Sustainability : Ikea, Patagonia and Unilever put to the test

Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty has become ubi­qui­tous in cor­po­rate dis­course. It is defi­ned by the UN’s 1987 Brundt­land Com­mis­sion as “mee­ting present needs without com­pro­mi­sing future gene­ra­tions’ abi­li­ty to meet theirs”. Yet trans­la­ting this prin­ciple into authen­tic busi­ness prac­tice remains elu­sive. Most com­pa­nies grapple with com­pe­ting pres­sures : sha­re­hol­der expec­ta­tions for pro­fit maxi­mi­sa­tion, entren­ched ope­ra­tio­nal sys­tems, and the struc­tu­ral constraints of sca­ling sus­tai­nable prac­tices across com­plex glo­bal operations.

Tra­di­tio­nal mea­su­re­ment tools like ESG ratings and the triple bot­tom line fra­me­work cap­ture impor­tant aspects of cor­po­rate envi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance, but they fall short of revea­ling whe­ther sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty is genui­ne­ly embed­ded in stra­te­gic deci­sion-making or mere­ly laye­red on as an after­thought. These metrics often serve exter­nal stakeholders—such as, inves­tors and regulators—rather than pro­vi­ding actio­nable insights for inter­nal transformation.

To address this gap, we deve­lo­ped the Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty Mir­ror Fra­me­work, a diag­nos­tic tool that cate­go­rises cor­po­rate sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty actions into three dis­tinct types based on their under­lying moti­va­tions and beneficiaries :

• Stee­red Actions : Ini­tia­tives that pri­ma­ri­ly bene­fit socie­ty or the envi­ron­ment with mini­mal direct busi­ness returns. These represent genuine altruism but may be vul­ne­rable to cost-cut­ting during eco­no­mic pressures.
• Embo­died Actions : Stra­te­gies that simul­ta­neous­ly advance envi­ron­men­tal or social goals while streng­the­ning busi­ness per­for­mance. These create self-rein­for­cing cycles, where doing good becomes inte­gral to com­pe­ti­tive advantage.
• Ancho­red Actions : Acti­vi­ties pur­sued pre­do­mi­nant­ly for busi­ness bene­fit, even when fra­med in sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty lan­guage. While not inhe­rent­ly pro­ble­ma­tic, high concen­tra­tions of ancho­red actions may signal greenwashing.

The fra­me­work eva­luates com­pa­nies across four cri­ti­cal dimen­sions : sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty prac­tices, eco­sys­tem rela­tion­ships (with sup­pliers, com­mu­ni­ties, and part­ners), envi­ron­men­tal impact, and inno­va­tion approaches. We applied this fra­me­work to ana­lyse Pata­go­nia, IKEA, and Unilever—the top three com­pa­nies in the 2023 GlobeScan–Sustainability Lea­ders Sur­vey. All three have demons­tra­ted public com­mit­ment to ambi­tious envi­ron­men­tal goals, inclu­ding signing a 2021 pledge to decar­bo­nise ocean ship­ping by 2040. Our ana­ly­sis exa­mi­ned over 250 pages of offi­cial com­pa­ny com­mu­ni­ca­tions to assess their stra­te­gic and ope­ra­tio­nal messaging.

Pata­go­nia emer­ged as the clear lea­der in sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty embo­di­ment, with 64% of asses­sed actions deli­ve­ring mutual bene­fits to both socie­ty and busi­ness, while only 12% were clas­si­fied as ancho­red. This remar­kable ali­gn­ment mani­fes­ted across all dimensions :

• Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty (42% embo­died): From rege­ne­ra­tive orga­nic cot­ton sour­cing to aggres­sive cli­mate advo­ca­cy, Pata­go­nia has made envi­ron­men­tal ste­ward­ship inse­pa­rable from brand identity.
• Eco­sys­tem rela­tion­ships (77% embo­died): The com­pa­ny’s fair-trade part­ner­ships and sup­ply chain inno­va­tions create sha­red value with sup­pliers and communities.
• Inno­va­tion (60% embo­died): Pro­duct deve­lop­ment consis­tent­ly focuses on dura­bi­li­ty, repai­ra­bi­li­ty, and rege­ne­ra­tive materials—features that reduce envi­ron­men­tal impact while com­man­ding pre­mium pricing.

