CECP has released their executive report for their 6th annual Boards of Boards CEO Conference that shared a new concept of Sustainable Value Creation strategy.

Sustainable Value Creation: a core business strategy focused on addressing fundamental societal issues by identifying new, scalable sources of competitive advantage that generate measurable long-tern profit and community benefit.

How does this solution differ from business-as-usual? Because Sustainable Value Creation requires new models for capturing societal impact, lengthier investment horizons and understanding local stakeholder context.

Some interesting figures include:

• 22% feel that the trend in the last five years of globalization has driven most companies to focus on societal problems
• 25% found identifying an initial set of societal issues that link to competitive advantage was the most difficult in implementing a Sustainable Value Creation strategy
• 32% thought linking employee incentives and rewards to the goals of the strategy was the most effective way to scale the strategy across the company

I couldn't help but be interested in the third figure about employee incentives as we continue to grow our CSRconnect employee engagement platform to address the challenges they are facing in implementing this strategy.

In May 2011, Accenture and CECP will release a publication that will guide companies how to implement a Sustainable Value Creation strategy. Look forward to it, as we all continue explore ongoing best practices in the CSR realm.

- Amy Chait