Sustainability strategy and management frameworks

Sustainability is about managing the triple bottom line and generating shared value from companies efforts and investments. PwC can help you identify the sustainability issues and risks that matter most to your stakeholders and assess which of these would bring the most value to your company, society and/or the environment. We can then help you define your sustainability vision to support your corporate strategy and develop a strategy roadmap and implementation plans to realise the value.

As the recent recession has demonstrated, risk can no longer be confined to one company, country or continent. It pervades every decision a business takes and, left unmanaged, can result in fines, business failure and even prison. Risks related to sustainable development interconnect with many other risk areas – from climate change to water scarcity, demographic shifts to resource availability, land use to labour rights. Similarly, regulation around sustainability issues continues to expand and company law reform has sought to make more explicit the responsibilities of the board towards social, ethical and environmental impacts. PwC can help to identify and assess the sustainability risks associated with a company’s operations and develop a sustainability risk management strategy to reduce the impact of potential risks.

Sustainability drives a key paradigm shift from investor focus to a broader stakeholder focus. As global connectivity and supply chain complexity increases, so does the influence of stakeholders. The intangible value component of market value can be impacted by loss of trust resulting from environmental accidents, poor labour standards, disgruntled employees, incorrect product labelling and other factors. Companies that do well, inevitably place a focus on engaging and managing their key stakeholders. PwC can help prioritise your stakeholders, identify the key sustainability issues that matter to them, engage them as an independent party to solicit their feedback, train your team to manage stakeholder engagement, and incorporate the feedback into your strategy and plans.

Defining a sustainability strategy is only the first step in a company’s sustainability journey. A structured approach is required to implement a robust and effective sustainability management programme and this can be achieved by developing a strong management framework. PwC’s Sustainability Management Framework links corporate strategy to action that delivers real change.  We leverage our core consulting skills to embed good sustainability management practices into your organisation – from policies and procedures, job description and organisational structure, to systems infrastructure and financial accounting. We bring practical viewpoints from practitioners with a mix of industry and consulting experience.