ABSTRACT
Measurable progress has been made by thousands of individual companies to embed more responsible and sustainable practices into their core business operations and value chains. An estimated 4,000 companies now produce annual sustainability or corporate responsibility reports, providing public disclosure of their non-financial performance. Despite such progress, there is growing evidence that voluntary leadership by the private sector has been too superficial, too shallow, too narrow, too small-scale and too "siloed" to have the impact that is needed to drive more responsible, sustainable and inclusive growth. In addition to the corporate responsibility performance gap that exists at the level of individual companies, there is also a failure to achieve scale and systemic impact across value chains, industries, and markets more broadly in the transition to sustainability. Business-led corporate responsibility coalitions are themselves facing growing competition from well-resourced strategy consulting firms, boutique sustainability consultancies, business schools and think-tanks.
