Published 04-13-15
Submitted by World Environment Center
The Corporate Eco Forum (CEF) and World Environment Center (WEC) today published new insights from leading Chief Financial Officers on the importance of evaluating and integrating sustainability factors to create business value and strengthen the foundations for long-term growth. The report, “Sustainability and the CFO: Challenges, Opportunities, and Next Practices,” is based on in-depth interviews with leading CFOs and case studies of evolving financial management practices in major global companies that include Alcoa, Ecolab, Puma, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, UPS and The Walt Disney Company.
Jean-Marc Huët, Chief Financial Officer at Unilever, shared in the report that, “We’re very much focused on making sure our finance people can understand and identify the impacts of societal and environmental factors on strategic growth, access to capital markets, on working with governments and regulators, and in making sure we're competitive against our peers.”
Major findings in the report include:
“CFOs face a myriad of new challenges along with heightened expectations for strengthening the short-term and future performance of their companies,” commented Dr. Terry F. Yosie, WEC’s President & CEO and one of the report’s co-authors. “Sustainability is evolving as a key bridging strategy to enable CFOs to better manage the present consistent with the future needs of their companies and shareholders in the interests of broader societal goals.”
“CFOs with insight into sustainability megatrends will help their organizations chart a smarter course to compete effectively in a world where sustainability-related challenges become more dominant,” added co-author and Chair of the Corporate Eco Forum, P.J. Simmons. “As the business case for integrating sustainability into a company’s core value proposition gets stronger, we expect more CFOs to follow the lead of the farsighted executives we encountered in our research.”
Further information about the CFO report can be found here:
Report: http://www.corporateecoforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CFO_and_Sustainability_Apr-2015.pdf
GreenBiz Article: http://www.greenbiz.com/article/5-factors-building-sustainability-value-proposition-cfos
ABOUT THE CORPORATE ECO FORUM
The Corporate Eco Forum (CEF) is an elite, invitation-only membership organization comprised mainly of Fortune and Global 500 companies from 18 industries with combined revenues of over $3 trillion. CEF provides a year-round safe, neutral space for influential executives to exchange best practice, collaborate, and innovate. Participants are almost exclusively VP and C-level executives across multiple business functions: CEOs, CSOs, CTOs, CIOs, CFOs, CMO, VPs for Supply Chain and more. The diversity of executives, coupled with the cross-industry nature of CEF, is intended to create a world-class platform to accelerate sustainable business problem solving and innovation. www.corporateecoforum.com
ABOUT THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT CENTER
The World Environment Center (WEC) is an independent, global non-profit, non-advocacy organization that advances sustainable development through the business strategies and practices of its member companies and in partnership with governments, multi-lateral institutions, non-governmental organizations, universities and other stakeholders. WEC’s mission is to promote business and societal value by advancing solutions to sustainable development-related challenges. www.wec.org
The World Environment Center advances sustainable development through corporate business practices. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Europe and Latin America, WEC creates business solutions through Executive Roundtables on key sustainability challenges, builds capacity of small enterprises in emerging markets, and honors industry excellence through its annual Gold Medal Award. WEC is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization. For more information, please visit www.wec.org.
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