Getting Strategic About Sustainability
Use these four lenses to focus on what matters. by Jason Jay, Kate Isaacs and Hong Linh Nguyen

Suzanne Saroff
Summary.
Strategy, it is often said, is about choosing what not to do. But when it comes to sustainability, many companies toss that advice aside and try to tackle too many issues at once. The result? Scattered efforts that fail to generate either business results or meaningful impact. In extreme cases, overpromising and underdelivering can even lead stakeholders and watchdogs to assume that the companies are greenwashing.
Read more on Environmental sustainability or related topics Strategy, Strategy formulation, Business and society, Analytics and data science and Leadership vision
A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2025 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Read more on Environmental sustainability or related topics Strategy, Strategy formulation, Business and society, Analytics and data science and Leadership vision