Results of a poll released today by BSR.org show that climate change tops the list of priorities for CSR (corporate social responsibility) executives. 41% of executives polled at this week’s BSR conference in San Francisco rated climate change a “5″ in priority on a scale of 1 to 5. Other sustainability issues that topped the priority list included: water availability/quality and sustainable consumption.
The top actions these execs expect to take include:

• Creating innovative products and business models designed for sustainability (39% of respondents)
• Measuring and demonstrating positive environmental impacts (38% of respondents)

Some of them must have been reading the recent cover story in the September 2009 issue of The Harvard Business Review, “Why Sustainability is Now the Key Driver of Innovation.” In this article, authors Ram Nidumolu, C.K. Prahalad, and M.R. Rangaswami make the case that, in the future, the only companies that will achieve competitive advantage will be those that use sustainability to drive their strategies. The authors present both a framework and research results that show how companies are rethinking products, technologies, processes and even business models for cost reduction and revenue growth.
Is sustainability the “big, hairy, audacious goal” that will drive your company to innovate?

Tags: corporate sustainability, LinkedIn, sustainability

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