MIT Sloan Management Review Article on What's Lost When We Talk ‘ESG' and Not ‘Sustainability'

Over the 20 years I’ve worked at the intersection of business and society, I’ve seen many terms applied to this part of the business agenda: compliance, eco-efficiency, corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investing, green, clean, sustainability, regenerative, net zero, net positive, and many more.

Some variation in how we talk about all of this is helpful, but we also need some common language that’s both relatively easy to comprehend and interesting. In tech, for example, “blockchain” sounds much cooler than “a shared, immutable ledger for recording transactions.” In the realm of the overlap of business and society, sustainability has had the most staying power, often for lack of something more exciting.

About the Author

Andrew Winston (@andrewwinston) is a globally recognized expert on how to build resilient, profitable companies that help people and planet thrive. He is coauthor of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).

Learn more about MIT SMR.