The MSLGROUP paper on "Value and Values: A Winning Business Strategy" discusses the benefits of economic stewardship and ways to develop an environmentally sustainable approach to business.

1. Value and Values:
A Winning Business
Strategy

2. Executive Summary
At no time in history have business leaders felt the pressure to perform on such a vast array of
fronts. As always, stakeholders expect companies to deliver outstanding financial performance,
market dominance, operational excellence and a spotless reputation. Increasingly, they also expect
a higher level of corporate responsibility – one that goes beyond legal compliance and traditional
philanthropy. A new mandate to deliver value and values means companies must do more than
simply follow the law and stay under the radar. They must examine their impact on society as a
whole and tell stakeholders what they’re doing about it. Chief among these issues is environmental
sustainability. While most companies see sustainability as a critical business strategy, many lack an
overarching vision or plan, and instead end up engaging in random acts of environmental kindness.
They don’t know how to engage activists as well as analysts, how to assess environmental risks as well
as market risks, or how to form non-traditional partnerships in unfamiliar territory. Equally daunting is
communicating about their sustainability efforts in the midst of non-stop environmental chatter, green
claims and cynicism about greenwashing.
Despite the hurdles, some companies are learning to maximize the rewards of environmental
stewardship. GE, for example, has combined purpose and profit by building an entire business
enterprise around social and environmental responsibility. Interface Inc., an Atlanta-based carpet
tile company, has found that transforming its petroleum-intense business into one of the most
sustainable manufacturing operations in the world generates both goodwill and increased profits.
Equally critical, as BP is learning since the disastrous oil spill, companies must know how to manage
environmental risks.
By 1) determining where they are and where they want to be on the ECO continuum, 2) developing
programs aligned with their business strategies, and 3) communicating through real-time
engagement, companies can successfully navigate the environmental landscape and leverage it to
achieve their business goals.
A Historical Perspective
Environmental sustainability is the latest in a string of megatrends that have re-shaped the business
world in recent decades. In the 1970s, quality emerged as the new strategic imperative and a defining
attribute for brands. In the 1980s, technology took center stage as the key driver of efficiency and
innovation and also hastened globalization, a major theme in the 1990s.
During the first decade of the new millennium, sustainability gradually made its way into the business
and consumer lexicon. Consumers began demanding more sustainable products, new government
regulations were introduced, and the emphasis on clean technologies and energy efficiency
increased. Sustainability is changing the way we do business forever and leaders who want to remain
competitive cannot afford to take a haphazard approach. As history shows, companies must respond
and adapt to megatrends or be left behind.
2

3. The Four Forces Driving Sustainability
Many factors can spur development of a megatrend. In the case of environmental sustainability, these
include growing concerns about climate change, the connection between energy independence and
national security; intensified competition for natural resources; and increased awareness of issues
such as food safety. Today, four forces are accelerating the rise of environmental stewardship to the
top of business priority lists: consumers, government, supply chains and green technologies and
products.
1. Consumers
In recent years, news headlines have been full of corporate scandals, financial misconduct and
questionable ethics on the part of companies and public figures. While consumers’ expectations
of value and values from the brands and companies they choose are growing, so is their
skepticism. It will take thoughtful, well-planned, authentic communications and clear evidence
companies are doing the right things to regain consumer confidence. Consumers are also
influencing how sustainability is defined. In the early days of environmental awareness, people
worried about pollutants spewing from smokestacks and saving rainforests. Now, consumers are
more worried about their own homes, communities and families than the Earth, prompting them
to expand the definition of sustainability to include health and wellness.
2. Government
Local, state and federal government agencies are creating unprecedented scrutiny and regulation.
From the smallest municipalities to the Supreme Court, the actions of government cover a
broad range – from limiting greenhouse gas emissions and the size of televisions to requiring
companies to disclose climate risks to investors and taxing plastic bags. Both carrots and sticks
are being used to motivate companies to act: tax incentives, contracts and grants are being offered
to those who drive ECO innovation; penalties and increased scrutiny will be levied against those
who don’t.
3. Supply Chains
Nowadays, it’s not enough for companies to be accountable for own behavior; they must also take
responsibility for how their suppliers conduct business. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is
creating a sustainability index factoring in assessments of its 100,000 global suppliers. While
most companies won’t go to this extreme – regulators, consumers and investors expect them to
know that their suppliers are doing the right thing.
4. Green Technologies and Products
For the first time in history, “green” is not a casualty of the economic downturn, but a hero. More
than $200 billion in private investment and $400 billion in stimulus funding has been poured into
clean technologies around the world in the last year, transforming old businesses and creating
new ones.

