Forum for the Future published The Business Transformation Compass 2.0: A practical guide to business transformation and value creation in turbulent times (March 2025), developed in partnership with Bentley Environmental Foundation. This guide presents the second iteration of the Business Transformation Compass, which was first published in 2021. It aims to help companies navigate an increasingly complex business landscape and implement meaningful action toward a prosperous, fairer and thriving future by applying just and regenerative approaches. It is also accompanied by a toolkit to help businesses apply this approach to their own unique contexts. Designed particularly for business professionals in large, international and global businesses, the guide can also be applied to any organisation regardless of size, sector and industry.
Human Level’s Take:
- The world is facing a storm of crises - climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, geopolitical instability, and rising inequality
- These issues don’t exist in isolation; they interact and intensify one another, creating a polycrises that makes business-as-usual unsustainable
- While some companies have taken steps to address these issues, conventional sustainability strategies are not leading to the scale of action needed to tackle the polycrises. Why? Many are trapped in short-term profit pressures, struggling to invest in transformative innovation. Others address issues in silos, missing opportunities for interconnected solutions. Generic, one-size-fits-all approaches also fail to consider local contexts
- So, what can companies do? The guide suggests three fundamental shifts for business and a just and regenerative approach that companies can adopt in their business functions and apply to key issues
- The three fundamental shifts are 1) becoming much more adaptable to respond to rapid changes in the external operating environment; 2) addressing issues together and not in siloes; 3) nurturing the resilience and the health of the operating environment that businesses depend upon
- A just and regenerative approach provides a way for companies to navigate these fundamental shifts in a way that embraces fairness, stabilises and regenerates both nature and human living systems, and recognises that everything is dependent on the health of the planet. The guide provides four levels of action that companies can take, with the fourth level encompassing the just and regenerative approach: 1) acting to eliminate the worst harm; 2) acting to eliminate all harm; 3) acting to repair and replenish; and 4) acting to build capacity for justice and regeneration. Action at all levels is needed and prioritising one over the others can undermine a company’s progress
- For example, applying a just and regenerative mindset and approach to human rights means a company: 1) redesigning their business model so that it is inherently equitable and where respect for human rights influences business operations and the design of products and services; 2) actively engaging with rights-holders across the value chain; 3) collaborating with civil society to identify and tackle the root causes of human rights issues; and 4) challenging institutional barriers that prevents the company from respecting human rights. It also means the company’s leadership creating conditions that make respecting human rights a ‘non-negotiable.’
Some key takeaways:
- Traditional corporate sustainability strategies are not enough: In the context of the polycrises - where multiple stressors like climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, geopolitical uncertainty and rising inequality interact and compound each other - all businesses are facing unprecedented volatility. Given the scale, urgency and interconnectedness of these challenges, ‘business as usual’ is becoming less and less viable. While some companies have taken steps to address these issues, conventional sustainability strategies are not leading to the level of action needed. Examples of reasons why companies have not made enough progress are: 1) pressure for short-term returns at the expense of the medium and longer-term. This makes it more difficult to invest in the innovation needed to transform operations, goods and services; 2) the lack of consistent, ambitious and enabling policies when governments change, creating an unstable operating environment and uncertainty; 3) generic approaches are often rolled out which don’t reflect the local context, making these approaches ineffective; 4) addressing issues in false siloes rather than through an interconnected approach - forgoing the many opportunities and solutions that lie in the interconnections between issues; and 5) efforts to mainstream sustainable, affordable and accessible goods and services have been inconsistent because companies are under pressure to deliver short-term investment returns.
- This new era for business requires a radically different approach: While the challenges are complex, companies can lean in and embrace these challenges in ways that create new streams of value creation. This requires companies to make three fundamental shifts. These shifts are: 1) radical adaptation. Companies have to be much more adaptive to respond to rapid changes in the external operating environment. This may mean moving away from long-term forecasts driving fixed strategy roadmaps; being more closely attuned to local, national and global contexts; and running safe-to-fail experiments to learn how to adapt to sudden shifts; 2) interconnections - not siloes. Multiple external challenges and opportunities exist and compound each other. Siloed approaches to tackling these issues are likely to fail and could miss out on opportunities to drive action in other areas. An effective approach is to address these interconnected issues together. This means companies having a clearer view of how issues interrelate and taking action to solve multiple, linked topics simultaneously; 3) nurture innovation. In the context of greater volatility and fragility across value chains, companies will need to find innovative ways to nurture the resilience and health of the operating contexts they depend upon. This means finding creative ways to unlock the untapped potential and build the ability of people to thrive. At the same time, companies should repair any past harms done to people and planet.
- A just and regenerative approach as a solution: A just and regenerative approach is an approach that companies can adopt in order to make these fundamental shifts. At its core, a just and regenerative approach recognises that all businesses are dependent on people and nature - they do not exist and work in isolation. It also recognises that opportunities to create positive impact for people and nature, in ways that create value for business, exist. The approach consists of three elements: 1) embracing fairness, equal access to health and well-being, and respecting every individual’s right to thrive; 2) rapidly stabilising and regenerating both nature and human living systems; and 3) recognising that everyone and everything is dependent on the health and wellbeing of our planet. For businesses, a just and regenerative approach is not limited to companies’ sustainability strategies but encompasses core business strategies and operations. To put this into practice, the guide provides four levels of action that companies can take, with the fourth level encompassing the just and regenerative approach: 1) acting to eliminate the worst harm; 2) acting to eliminate all harm; 3) acting to repair and replenish; and 4) acting to build capacity for justice and regeneration. Action at all levels is needed and prioritising one over the others can undermine a company’s progress. In addition, the guide applies these actions to the various business functions (procurement; operations; marketing; human resources; corporate affairs; leadership and management; strategy; and finance) and key issues affecting companies (climate; nature and biodiversity; circularity and waste; natural resource and land management; decent work; voice, governance and participation; and respect for human rights). For example, applying a just and regenerative mindset and approach to human rights means a company: 1) redesigning their business model so that it is inherently equitable and where respect for human rights influences business operations and the design of products and services; 2) actively engaging with rights-holders across the value chain; 3) collaborating with civil society to identify and tackle the root causes of human rights issues; and 4) challenging institutional barriers that prevents the company from respecting human rights. It also means the company’s leadership creating conditions that make respecting human rights a ‘non-negotiable’.
