How to Embed Purpose at Every Level

Leaders must find ways to execute on sustainability aspirations throughout the organization, including prioritizing investments and optimizing operating plans.

- By Stuart L. Hart

Thoughtful BUSINESS LEADERS today recognize that the social and environmental challenges the world now faces require nothing short of a fundamental reorientation of the company. Business purpose must flip from maximizing short-term profit to using profit as a means to solving the existential world challenges that we now all face.

Over the past decade, the ideas of sustainability and societal purpose have become increasingly prominent in the public rhetoric of companies. But while purpose statements and sustainability goals abound, serious investments in portfolio and business strategy transformation are still few and far between, and few are integrated into long-term corporate strategy, investment priorities, and operating plans.

How can companies meaningfully embed corporate purpose as the authentic guiding principle of the firm? In this article, drawn from my book, Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future, I develop a practical framework and approach for truly embedding societal purpose, drawing upon the experience of several innovative companies. By embedding a higher societal purpose as the core of business pursuit and committing to advocate for larger system change and institutional redesign, business leaders can help catalyze a truly sustainable form of capitalism designed to confront the existential challenges we face in the 21st century.

The House of Transformational Sustainability

Most corporate efforts to embed societal purpose involve a relatively small number of senior people — C-suite, functional, and business leaders. The potential of fully engaging and aligning the entire organization, including middle management and front-line employees, thus remains unfulfilled. Without focus on