Hedstrom Navigating Sustainable Growth

A Roadmap for Boards and Corporate Leaders
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-11-154909-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 261 Seiten

Every CEO aims to deliver sustainable growth. But as the impacts of climate risk escalate, this challenge will intensify in the years ahead. To succeed, the board must enhance its sustainability fluency and own the climate agenda.

addresses anyone grappling with how leading companies can thrive in an emerging future that prioritizes decarbonization and dematerialization. With over 300 examples of practices by 180 leading global companies, this timely book explores two major themes:

• To deliver sustainable growth, companies cannot rely on strong financials alone. They must also demonstrate a track record of reducing negative impacts and creating value through sustainable offerings - and help suppliers and customers do the same.
• The board owns the critical 5-7-year planning horizon that is key to how successful companies create long-term value. As climate risks amplify, the short-term focus of most executive teams leads to missing new opportunities while facing new perils.

As a bonus, the book offers The Climate Story. This eight-step, data-rich synopsis explains how we arrived at this crossroads, and where it will take us.

This book will help investors, citizens, students, and educators discover proven strategies for sustainable growth; CEOs and corporate secretaries to reframe board agendas; and boards to measure performance and chart a course to transform climate risk into opportunity.

Zielgruppe

C-suite executives, corporate board members, CEOs, chief sustaina

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hedstrom, Gib

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Strategisches Management
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Betriebliches Energie- und Umweltmanagement

Leseproben

Advance Praise

In a world that urgently needs business to lead with purpose and long-term vision,Navigating Sustainable Growth offers timely and practical guidance for boards and executives. Gib Hedstrom makes a compelling case that sustainable growth isn’t just about doing less harm – it’s about creating more value for society than we take. For leaders serious about building future-fit companies, this book is a vital resource.

Paul Polman, Former CEO

Unilever

The importance of sustainability in business is widely acknowledged, yet few grasp how to effectively integrate it into corporate strategy to drive growth. With a focus on best practices and actionable guidance, Navigating Sustainable Growth bridges this gap by providing a clear roadmap for leaders. Gib Hedstrom offers valuable insights and practical steps for driving sustainable growth. This book is an indispensable resource for any executive or board member committed to creating long-term value while addressing climate challenges.

Dave Regnery, Chair & CEO

Trane Technologies

The risk of climate change is widely recognized, but few understand how good governance can mitigate it. The famed “triangle” of governance – connecting directors, managers, and investors – must become a fulcrum for balanced approaches. That is the major lesson from Navigating Sustainable Growth. Gib Hedstrom is a true pioneer in climate governance, qualified by decades of board-level consulting work and influential publications. His newest book is packed with practical insights and steps for prospering on our planet while at the same time respecting it.

Alexandra Lajoux, Chief Knowledge Officer Emeritus

National Association of Corporate Directors

This book belongs on every CEO’s desk. As climate risks to assets and society intensify and geopolitics become more complex, CEOs need an action-oriented guide that cuts through the noise. Companies committed to leading and growing sustainably must future-proof their businesses by embracing – not resisting – emerging regulations from the EU and beyond. Gib’s book delivers that blueprint, just when it’s needed most.

Mike Mabry, CEO

Global Resources International

In Navigating Sustainable Growth, Gib Hedstrom provides a roadmap for boards to enhance fluency, drawing on decades of helping boards and corporate leaders address the most challenging issues of the day.

Wendy Kei, Chair, Board of Directors

Ontario Power Generation

This isn’t another book about why sustainability matters; this is the ‘how.’ Gib bridges the strategy gap between today’s short-termism and the climate-aligned economy taking shape. Essential reading for boards, CEOs, and the next generation of business leaders in every MBA classroom.

Dave Stangis, Chief Sustainability Officer

Apollo Global Management

Boards can no longer treat climate as a side issue – it’s as critical to long-term value as AI and digital transformation. Despite the pressure to deliver short-term results, management must assess how the company’s strategy will deliver sustainable growth over the next five years and beyond. Gib Hedstrom offers the game plan to align corporate strategy with sustainability and secure resilience and profitable growth.

Jo Mark Zurel, Chair, Board of Directors

Fortis Inc.

The thing about climate is that it doesn’t care what you think about it, like whether it’s caused by humans or not. One way or another, a shifting climate will affect all corporations, everywhere. Companies that embrace the challenge are poised to reap the rewards and increase shareholder value. With Navigating Sustainable Growth, Gib Hedstrom lays out a practical, non-partisan action plan for corporate leaders and boards to achieve sustainable growth and profitability. This is a must read!

