#14: The Rise of the Total Corporate Responsibility (TCR) Leader: Shaping a Sustainable Future for Business and Beyond
In recent posts, we explored how leading asset owners and financial firms are embracing System Change Investing Leadership strategies. We discussed how the SCI team helps to guide them on this evolutionary path. Today we focus on the rise of Total Corporate Responsibility Leader.
Beyond Sustainability: Introducing the TCR Leader
Forget incremental change. Next-generation leaders are embracing a game-changing approach: Total Corporate Responsibility (TCR).
While current corporate sustainability efforts focus on approximately 20% of impacts within immediate reach, TCR leaders unlock the potential for full-spectrum impact mitigation.
They recognize that for centuries, our industrial system has been dominated by growth-based economics without awareness of its dependence on the biosphere and the waste it leaves behind. These outdated systems are the root cause blocking the possibility of full corporate impact mitigation and need urgent attention.
🌟 Here's what defines TCR leaders:
Ecosystem Champions: They know that a healthy planet is essential for a healthy business and future profits.
System Change Advocates: They recognize the systemic flaws hindering full impact mitigation and advocate for broader economic and political reforms to enable TCR and incentivize sustainable practices across industries.
Strategic Integrators: They integrate TCR into their overall business strategy, taking responsibility for all impacts and combining existing sustainability efforts with systemic change initiatives. They push beyond current limitations.
🎯 Goals of TCR Leaders
Balancing for the Future: TCR leaders aim to establish systemic conditions where sustainability and profitability can coexist. This enables the most effective risk management and continued business success while making a significant contribution to a long-term sustainable future.
Future-Proofing the Business Model: Focused on the "new sustainable normal," their strategy is opportunity-driven. It involves innovation, exnovation (eliminating outdated or harmful practices), and getting ahead of the curve. They leverage their advanced positioning to advocate for regulations that encourage industry-wide adoption of sustainable practices. Building competitive advantage while doing good for a sustainable future!
🛠️ The TCR Leadership Toolkit: 5 Strategies for Real Impact
Achieving TCR requires a leadership upgrade. Here are the most critical elements:
Cultivating a Holistic View: TCR Leaders move beyond traditional metrics, considering the broader societal and environmental context. They recognize business operates within a complex web of interconnected systems: a healthy planet and a stable society are essential for long-term business success. They anticipate future trends and disruptions, developing life-affirming business strategies for a sustainable future.
Skill & Capacity Upgrade: Unlearning and relearning! TCR Leaders recognize that achieving true sustainability requires new skills and an adaptable workforce. Closing the skill gap is on top of their agenda. In addition to technical expertise, such as new accounting and circular economy methods, they promote effective communication, collaboration and stakeholder engagement, as critical skills to driving industry-wide change.
Transparency Builds Trust: TCR Leaders walk their talk. They embed their commitment to sustainability and systemic change throughout the organization, from strategy to reporting. This transparency builds trust and inspires stakeholders.
Beyond Compliance: TCR Leaders see compliance as an opportunity to evolve their business model, push their sustainability agenda and advocate for broader economic and political reforms that incentivize sustainable practices across the industry.
Continuous Improvement: They measure progress, hold themselves accountable, and adapt their strategies and incentive structures based on learnings and changing circumstances.
🌍 The Spectrum of TCR Leadership
Embedding TCR is an evolutionary process. Companies have different starting points and differ in maturity. Here's an initial breakdown of the leadership spectrum:
Basic level: Management establishes goals and strategies, focusing on mitigating the most significant environmental and social impacts. They start to address systemic factors and rigorously track performance.
Advanced Level: Advanced management teams take more comprehensive approaches, expanding their vision and consciousness, viewing the company as part of a larger whole. They develop life-affirming business models and strong transition plans. In addition they advocate for systemic change through various initiatives - focus areas include: economic and political reform that incentivizes responsible business behavior and a level-playing field, beneficial, non-harmful use of technologies, promotion of honest media, critical, logical & holistic thinking, ensuring equal access to and influence over government (i.e. democracy), and lobbying and campaign finance reform.
🚀 The TCR Leader: A Beacon for the Future
TCR leaders are the pioneers of a new era of corporate responsibility. They understand that the situation we are in collectively calls for an urgent redefinition of the role of business. They understand that addressing the root causes of unsustainability is not only good for the planet, but essential for long-term business success. Companies embracing TCR principles will emerge as the 21st century's sustainability leaders, shaping a business world where profitability and sustainability coexist. These companies will likely outperform their peers financially in the short and long-term.
While many business leaders remain complacent, now is the time to seize the opportunity.
Ready to turn vision into action? We help companies design and implement their customized system change strategies. Applying a whole-system perspective we identify key areas for systemic changes and critical leverage points. We equip you with the knowledge and tools to effectively address them. To learn more about our corporate offer visit our website or contact us directly.
If you're looking for support in your journey of unlearning and relearning, business model transformation, and organizational alignment, check out the Paradigm Changer Program. This program equips you with the tools and strategies to navigate business transformation and lead the sustainability charge. It’s been designed by Claudine Perlet, the Co-Founder of System Change Investing.