Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto

Conclusion

LEO TOLSTOY began his novel Anna Karenina with the sentence “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Sustainability leaders are largely alike in their drive forward; every laggard has his own excuse for doing nothing. Most people, when trying to transform their company, find a raft of reasons why their company is uniquely unqualified to change now. They’re too small, or too big. They’re too much of a manufacturer or too much of a service business. They’re in the middle of a succession process or they haven’t yet begun one. They’re growing wildly or shrinking precipitously. They’re too new or too old. As far as I’m concerned, as long as the instigators of the effort are committed, there is no right ...