Bill Davis, CEO

Stance Capital

Gib Hedstrom’s work here, much like that of his distinguished career in governance and sustainability, is an exemplar of high-quality research, logic, and practicality. Organizations that follow his advice will be well served in both the immediate and longer term.

Robert Galford, Board of Directors [retired]

Forrester Research

Navigating Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap for Boards and Corporate Leaders is essential for directors looking to learn more about the impacts of climate change, gain alignment between the board and management, and make boardroom discussions more productive and impactful. In Gib Hedstrom’s feature “Climate and Sustainability for Boards” for Directors & Boards, he expertly explained why climate change is a pressing issue for directors and why the time is now for them to enhance their fluency and knowledge on the topic. If he can do that in six pages, imagine what he does with a whole book.

Bill Hayes, Editor in Chief

Directors & Boards

This is more than a guide – it’s a wakeup call about the urgent challenges we face. Solving them will require public, private, and nonprofit leaders to work together in new and exciting ways. Only the private sector has the resources to move fast and deliver outcomes at scale. Gib Hedstrom has provided the framework for how corporate leaders, especially board members, can engage in ways that generate strong economic outcomes and durable solutions to the climate crisis.

Larry Selzer, President and CEO

The Conservation Fund

This is the guide C-suites have been waiting for. Navigating Sustainable Growth is a much-needed resource for executives committed to turning sustainability into a competitive advantage. This approach builds on Gib Hedstrom’s decades with ESG Navigator helping hundreds of major companies. That platform has been incredibly helpful for conducting an honest assessment, gaining executive alignment, and preparing for board dialog. Now, having a practical ‘how-to’ guide to create alignment and stimulate the right type of board discussion is invaluable. The book speaks to each corporate function, blending boardroom insights with global best practices.

Jennifer Aspen Mason, CSO & EVP

J.M. Huber Corp

Timely, insightful, and action oriented. Over the next five years, customers will increasingly demand innovative solutions to climate and other material sustainability challenges. This book identifies how to capture emerging value creation opportunities – while avoiding the costs of inaction or delay.

Alexa A. Dembek, PhD, SVP, Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer

DuPont

In these critical decades of transition, successful companies will phase out the destructive business models of the past and grow those decarbonizing and dematerializing the value chain. Boards of directors have the vantage point and power to guide that strategic shift, and every corporate functional leader – and MBA professor – must weave climate and sustainability into their daily activities. Navigating Sustainable Growth helps boards, corporate leaders, and business schools to navigate a course toward sustainable business. Gib’s book provides a timely, “how to” toolkit.

Jason Jay, Director, Sustainability Initiative,

MIT Sloan School of Management

In this terrific, highly readable book, Gib Hedstrom makes a clear and compelling case that you can’t have a healthy business on an unhealthy planet. More importantly, he lays out a climate strategy every executive and board of directors should follow – one grounded in the volatile dynamics of this moment. It is a practical and insightful guide, worthy of study by every business leader – and anyone who strives to become one.

Joel Makower, Chairman and Co-founder

Trellis Group

Acknowledgments

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, Genthiner Straße 13, 10785 Berlin 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, Genthiner Straße 13, 10785 Berlin

In writing this book, I followed my grandmother’s words of wisdom: “too soon old, and too late smart.” I vowed to garner help along the way, especially sensing that the time to act on climate change is slipping away. We all need to get smart, quick.

Thirty years of work with executives of over 100 companies who challenged my assumptions and influenced my thinking, and the 150 global companies using ESG Navigator, shaped the early drafts. When I thought my content was good, I reached out to experts who could make it even better.

Jane Schindewolf’s contributions are too many to count. Special thanks to Lucy Carmody, whose global expertise in finance and climate and excellent writing helped the text reach a new level. A group of global leaders sharpened certain arguments: Alexandra Lajoux on board oversight, Alex Gold on EU developments, Bill Davis on sustainable investing, Dean Slocum on social responsibility. Sophia Deery, Jen Davey, and Larry Krupp provided excellent support. Then, when all the content...

Über Autor(innen)

Gib Hedstrom has 30 years’ experience advising boards of directors on sustainable growth at the intersection of environment, strategy, and governance. After several years in finance at GE, Gib spent 20 years at Arthur D. Little, leading the global launch of environmental auditing and later running the company’s sustainability practice, including from Brussels. He has written several books and dozens of articles about board and C-suite sustainability oversight. Gib is founder and managing partner of ESG Navigator, a corporate sustainability benchmarking and strategic planning platform endorsed by The Conference Board. He earned his MBA and sustainability MS from the University of Michigan, and a BA in economics and geology from Hamilton College.