Shaping the Future: How Companies Develop a Successful Sustainability Strategy

January 13, 2025

From Planning to Implementation

ESG, CSR, Scope 3, CSRD – keeping abreast of the abundance of sustainability concepts and regulations can turn into a real chore. Many companies find that meeting increasingly strict sustainability rules keeps them pretty busy these days. Instead of designing a well thought out sustainability strategy for this vital issue, they often simply do as told. But what can managers and their teams actually do in order to move from their resource-intense daily business to a successful sustainability strategy? Christof Miska, WU expert and academic director of the Master's program in Leadership & General Management at the WU Executive Academy, has first-hand knowledge of the keys to success and knows exactly how to implement a successful sustainability strategy in practice.

Taking the initiative instead of acting reactionary - this is how sustainability becomes a corporate success. Image: shutterstock, Deemerwha

“Sustainability is not just about carbon emissions; it is about a myriad of issues that impact today’s society, ranging from biodiversity to food security. That makes it so difficult for companies not to lose sight of the big picture,” says Christof Miska, leadership and sustainability expert at WU Vienna and Lecturer of the Executive MBA at WU Executive Academy’s.

These days, companies need to pursue both an economic, social and ecological approach. Often, there’s just no time for long-term strategic planning. Instead of driving change, all they can do (at great expense and effort) is to react to new guidelines and regulations. But this will have negative consequences on the long run. Companies that do not embrace the transformation risk being left behind and jeopardizing their competitiveness.

The Entire Supply Chain under Scrutiny

Companies are currently juggling an ever-growing pile of new regulations, trying desperately not to let anything drop. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSDDD), for instance, imposes the obligation to draft detailed reports about a company’s sustainability practices and impacts. And the reins will be kept even tighter in the future. The envisioned Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) will require companies to keep an eye on human rights and environmental standards along the entire supply chain, which also affects indirect suppliers.

“Many companies simply cannot keep up with all of this, although it is primarily a matter of risk assessment”, Christof Miska says. And it’s not just the big players that need to comply with reporting requirements. More and more SMEs (an essential category of enterprises in Austria) are indirectly affected as well.

Christof Miska

Sustainability expert

Managers across all industries are currently busy delivering the necessary data. This is tying up enormous amounts of resources across enterprises, which directly impacts their operative business.

Developing a Sustainability Strategy: It’s All about Preparation

The question now is: How can companies manage the next step, i.e., come up with a sustainability strategy that helps them cross over into the future? “First of all, we need to ask ourselves what these changes will mean for our business model and where we want to go,” Christof Miska points out.

This might require not only internal discussions but, possibly, also radical changes. “It might become necessary to discontinue certain products when the new climate requirements make the cost of producing them higher than the expected revenues in the long run.” These cuts might be painful now, but within just a few years, they could provide a competitive advantage for a company.

“Strategizing means anticipating an ongoing paradigm shift and making yourself ready for it.”

How Companies Should Plan Their Sustainability Strategy Now

What is it that managers can do exactly? Sustainability expert Christof Miska has summarized 8 tips that companies can use to make the leap to a successful sustainability strategy!

1. Preparing for Additional Regulatory Measures

Sustainability measures are gaining in importance also against the backdrop of credit ratings. As the financial sector is compelled to meet strict criteria, companies with a focus on sustainability will increasingly be rated more favorably. This is already happening now and will become much more standard in the future.

2. Analyzing Supply Chains

Rigorous supply chain requirements – reaching as far as to an indirect supplier in an Asian country – make careful scrutiny indispensable. That’s why companies should hurry to gain insight into these chains and make sure they always have access to the necessary data.

From producers to customers - supply chains are increasingly coming under regulatory scrutiny. Image: shutterstock, Vitalii Vodolazskyi

3. Favoring Net Zero over Emissions Trading

In the future, regulators will subject greenhouse gas emissions to even stricter scrutiny: for companies, it won’t be enough to just buy emissions certificates because the declared goal is net zero, i.e., a drastic reduction of emissions. “Anything that cannot be reduced must be prevented through new technologies, which do not yet exist. Companies should not lose sight of that with their sustainability strategy,” Christof Miska underlines.

4. Driving Digitalization

An effective sustainability strategy is based on sound data - but this data must first be systematically collected and compared. A badly organized pile of Excel files makes it difficult or even impossible to generate an aggregated compilation of the necessary data. It all comes down to a single question: How and through the help of which systems can we merge different data points within our company? This aspect will also become increasingly important along the entire value chain.

Advancing digitalization is an essential part of a successful sustainability strategy. Image: shutterstock

5. Calculating a Lack of Security

The rules are changing constantly, as the new Supply Chain Act shows on the EU level. “Companies need to learn to live with this lack of security today and also in the future,” Christof Miska says. However, companies are not quite as pressed for time as it may seem because it also takes a while to transpose EU legislation into national law. However, companies should definitely use this transitional period to adapt their sustainability strategy at an early stage and make it fit for the future.

6. Adjusting to Survive

At WU Vienna’s Department for Responsibility and Sustainability in Global Business, Christof Miska also studies chaos and complexity theories: “Systems are undergoing constant change whether we want them to or not.” That means we can only control things up to a certain point. “If we fail to adjust and go with the flow, we will perish. Better to accept change as the default setting and try to focus on the opportunities instead of the risks. Achieving this mindset change is usually half the battle and the cornerstone of a future-oriented sustainability strategy.”

7. Seeking Support

There may already be valuable experience within the industry from which managers can benefit when designing and developing their sustainability strategy. In addition, external service providers with specialized expertise - for example in ESG - can provide valuable support.

Now Is the Right Time for a Sustainability Strategy

Christof Miska calls on all companies, irrespective of their industry or size, to no longer hesitate to come up with a viable sustainability strategy to prepare their company for the economy’s sustainability shift – not just in Europe but worldwide. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it is high time to initiate strategic planning.” Those who try to resist the transformation will pay the price in the long run.

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