Citystates II: The Case for Corporate Leadership in Urban Sustainability

This second report in SustainAbility’s Citystates series explores the opportunity side of this agenda, focusing especially on the case for more companies to take a bolder leadership stance, and providing insight and tools to further accelerate activity in this arena.

There is an urgent need, and a huge opportunity, for local and international stakeholders to prioritize the sustainability requirements of cities, and with them, broader sustainable development.

Chief among these stakeholders is business, which has both the opportunity and responsibility to take a leadership role (and the chance to reap substantial benefits in the process), and without which cities will be unable to innovate and scale their efforts at nearly the required pace.

Though there are many leading examples of cities and companies working together to accelerate progress on urban sustainability, this agenda is only beginning to enter mainstream business thinking, and overall city-business collaboration remains underdeveloped in aggregate and challenging in practice.

In response, Citystates II  provides insights and tools to further engage business leaders around the evolving risks and opportunities related to urbanization and sustainability, and to improve companies’ ability to engage productively.