Table of contentsExecutive summary 3Introduction 8Five recommendations #1 Boost sustainability investments 9 #2 Elevate internal initiatives 15 #3 Expand your sphere of influence 20 #4 Explore deeper application of technology 28 #5 Evolve power structures 32Final word 37Authors 39Methodology 41Deep Green 3 Executive summaryAs the world grapples with the urgent need to combat climate change and resource depletion, a new breed of business is emerging. These organizations will be sustainable to the core—not just green but deeply green, with sustainability encoded in their DNA. Sustainability thinking will influence everything these businesses do—affecting their entire sphere of control—from how they get and use their energy and materials to how they develop products and services. Moreover, this type of thinking will impact areas and entities previously outside of these businesses’ control, including their suppliers, distributors, customers and partners, in pursuit of a better tomorrow.What will drive this new breed is a growing conviction that sustainability can reveal new opportunities for those who respond to environmental, social, business and regulatory pressures with a radical and far-sighted rethink of how to operate. Rather than just tending to the sustainability of their internal operations, deeply green businesses will collaborate in entirely new ways across their value chains—coordinating their vision, actions and decisions with other players and partners in their ecosystem. At the same time, they’ll create products and offerings that go beyond mitigating environmental issues, to helping to solve them. Operating in this manner, these businesses will not only shrink their own environmental footprint and th...
