Sustainability — and its sibling, responsibility — are comforting words. They look impressive in glossy reports and sound good, sending a reassuring message: we are doing something worthwhile.

But in business, these words often mean very little. No company admits to being irresponsible or unsustainable, so most sustainability talk just states the obvious. Worse, we tend to define the words to suit ourselves. It’s not unlike politicians using the word “just,” which usually translates to: money should flow from other candidates' voters'  pockets into my voters' pockets.

Along with sprinkling the words around, many companies produce a separate sustainability (or responsibility) strategy. Even if well-intentioned, this risks sending us in the wrong direction. Defining sustainability is notoriously difficult; the literature is full of competing versions. My pragmatic definition: a sustainable business is future-proof, built to thrive in the world of tomorrow. That includes environmental and social aspects, and also profitability. No business can be sustainable if it does not create value.

By that measure, nearly every business wants to be sustainable. Unsustainable businesses will not survive in tomorrow’s world; their value lasts only as long as they can exploit before they sink. Of course, if the ownership strategy is simply to grab the money and run, sustainability won’t be high on the list.

So, should we then have a sustainability strategy? The answer is no. Sustainability must be at the core of strategy itself, not a bolt-on. We don’t have a separate “money-making strategy,” because making money is central to strategy. Sustainability should be treated the same way. 

Sustainability is a newcomer in business. Most of us agree it needs to be there, but it’s still not instinctive. One part of the story is that our perspective has been distorted by reporting rules. Sustainability is now seen as primarily a reporting or marketing exercise. Good governance requires reporting, but most businesses see it as a mandatory duty with little business benefit. This might even be true; very few sustainability reports are bestsellers. 

Marketing can benefit from sustainability, as customers may prefer sustainable producers. Or, more precisely, customers prefer companies that create an aura of sustainability around them. True sustainability with strong marketing is powerful. But a coat of green paint never makes a company sustainable.

The true value of sustainability lies in embedding it into the strategy. The CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) has been criticized as bureaucratic. I tend to agree; some of its qualitative data points are just words without much meaning. But one concept is truly vital: double materiality.

Double materiality forces us to look in two directions: Outside in — how the world affects the business. Extreme weather can increase costs, while demand for clean technology may create new sales opportunities.

Secondly, the concept of double materiality inspires us to look inside out — how the business affects the world, for better or worse. A product can either create problems or solve them. On the surface, this may sound like risk management and damage control, but the real prize is opportunity. The task is not just to avoid harm, but to actively shape positive impacts and to grow stronger by spotting the new possibilities this thinking reveals.

Let’s ditch the separate sustainability strategies. Let’s stop staring at our shoes. Let’s embed sustainability into strategy — and look further ahead.