Sustainability as a priority for companies

Sustainability has become a growing management challenge for most business leaders around the world. This is highlighted in the “Fujitsu Future Insights Global Sustainability Transformation Report 2022” report published by Fujitsu.

In this sixth survey, the current state of sustainability transformation and how digital transformation contributes to the changes needed to improve the sustainability of society were investigated.

Sustainability Transformation

Main results:

• Sustainability as a management priority. 41% of respondents rank sustainability among the top three management priorities, showing that the importance of sustainability has increased considerably in business strategy and decision-making in the last two years. The main reasons for this trend are growing awareness of sustainability among younger generations (54%), government regulations and guidelines, and requests from consumer groups (49%).
• Only 5% of companies are leaders in SX. The survey revealed that 21% of companies have already seen results from their SX initiatives. However, only 5% of leaders have developed a vision for ES initiatives and a company-wide ES strategy, and have achieved significant results through comprehensive measures. In contrast, 54% of those surveyed responded that they could not develop or implement a corporate sustainability strategy.

Fujitsu Global Survey Demonstrates How Digital-First Approach Helps Accelerate Sustainability Transformation

• The “Digital-first” approach as the key to the SE. The survey showed that SX leaders have a high degree of maturity in four elements: purpose-driven, human-centric, data-driven, and connected, suggesting that these four elements may be key to achieving success. success in sustainability initiatives. Additionally, 67% of respondents agreed that DX would contribute to SX success, and the survey results also revealed a strong correlation between SX and DX maturity. This shows that a digital-first approach is a critical factor in promoting SX.
• SX: Challenges and ways to solve them. In the survey, 38% of respondents cited executive misalignment on sustainability vision and implementation, and 35% internal resistance and skepticism as key issues in implementing initiatives. The survey further demonstrated that improving both financial value, including sales and profits, and non-financial value, including environmental and social value creation, represents a significant challenge. CEOs can address this issue by providing goal-oriented leadership, developing plans that include financial and nonfinancial goals, and leveraging digital technology with technology partners.