Geneva/London, 9 December 2021: Today, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) releases An architecture for sustainable value transition within social and planetary boundaries.
Global sustainability negotiations this year have made it clear that to move beyond business-as-usual, transformation is needed on the systems level to address unprecedented challenges in a climate emergency, nature loss and mounting inequality. This is also reflected in WBCSD’s Vision 2050: Time to Transform, which lays out the ways business can play a leading role in accelerating the systems transformations needed for 9+ billion people to live well, within planetary boundaries, by mid-century.
“An architecture for sustainable value transition” explores the structures required to align incentives, rewards, and flows of information towards the sustainable management of long-term societal and shareholder value creation, within social and planetary boundaries. It is intended for sustainability practitioners, regulators, systems architects and academics to practically consider the key components required to effect a sustainable value transition, the issues to be overcome, and actions which might be taken now.
“For our economic and financial systems to recognize and integrate true value, significant change is required – not just by and within corporations, but also in the context in which they operate – to allow capital markets actors to act in concert to recognize and reward sustainable transition.” said Joss Tantram, Director of Redefining Value, WBCSD.
The report argues that an architecture for delivering sustainable value could be comprised of nine architectural elements, and that it should outline the potential mechanisms for processing global environmental and social information. This would enable better assessment and pricing of actors’ and products’ alignment with social and planetary boundaries.
“An architecture for sustainable value transition” is part of WBCSD’s Redefining Value program, which helps companies to measure and manage risk, gain competitive advantage and seize new opportunities by understanding environmental, social and governance (ESG) information.
The full guidance can be accessed here.
