Sustainable business

By: Amanda Phagan, Edited by: Valerie Black

Published: May 7, 2025

Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing focus on sustainable business: building, manufacturing, and marketing in ways that minimize harm to the environment. Today, most corporations are expected to prioritize eco-friendly practices in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change and heightened consumer awareness. Sustainable business has also become popular among investors — in the form of "green investing" — as business ethics become more important to consumers.

Learn more about sustainable business guidelines, career opportunities, and course options in our guide.

Sustainable business development guidelines

Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a facet of sustainable business that emphasizes a company's philanthropic, environmental, and ethical initiatives. CSR leaders often aim to pair their company's brand and/or purpose with programs that benefit society. Many large and enterprise-level corporations are expected to have a successful and visible CSR program.

Environmental, social, and governance

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is a sustainable finance metric that gauges an organization's environmental and social impact. Investors, consumers, and employees commonly use ESG to evaluate a company's CSR efforts. ESG is broken down into three pillars:

• Environmental: A company's impact on carbon emissions, climate change, biodiversity, pollution, and other environmental concerns.
• Social: A company's impact on people and communities inside and outside the organization. This may include human rights, diversity, mental health, and supply chain ethics initiatives.
• Governance: A company's impact on ethical governing practices like appropriate employee compensation, shareholder rights, and board management decisions.

Sustainable business jobs

As global warming and human-perpetuated climate change become increasingly urgent, sustainability jobs may become more critical. If you're interested in CSR, ESG, or the science behind sustainable business, consider the following career paths:

The benefits of sustainable business development

Embracing sustainable business practices has the potential to benefit the entire world as a result of globalization — but it can also help organizations directly. Since corporations significantly impact economies and consumer behaviors, the onus to act often falls to the private sector. Some benefits of incorporating sustainability into your company's ethos include:

• Generating revenue through market differentiation
• Improving employee retention and recruitment opportunities
• Appealing to social impact-driven investors and consumers
• Getting ahead of regulatory and compliance requirements as ESG and sustainable development become increasingly urgent

Sustainable business development challenges

Unfortunately, achieving all 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 presents several challenges. The SDGs are often less important to companies than maintaining the status quo. Other barriers to SDG adoption and adherence include:

• A lack of enduring, high-quality data on performance
• Little to no enforcement by governing and regulatory bodies
• Competing interests and a lack of universal buy-in

There are, however, solutions to these challenges. Take French company Schneider Electric — ranked the most sustainable company of 2024 by TIME and Statista — as an example: It has set ambitious emissions targets, encouraged customers to reduce their own emissions, and implemented its own sustainability impact program that tracks the company's performance against the SDGs.

Find sustainability programs that support your goals

Sustainable business can benefit everyone, from C-suite executives to consumers. Whether you want to start your own values-driven venture or make a positive impact from within a corporation, there's a sustainability course or program that can help you get there. Explore available courses and programs now.