Corporate Competitiveness -- An Important Consideration for Board & C-Suite, Including the CFO -- Here's Important News From Accenture

In brief:  Profits and growth are only two legs of a three-legged stool, with sustainability just as important, says a new study.

Is corporate growth and profitability "hard wired" to sustainability and trust?  Important question!  The answer (a declarative "yes") was advanced by Mark Pearson and Bill Theofilou, of the Accenture consulting firm, in a recent white paper.

Now the pair have a new analysis to share -- news about their "Competitive Agility Index" -- the "CAI", based on analysis of 5,200 data points on 350 companies across 9 industries. 

Leading companies, they say, are quantifying how sustainability generates tangible value and are taking action to reduce waste, improve labor conditions, and invest in causes the customers care about...and that their corporate brands stand for.

The authors leveraged publicly-available data for the dimensions of "growth and profitability," and for sustainability and trust they developed an algorithm based on trust indices and industry-specific features.

Companies held up as example of leadership in their sectors include Apple, BMW, Inditex (brand: Zara), and Colgate-Palmolive.  The Index shows that the interdependent strategy can yield greater revenue and EBITDA improvement than one focused on just one or two of the dimensions.

This is all explained on the CFO web site, with commentary by David McCann:  "Sustainability is a Key to Future Competitiveness."  Read this and share it with your favorite Chief Financial Officer -- there's a lot to consider here for the internal discussions about corporate sustainability.

This is just the introduction of G&A's Sustainability Highlights newsletter this week. Click here to view the full issue.