Sustainability efforts are estimated to require $2T-$3T of annual investment over the next 30 years to deliver to net-zero ambitions. The scale, criticality and disruptive nature of sustainability is hard to overstate: it rivals how technology revolutionized our economies and day-to-day lives and how growth in China remade global supply chains.
Sustainability is an extraordinarily attractive market for those able to meet customer needs and align to buying process preferences.
But sustainability is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill market.
For most of your customers, sustainability is neither core to their revenue nor a core competency. It is unfamiliar, costly, complex, and risky. Not surprisingly, it has caught the attention of executives and Boards as they work through their role in reducing global carbon emissions and what that role means to the performance and destiny of their companies. For example, 81% of Boards are engaged in ESG/sustainability as a strategic priority. But sustainability is not easy. It is running straight into the culture wars, depends on cleantech and climate tech that is mostly in the early stage, and is already forcing challenging resource allocation decisions as decision makers seek to find the balance between financial and sustainability performance.
To win in this market, you will need to empathize and align with decision-makers facing tough, consequential choices. So, what is the difference and what changes are needed?
- Senior buyers across the enterprise are active in the buying process: Due to the clear risk, scope, and visibility of sustainability, your buyers are likely to be in senior positions across the entire enterprise from the CEO to the CHRO and leadership roles in between, each with a different stake in and worries about sustainability.
- Conflicted perspectives: There is likely a mixed view of and enthusiasm for sustainability, and you will need to engage both advocates and those skeptical that sustainability should be a priority.
- Conflicted funding: Although CFOs see sustainability as a strategic priority, they are also cautious about funding strategically and impacting margin performance in the short-term and will demand ROI clarity.
- Consultative engagement: Most of the market, including the direct and indirect buyers you will engage, is on a learning curve such that buyers expect consultative engagement with your sales and customer management teams.
- Sustainability fluency: Buyers, which are themselves on a learning curve in what is a rapidly evolving space, expect your team to have a nuanced understanding of sustainability and the risks and opportunities specific to them.
Sustainability is a high-value, high-growth market. But competing and winning in this market will be no easy task. Those that can adjust their go-to-market and customer management models will prosper; those who don’t will unlikely realize the extraordinary opportunity that sustainability presents.
We would love to get your thoughts on this and see how we can help you accelerate growth.
