Capital allocation gap is major obstacle for sustainability leaders, survey finds

Together with Robert Eccles, Alison Taylor and Salesforce, we recently interviewed senior professionals across finance, technology and sustainability functions to identify the major gaps that stand in the way of making sustainability meaningful to corporate strategy.

The most dramatic gap is in capital and resource allocation: Half of all senior C-suite-level teams show a high level of focus on average across sustainability risks, opportunities and impacts, but less than a quarter of all senior teams allocate significant capital to deliver on these apparent priorities. These gaps suggest that it is easy to say yes to sustainability, but much harder to act on it.

What does this mean?

For too long, sustainability advocates have relied on the idea that progress is inevitable if leaders are enlightened on the issue and can be persuaded to talk about and focus on it. However, companies need to back up their rhetoric with practical action, closing the key gaps of capital/resource allocation as well as implementation, integration and data to understand and deliver the full value of sustainability.

Find out more about the current imperative to place sustainability at the core of strategy rather than treat it as a siloed, reporting-focused effort in our report “Sustainable Value Creation: Closing the Gap between Stated Commitments and Operational Realities.”

Survey Questions: Q1. How much focus has the Senior Management Team given to identifying and addressing each of these categories? Q2. What is the level of capital and resource allocation for identifying and addressing each of the following?

Source: GlobeScan/Salesforce Value of Sustainability Project, a survey of 234 senior professionals in finance, technology and sustainability functions