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The Performance Frontier : Innovation
for a Sustainable Strategy
Submitted By – Rohit Singh
Roll No. 1402131
IM-21 Batch
By Robert G. Eccles
& George Serafeim
HBR Review

Problem at hand
• A mismatch in sustainability tactics does not add upto a
sustainable strategy.
• Companies launch programs which are not relevant to their
strategy and operations and yet expect financial returns in good
numbers.
• There is a trade off between ESG and financial performance & one
often comes at the cost of the other.
• Firms that fail to enhance financial performance by ESG measures
are often not rewarded.

Ignorance is not always bliss
• Foxconn, Apple’s manufacturer in China, was reminded of this in 2010,
when revelations about the deplorable working conditions in its factories
unleashed a firestorm of bad press and ultimately halved its market cap.
• BP is still mopping up after the catastrophe on its Deepwater Horizon oil
rig in the Gulf of Mexico—as much a managerial as an engineering
disaster
• Banking giant UBS learned—after an estimated $200 billion outflow of
private client assets, fines of $780 million, and pressure from national
governments to disclose clients’ names—that in the age of transparency,
hiding behind Swiss secrecy laws is not a good strategy.
In each case the company prioritized financial over ESG performance, putting controls
in place to prevent similar debacles only after the fact.

Pushing The Frontier
1. Identify Material ESG issues
• The list of ESG concerns that could have a large impact on financial performance is long
and broad. It ranges from emissions, water and energy use, and waste management to
labor practices, community development, employee safety, and executive
compensation.
• The nonprofit is developing standards for use by public corporations in disclosing
performance on dozens of ESG measures. Central to the project is the creation of
Materiality Maps for 88 industries in 10 sectors. Each map prioritizes 43 ESG issues,
ranking their materiality for a given industry on a scale from 0.5 to 5, with 5 being most
material. The higher the score for an issue, the greater its probable impact on a firm’s
financial performance.

2. Quantify the Relationship Between Financial and ESG
Performance
• Once you understand your firm’s material ESG issues, assess the impact that
improvements in each would have on financial performance.
• As per company strategy, the most important dimension could be cost reduction,
revenue growth, or gross margin defense.
• In its “Plan A” sustainability program, the British retailer Marks & Spencer evaluated 180
ESG initiatives ranging from becoming carbon neutral to improving employee health,
looking at how they’d affect sales, costs, the brand, employee motivation, and the
resilience of the business
Pushing The Frontier

Pushing the Frontier
3. Innovate Products, Processes, and Business Models
• Once we know which ESG issues to focus on, should determine how the firm compares
with its peers on them.
• Addressing the most significant trade-offs between financial and ESG performance—
challenges that are often unsolved in a sector—requires major, organization-wide
innovation: entirely new products, processes, and business models that improve
performance in “bundles” of material issues.
• For fiscal year 2002, Natura issued its first integrated annual report, which captured
financial as well as environmental and social performance. Natura was among the first
companies in the world to make this shift, long before the practice had gained currency
through the work of organizations like the International Integrated Reporting Council .

Pushing the Frontier
4. Communicate the Company’s Innovations to Stakeholders
• If a company expects shareholders to commit for the long term in order to receive those
benefits, it needs to provide them with information that justifies their investments
• Combining ESG and financial performance information in a single document, as Natura
did, is an effective way to do this.

Organizational Barriers to Change
• Short-term incentives.
• Shortage of expertise.
• Capital-budgeting limitations.
• Investor pressure.

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The Performance Frontier - HBR Review

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