4. How to Move Forward on the Sustainability Front
The mandate for companies to create meaningful and effective environmental stewardship programs
is clear. Those who approach the task with a laser focus on purpose, as well as profit, will deliver
benefits to their stakeholders, society and the bottom line.
The following steps outline the process organizations can follow to re-invent, re-think, re-define and
re-imagine themselves in an eco-centric world.
Step One: Discover where you fall on the sustainability continuum.
An assessment of policies, practices, beliefs and strategies will reveal where a company lands on
the continuum between risk avoidance and profit and purpose, and between little stakeholder
engagement and shared values. The stages are:
• If you are eco-compliant, you follow laws and regulations. You recognize that failing to meet
minimum standards will result in penalties and other risks.
• Eco-vested means you go beyond compliance and have begun to see that some ECO
strategies, such as energy efficiency improvements, help the bottom line. Sustainability,
however, exists in its own silo and is not integrated into other parts of the business.
• As an eco-innovator: you actively integrate sustainability into your business strategy and
it enjoys broad organizational acceptance. It is a core business value and your employees are
engaged in the concept.
• If you are eco-transformational, you have truly transformed your business or value proposition
and are gaining market share with new products and technologies. Your organization embraces
the concepts of value and values, and purpose and profits.
The Stages of Sustainability
Little Stakeholder
Shared Values
Engagement
ECO ECO ECO ECO
Compliant Vested Innovator Transformational
Defense Offense
Risk Avoidance Profit and Purpose
Step Two: Understand your stakeholders’ expectations and values.
The degrees of priority and scrutiny of sustainability efforts vary by industry. A company in offshore
drilling, for instance, faces much more intense pressure than a health care provider. It is crucial
to know how well you comply with trade standards or guidelines, how stakeholders view your
activities and commitments, and what your competitors are doing.

5. Step Three: Identify your organization’s values and opportunities.
An audit or opportunity assessment can help pinpoint what’s important to your organization, and
to your stakeholders. The biggest opportunities and impact are being felt in business-to-business
and business-to-government sectors, but business-to-consumer opportunities are quickly gaining
ground.
Step Four: Build trust with credible programs.
Sustainability is not a public relations campaign. Instead, it consists of tangible, measurable
improvements to products or business processes, such as reducing your carbon footprint,
being more energy efficient, ensuring supply chain partners act responsibly, and reducing the
environmental impact of your products’ entire lifecycle.
Step Five: Engage stakeholders.
While sustainability activities are commendable and worthwhile, stakeholders must be aware of
them for your organization to realize their full benefit. By developing an authentic narrative and
demonstrating leadership, you can credibly engage in the conversation and deliver purpose and
profit.
Using Real-Time Engagement to Tell the Story
Real time engagement is using experience, insights and analytics to engage stakeholders in “right
now” conversations to manage reputation and create powerful movements between people and
brands. To master it, companies must understand its components and use them to build a strategy
that meets organizational objectives. The four components are:
1. Real time conversations:
Get people talking through influencer and consumer outreach, thought leadership and grassroots
activation to create authentic, credible conversations. Whether it’s Tweeting, blogging, face-to-
face meetings or hands-on training, get people talking.
2. Real time communities:
At the heart of the environmental movement are passionate influencers, activists and organizers.
They are dedicated to value and values – their families, communities, ECO issues, causes and
products. It’s important to build, feed and guide them.
3. Real time content:
Fears of “greenwashing” and scepticism about professionally-generated content is at an all-time
high. As a result, companies need to create opportunities for multiple voices and consumer-
generated content to be shared across multiple channels.
4. Real time commitment:
Through powerful, holistic programs, strong tools and analytics, conversation and content can
drive communities to act for profit and purpose. This can include changing beliefs, behavior,
awareness or intent.

6. An aspect of sustainability that makes it more challenging than some megatrends of the past is
the complexity of interested stakeholder audiences. Younger consumers, for example, care deeply
about the environment and as their buying power increases, so will their demands for value and
values. Environmental stewardship is also becoming a factor in employee recruitment and retention.
People want to work for responsible companies whose values align with their own and who give them
opportunities to support environmental causes through their work. Investors care too, since ecological
impact can dramatically affect a company’s profitability and growth.
Monitoring and managing conversations with these varied audiences over time allows companies
to identify risks and opportunities related to their positions on the environment. By using real- time
engagement to get the message out, change attitudes and opinions, and ultimately change behavior,
companies can measure the impact of their sustainability performance and return on investment
Time to Step Up
Sustainability is motivating business leaders to think differently about how to achieve their
organizational goals and, at the same time, contribute to the greater good. A thoughtful assessment
of the current situation followed by meaningful programs and ongoing real-time engagement with
stakeholders will provide the much-needed road map to sustainable change.
For more information please contact:
Sheila Gruber McLean
Senior Vice President, Director North America ECO Network
MSLWashington, DC
Two Lafayette Centre
1133 21st St. NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
sheila.mclean@mslgroup.com
(202) 261-2881