It was hard to go even a few minutes at this year’s GreenBiz conference without hearing about the business case for sustainability. Over and over, executives repeated that efforts to cut emissions were also reducing waste, cutting costs, and delivering durable efficiency gains. It’s a perfectly reasonable pitch. It’s also a much more modest one compared to the sustainability zeitgeist of just a few years ago when companies proclaimed a green transformation to be the growth story of the 21st century. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In some ways it was a necessary reset. In the heyday of ESG investing, trillions poured into vague notions of sustainability with a vision of enormous returns but without a clear plan. Getting precise is necessary, but in reframing the business case for climate and sustainability around efficiency, businesses risk missing the excitement—and capital—that comes with growth. At the GreenBiz conference in Phoenix, sustainability executives wrestled with what their role should be amid government pushback against efforts to tackle climate change and the public’s prioritization of other issues. Many executives told me how their jobs have become focused more on compliance with the myriad rules and regulations. Despite roll backs from the U.S. federal government, other countries and some U.S. states continue to pursue a range of climate regulations. Some spoke of concerns about shrinking sustainability teams as CEOs prioritized other issues. Almost all of them said they had managed to continue making climate progress by finding ways to save the business money. Finding efficiencies is a…
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