Sustainable Transformation Strategy, by Paolo Taticchi et al: a book review

Review originally captured on GoodBooks here

This is an excellent primer, showcasing the current state of good practice in corporate sustainability.

Professor Taticchi and his collaborators have created some nicely detailed and well researched case studies from across Europe, a range of industries and with transparently different levels of maturity when it comes to sustainability.

Most striking for me were the timelines from early ESG programmes (in the early 2000s) to (potentially) more impactful integrated thinking and strategy today and in particular the journey that many of the organisations have been on to avoid their programmes to be a “bolt on”. One has to hope that the next phase of acceleration will happen considerably faster.

The simplicity of the case studies and the straightforward language was refreshing on such a hyped topic and the final chapter, “10 Golden Rules to Lead the Sustainable Transformation” — though short — was pithy and compelling. Working at an organisation that is both on its own sustainability journey, but also providing a wide range of sustainability consulting and sustainable IT solutions, it was reassuring to see some strong overlap in our thinking towards alignment of corporate mission and sustainability as well as accepting (even embracing) that monetisation and competitive advantage represents a powerful motivation alongside “doing the right thing”.

If you are interested in finding out what a range of companies in different industries are really doing and how they are approaching their business around sustainability, then this is a great place to start.