Companies are increasingly being evaluated on how they contribute to sustainable development and fulfil their social responsibilities. At the same time, a strategic assessment of opportunities and risks is essential to securing long-term resilience and competitiveness.
Developing a successful sustainable corporate strategy requires a thorough understanding of complex requirements and frameworks — and the ability to translate them into the context of your specific business model, market positioning, and strategic ambitions. A clearly defined direction, articulated through a compelling vision and mission, provides orientation for everyone in the organisation. But how does that vision become lived reality?
The answer lies in focusing on material topics — for example through a Double Materiality Assessment — and designing concrete action areas with measurable targets, prioritised initiatives, and a realistic roadmap. This allows you to work towards implementation in a structured way: unlocking priority growth areas, evolving your portfolio, strengthening supplier relationships, and retaining talent over the long term.
Sustainability is often treated as a separate strategic pillar. Integrating it into the core corporate strategy, however, underscores its relevance and enables genuine embedding in processes, decisions, and corporate culture.
Strategic clarity pays off — especially in times of rapidly shifting regulatory and geopolitical conditions. Companies that define a clear sustainability direction early on gain competitive advantages, strengthen their resilience, and meet growing stakeholder expectations.
Effective corporate governance depends on clarity — particularly when external conditions are shifting rapidly.
We work with companies to define their strategic direction, enabling them to navigate complexity with confidence and position themselves for long-term success.
Every strong strategy starts with a clear picture of the current situation. Where do your strengths and challenges lie? What does your current and future operating environment look like?
We analyse your value chain and product portfolio, and map key external factors — including regulatory and technological trends in your core markets, as well as competitive dynamics. We identify your relevant stakeholders, capture their requirements, and assess material topics through a Double Materiality Assessment (in line with CSRD requirements, where applicable). The result: a robust understanding of risks, opportunities, and impacts on society and the environment — forming the foundation for your strategy.
A clear direction enables your organisation to make decisions autonomously and consistently. This requires a shared understanding of the desired future state — your vision — and how your company will contribute to achieving it — your mission. We support you in defining these strategic guardrails and determining the right level of ambition.
Whether you are developing an integrated sustainable corporate strategy or a standalone sustainability strategy: the process is similar, though the complexity varies. We define action areas, develop iterative measures, KPIs, and targets, and calculate business cases. How can target achievement be secured? Where do gaps remain? What additional innovative measures could be considered — and what revenues or costs are associated with them?
Involvement drives implementation. That is why we recommend a participatory strategy process in which key internal stakeholders co-create the strategic pillars. Our experts across disciplines — including climate change, biodiversity, circular economy, and product development — bring deep methodological knowledge and sector-specific experience to the process, ensuring an innovative and competitive strategy.
Many organisations face a strategy-execution gap: the disconnect between what is decided and what is actually delivered. We help you close this gap through three levers:
1. Drive initiatives forward: We support your teams in advancing identified measures, drawing on our extensive technical expertise in areas such as industrial decarbonisation and sustainable procurement.
2. Measure progress: We establish a monitoring system to ensure that measures and target achievement remain trackable and manageable.
3. Enable the organisation: We support you in adapting your operating model — defining clear accountabilities, providing the right tools, and building internal capability.
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast." That is why we approach strategy development as a change process. Decision-makers are actively involved, and an employee engagement plan is developed from the very beginning. We support you in crafting consistent and effective internal and external communications. For companies subject to CSRD reporting obligations, we ensure that documentation and disclosure requirements are addressed throughout the process.
Whether as a standalone ESG strategy or an integrated corporate sustainability strategy: we help you embed sustainability into the core of your business — with the structures, accountabilities, and processes to make it last. We prioritise practicality, engage the right people throughout the process, and build buy-in through proven, solution-oriented formats.
"Sustainability is a luxury." We challenge that assumption — by designing strategies and measures that are explicitly tied to your business value drivers, ensuring sustainability and commercial success go hand in hand.
We offer expertise across the full spectrum of sustainability topics — from climate and circular economy to biodiversity and social issues such as human rights in the supply chain — delivered by dedicated subject matter experts. Our extensive cross-sector experience means we bring the industry context your strategy needs.
Business Strategy in Agriculture, Food, and Textiles
We develop sustainable business strategies that integrate all key social and environmental issues with your core business. Taking all ESG dimensions into account enables a forward-looking approach and long-term success. With our sector-specific expertise, we lay the strategic foundation for resilient, sustainable business models.
