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Navigating the Business of Sustainability

A Practitioner's Guide

  • 1st Edition - January 1, 2027
  • Latest edition
  • Authors: Márcia Balisciano, Christian Leitz, Carrie Scott
  • Language: English

Sustainability practitioners are operating in challenging waters: Ever-evolving regulations, shifting political winds, and heightened stakeholder demands have created a landscape… Read more

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Description

Sustainability practitioners are operating in challenging waters: Ever-evolving regulations, shifting political winds, and heightened stakeholder demands have created a landscape that often feels chaotic and contradictory. In this time of profound change there are both significant risks and new opportunities for companies. Navigating these times requires not only technical expertise but also sharper judgment and the ability to balance immediate business demands with long-term value creation.

Navigating the Business of Sustainability: A Practitioner’s Guide is a practical, experience-driven resource for leaders striving for positive, lasting impact while charting a rapidly changing landscape. Built on decades of real-world experience from practitioners who have successfully led corporate sustainability through multiple cycles, this book addresses the key challenges when integrating sustainability into business strategy and operations. By focusing on what works in practice, this book is a guide for practitioners to manage conflicting priorities, foster innovation, and create enduring benefits for both business and society.

Key features

  • Hands-on guide for professionals entering or advancing corporate sustainability roles, with a strong focus on actionable strategies
  • Insights grounded in research and data, ensuring recommendations are credible, evidence-based, and directly applicable to a variety of managerial and governance contexts
  • Contributions from nearly 30 practitioners across industries and geographies, including sidebars, Q&As, and case studies that bring real-world perspectives to life

Readership

Sustainability professionals and students pursuing careers in corporate sustainability (undergraduates, postgraduates, new company joiners), University lecturers and professors teaching sustainability or related courses

Table of contents

1. The practitioner perspective on corporate sustainability

2. Corporate sustainability – history, practice, and evolution

3. Embedding sustainability into corporate strategy

4. The Governance of corporate sustainability

5. Stakeholder engagement for corporate sustainability success

6. Sustainability reporting and disclosures in practice

7. The future of corporate sustainability – pathways for practitioners

8. Appendix – resources for corporate sustainability professionals

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: January 1, 2027
  • Language: English

About the authors

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Márcia Balisciano

Márcia is award-winning Chief Sustainability Officer at RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics, decision tools and events. Her work encompasses value creation; strategy, delivery and impact; risk reduction; responsible AI, and change and transformation. She holds several board positions, is a podcast host and frequent speaker and lecturer. She has also served as a museum director. She received her PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics and is a Member of the British Empire (MBE), an honor presented to her by King Charles III, and lives in London with her husband and two sons.

Affiliations and expertise
Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, RELX Group, UK

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Christian Leitz

Christian Leitz has been at UBS since 2003, currently serving as Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) and leading the implementation of the firm's sustainability strategy. Alongside this role as CSO, he serves as Secretary to the UBS Corporate Culture and Responsibility Committee, one of five Board of Directors committees, and as Group Historian, acting with the archives team as the center of competence for UBS's institutional history. Before joining UBS, he taught modern European history at universities in the UK and New Zealand and holds a D.Phil. in Modern History from Oxford.

Affiliations and expertise
Chief Sustainability Officer & Corporate Historian, UBS

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Carrie Scott

Carrie Scott brings three decades of experience in sustainability, corporate affairs, and reputation management. As director of the Chief Social Impact Officers Council at The Conference Board, she convenes senior leaders shaping the future of sustainability and social impact. Previously she led the global Sustainability and ESG Office at Novartis, where the company achieved leading ratings for its environmental and social impact performance. Carrie advises leaders on navigating complex sustainability challenges and is a frequent speaker and lecturer. She lives in Basel, Switzerland, with her family.

Affiliations and expertise
Director, Chief Social Impact Officers Council, The Conference Board