South African businesses have reached a plateau regarding integrating sustainability into their business beyond which they cannot progress without radical changes being made to market structures and systems.
Businesses need to look beyond financial metrics to their wider outcomes to understand their total footprint on society in terms of economic, environmental, tax and social effects and use what they find to guide their strategic decision making.
Jayne Mammatt, a partner within PwC’s Sustainability and Integrated Reporting department, says: “While it is clear that progress is being made … regarding the integration of sustainability in a business, organisations still have much work to do to reach the point where integrated management can be considered business as usual. Initiatives still tend to be case study driven and spoken about in qualitative terms.”
PwC’s second annual publication, Hitting a plateau, aims to assess how well sustainability is being embedded in the strategy, risk management and daily operations of the top 100 companies listed on the JSE.
The key objectives of the survey are:
- To raise awareness of emerging trends and issues in approaches to integrated management in South Africa
- To understand the strategic thinking and challenges faced by the key drivers and actors responsible for embedding integrated management in business
- To provide insight into how the mainstreaming of material issues might evolve over the next few years
- To highlight best practice regarding the integrated management of material risks and opportunities affecting long-term viability.