Companies Shift Sustainability Focus to Business, Less Discourse

The corporate sustainability agenda is undergoing a significant recalibration, adapting to current global challenges and shifting its focus from discourse to tangible business integration.

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It is true that the international context is adverse to an agenda that thrives in times of peace. However, although geopolitics is very important for its impacts on this agenda, it does not fully explain why sustainability, in the last three or four years, has lost the centrality and visibility it once had.

Sebastián Bigorito, executive director of the Argentine Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEADS), explained that while the international context may seem adverse to an agenda that thrives in peacetime, sustainability is not disappearing but transforming. He observed a growing gap between the production of sustainability tools, standards, and regulations, and the actual capacity of organizations to absorb and manage these expectations. "The regulatory infrastructure grows at a very different speed from the capacity of organizations to absorb and manage these expectations and tools," Bigorito stated.

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The regulatory infrastructure grows at a very different speed from the capacity of organizations to absorb and manage these expectations and tools.

Bigorito traced the consolidation of the modern corporate sustainability agenda back to around 2010, citing milestones such as the Rio+20 summit in 2012, the launch of the ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility, and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This initial period, he noted, was characterized by harmonious growth where organizational capabilities kept pace with the development of these tools. Key drivers during this phase included the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato si'.

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In 2012, many foundational, or foundational, aspects were established for an agenda in which, until then, the company was a welcome actor, but not a protagonist.

The turning point, according to Bigorito, occurred between 2015 and 2016. This period marked a "decoupling" where the previously harmonious growth became a phase of "profusion and divergence." In this new landscape, the launch of a new sustainability tool began to take precedence over its actual adoption and implementation by companies. This shift suggests a move towards prioritizing the creation of new frameworks rather than ensuring their effective integration into business operations.

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From a certain point, between 2015 and 2016, the decoupling occurs. The growth that was harmonious and convergent passes into a stage of profusion and divergence.