Sustainability: From Challenge to Strategy

Director of Client Services, Diane Colomer Cheadle, attended Sustainability Live: Chicago. She returned energized by conversations about turning sustainability from obligation into opportunity. Here’s what resonated most.

The message from Sustainability Live: Chicago was unmistakable: unsustainable business models have become unsustainable themselves. This reflects a fundamental shift: surface-level commitments no longer suffice. Companies need deep, structural integration of sustainability across their business.

Turn Your Biggest Challenges into Your Strategy

Jennifer Motles, CSO of Philip Morris International, shared one of the event’s most actionable insights: build sustainability strategies around your biggest challenges rather than working around them.

Your greatest risks often represent your greatest opportunities for transformation. By facing hard truths head-on, companies create strategies that actually move the needle.

Motles also emphasized how competitive advantage increasingly comes from industry collaboration. When competitors work together to drive systemic change, individual efforts multiply into industry transformation. (See why business won’t abandon sustainability.)

The Business Case Is Changing—So Should Your Message

Sonja Trierweiler from the Global Network for Zero highlighted a critical communication challenge. She emphasized reframing the narrative, shift the conversation from cost and burden to opportunity, innovation, resilience, and long-term value creation.

This messaging shift matters internally too. Sustainability creates profitability and value, but in ways that require new language to communicate effectively. When CSOs report to CFOs sustainability conversations naturally align with financial performance, risk management, and strategic planning. (Be sure you are aligned across your organization.)

Regulations: Catalyst, Not Burden

Cara Williams from Mercer offered valuable perspective on mandatory reporting. While regulations demand resources, they also force organizations to clarify strategy and address fundamental challenges.

Williams observed that forward-thinking companies exceed regulatory requirements. They view regulations as establishing a baseline, not a target. This proactive approach builds stakeholder trust and creates competitive advantage. (Learn about the advantages of voluntary reporting in a mandatory reporting world.)

Data Quality Drives Everything

Chelsea Lamar from AIT Worldwide Logistics emphasized the critical importance of quality data. This extends beyond internal metrics to the entire value chain.

The principle is straightforward: what gets measured becomes actionable. Clear expectations, collaborative relationships, and robust data collection create the foundation for meaningful progress. (Learn how to tell a story with data.)

Make It Real: Practical Steps For You

The event reinforced several immediate actions:

1. Get the Data: Good quality data is essential not only for financial reporting and compliance but also for meaningful internal and external engagement, performance measurement, and demonstrating credible progress.
2. Audit your sustainability narrative Does it position sustainability as separate from business strategy? Time for an update. (Learn how to align messaging across your organization)
3. Expand your KPIs If current metrics don’t capture your full impact, develop ones that do. Custom metrics reflecting your specific challenges engage stakeholders more effectively.
4. Map material challenges Materiality matters: Focus resources where you can create meaningful impact.
5. Collaborate, inside and out When operations owns carbon targets and finance understands sustainability ROI, real change accelerates. When your entire industry comes together, real systemic change can happen.

The Bottom Line

Sustainability done right is strategy. It drives innovation, creates value, and positions organizations for growth.

The question isn’t whether to integrate sustainability into core operations, it’s how quickly and effectively you can make it happen. Those who move fastest, with clearest vision and strongest alignment, will define the next era of business success.

Ready to transform your sustainability communications? 

Ideas On Purpose helps organizations create and align narratives that drive understanding and then activate for lasting impact. Contact us to discuss how we can help tell your sustainability story and bring it to life.

Photo by Muzammil Soorma on Unsplash