing strategy is built on landscapes that are defined by market and customer value. A Sustainability strategy requires its own landscape, one that integrates the assessed impact of Sustainability on the organisation's business model, as well as its key stakeholders. Using Ogilvy's own research, developed with Sustainability expert Joanne Flynn, we have developed a landscape – called the Sustainability Responsiveness Framework - that allows organisations to assess where they sit, and where and how they might want to evolve.

Organisations can assess where they sit on this landscape, based on a battery of diagnostic questions regarding the organisation's current responses to Sustainability, across a wide range of management levers and actions. This provides a clear and universal diagnosis of organisation's Sustainability Responsiveness position, summarized by these 4 typologies, each with their own profile. As either a Sustainability Observer, Pledger, Complier or Transformer, you are facing very different risks, and have very different options to evolve or improve your position.

This landscaping and diagnostic exercise yields critical conversations and alignment across management teams. It helps organisations understand the business impact (and opportunity) of Sustainability; it uncovers new forms of risk; it helps leaders understand the human implications of Sustainability across stakeholders; and it helps them benchmark against best-in-class and rivals in their sector. Most importantly, it helps prescribe effective and appropriate actions and opportunities, often alleviating the paralysing condition of "we need to do it all".

• This exercise helped a successful Sustainability start-up realise that it was thinking of Sustainability in overly-operational terms, they were "Sustainability Compliers", and that in order to resonate more with their stakeholders, they needed to build a greater Sustainability Company Culture.
• This exercise helped an international insurance company manage a difficult conversation across its leadership team, by providing objectives and evidence based shared language and concepts. The result was they (reluctantly) concluded that they were "Sustainability Pledgers" who were overly focused on managing stakeholders and insufficiently innovating their own business model.

2. Clarify an ownable and compelling Sustainability ambition for your organization

One of our most striking observations from our research was the mismatch between a) the amount of Sustainability activity being done by an organisation, and b) the lack of awareness, understanding or appreciation being given to that organisation. This problem runs much deeper than "corporate reputation", if leaders and managers are not clear what is expected of them, they will be confused, conflicted and ultimately demotivated in driving the agenda on their organisation's behalf.

Marketers understand the importance of distilling complex topics into simpler, more compelling narratives that people can engage with. This is a necessary consequence of the limitations of the human mind.

So it is with Sustainability. At its core, the topic is technical and complex, which can only be fully appreciated by experts, as any Sustainability Report will tell you. To motivate non-experts such as staff, partners, key opinion leaders or investment analysts, a more compelling and meaningful version is required.

This is what we call an organisation's Sustainability Ambition.

A Sustainability Ambition is more than an environmental pledge, which can be technical and generic. The Sustainability Ambition should distill the comprehensive Sustainability Report into a more meaningful and compelling statement designed for stakeholder engagement.

For example, working with a large multinational food company, whose success is dependent on the nutritional value of the ingredients and resources they buy, as well as the economic health of the agricultural communities from which they buy, we developed a Sustainability Ambition "to champion regenerative food systems at scale". This statement is clear and tangible. It defines a broad scope of innovation, intervention and activity, integrating and aligning activity across all parts of the enterprise.

3. Unlock new forms of value to fund and justify your Sustainability transition

There is no doubt that Sustainability transformation requires considerable investment. That in itself can be a deterrent to undertaking sufficient action, particularly for organisations with a  short term mentality. It is all too easy to "kick the challenge" further down the road, even though it is common knowledge that the bill for adaption increases significantly for every year of inaction.

One of the defining characteristics of the Sustainability Transformers is that they have the willingness and ability to make the appropriate investments. They are not richer, and do not enjoy greater cashflow. This is a question of making difficult commercial choices.

Below are some ways in which more Sustainability Transformers are unlocking new forms of value: 

• Value as risk mitigation. What is the cost of no action? The risks to customer and market value only increase over time, fixed assets will become stranded, liabilities increase, and license to operate will become threatened. If Sustainability risk is applied to the balance sheet, the costs of transition become more acceptable to the board and to stakeholders.
• Talent value. Sustainability is becoming a critical consideration for educated, talented graduates entering the work force. An employer's reputation as a Sustainability leader increases their access to top quality talent, increases productivity and reduces costs associated with staff churn. Unilever, one of the pioneers of Sustainability, is employer of choice among graduates in 52 out of 54 countries in which they measure.
• Financial value. Organisations with stronger ESG credentials and ratings can now access capital at preferential rates.
• Market value. Sustainability will inevitably create new segments, new markets and new forms of value. For instance, the "recommerce" market in fashion – where people can buy and sell pre-worn garments – is growing 3 times faster than the mainstream fashion sector. Consumers are paying more for vintage, environmentally responsible, re-sellable clothes.
• Customer value. Whether through formal business procurement processes, or through more intuitive consumer choice, Sustainability credentials are pervading brand and product appeal. When Sustainability can improve the customer experience, customers will pay more for those options. For instance, in China we developed the Bean Hero campaign that helped coffee connoisseurs appreciate the improved drinker experience of premium, sustainable locally grown coffee, and build it into their lifestyle.

4. Lead stakeholders by aligning your Sustainability agenda with their priorities

As we have seen, stakeholder insight will become a critical decision-making tool, involving new listening, monitoring, crisis management  and stakeholder engagement tools. Multi-stakeholder management will shift to stakeholder leadership and will become a critical success factor for mid to long term business sustainability.

We have to take our stakeholders along with us on the journey, and often they have competing agendas, conflicting priorities, alternative sources of information and sometimes cynical perspectives.

As all marketers know, an audience-centric perspective is critical in order to develop engagement strategies that are relatable, relevant and effective. So it is with Sustainability. Much work needs to be done for organisations to understand the real motives and considerations of their stakeholders. The most effective thing to do is to align your story with what your stakeholder prioritises. New tools and analysis are available to unlock these insights and identify new opportunities for narrative framing and storytelling.

For instance, a babycare manufacturer who was diligently removing plastic from some of their products and packaging were frustrated that the consumer was not sufficiently appreciative of their efforts. "Our consumers just don't care that much about plastic, so why will they pay more?" The problem was, they had not framed plastic in a relevant way...... yes they were not interested in the macro problem of plastic pollution and landfill, but they were very engaged with the potential health risks of micro and nano-plastic to their baby's health.

The fundamentals of communications still apply – be relevant, helpful and interesting. Priortise action and achievements over empty promises and words. Meet your audiences where they are, and where they are most open to listen to your story. Be creative and surprising, and never over-reach, over-claim or virtue signal.

Conclusion
Sustainability is a complex issue to negotiate, and there are no answers or playbooks to help us, yet. By applying the tried and trusted disciplines of strategy to Sustainability, we can develop a landscape, and prescriptions to unlock new forms of market and customer value, and drive momentum by leading stakeholders on the Sustainability issues that matter.