Pata­go­nia’s suc­cess stems from seve­ral struc­tu­ral advan­tages : its rela­ti­ve­ly focu­sed pro­duct port­fo­lio, mis­sion-dri­ven gover­nance struc­ture, and culti­va­ted consu­mer base that values envi­ron­men­tal res­pon­si­bi­li­ty enough to pay pre­mium prices. These condi­tions enable the com­pa­ny to avoid the tra­di­tio­nal trade-offs bet­ween pro­fit and purpose.

Uni­le­ver achie­ved 48% ove­rall embo­di­ment, which is a res­pec­table per­for­mance given the com­plexi­ty of ope­ra­ting across diverse mar­kets and pro­duct cate­go­ries. The com­pa­ny demons­tra­ted balan­ced pro­gress across dimensions :

• Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty (34% embo­died): Ini­tia­tives like hal­ving plas­tic packa­ging while main­tai­ning growth tar­gets exem­pli­fy the chal­len­ging balance bet­ween envi­ron­men­tal goals and busi­ness imperatives.
• Eco­sys­tem rela­tion­ships (72% embo­died): Exten­sive public-pri­vate part­ner­ships and com­mu­ni­ty deve­lop­ment pro­grams create genuine sha­red value.
• Inno­va­tion (50% embo­died): New pro­duct deve­lop­ment increa­sin­gly ali­gns consu­mer pre­fe­rences with envi­ron­men­tal bene­fits, though 38% of inno­va­tions remai­ned ancho­red, reflec­ting ongoing ten­sion with sha­re­hol­der expectations.

Uni­le­ver’s expe­rience illus­trates the inherent chal­lenges facing large mul­ti­na­tio­nals : diverse regu­la­to­ry envi­ron­ments, com­plex sup­ply chains, and hete­ro­ge­neous consu­mer pre­fe­rences make achie­ving uni­form embo­di­ment signi­fi­cant­ly more dif­fi­cult than for spe­cia­li­sed com­pa­nies like Patagonia.

IKEA sco­red 44% ove­rall embo­di­ment, with notable varia­tions across dimen­sions that reveal the ten­sions within its busi­ness model :

• Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty (36% embo­died): Cir­cu­lar desi­gn prin­ciples and rene­wable ener­gy invest­ments demons­trate pro­gress, but the com­pa­ny’s high-volume, low-cost model creates struc­tu­ral constraints.
• Eco­sys­tem rela­tion­ships (60% embo­died): Strong col­la­bo­ra­tive sup­ply chain pro­jects, though 27% of rela­tion­ships pri­ma­ri­ly ser­ved IKEA’s ope­ra­tio­nal effi­cien­cy rather than mutual benefit.
• Inno­va­tion (34% embo­died): The lowest score among the three com­pa­nies, reflec­ting how mass-mar­ket posi­tio­ning can limit oppor­tu­ni­ties for trans­for­ma­tive pro­duct redesign.

IKEA’s results high­light a cri­ti­cal chal­lenge : even well-inten­tio­ned sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty ini­tia­tives can become “ancho­red” when constrai­ned by esta­bli­shed busi­ness models that prio­ri­tise affor­da­bi­li­ty and scale over envi­ron­men­tal optimization.

The Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty Mir­ror Fra­me­work reveals that cor­po­rate sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty exists on a spec­trum rather than as a bina­ry choice. Even lea­ding com­pa­nies demons­trate mixed pro­files, with varying degrees of genuine inte­gra­tion ver­sus stra­te­gic positioning.

For cor­po­ra­tions, the fra­me­work pro­vides a diag­nos­tic tool for iden­ti­fying oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand embo­died actions, those rare stra­te­gies where envi­ron­men­tal and social bene­fits rein­force busi­ness suc­cess. This requires moving beyond inno­va­tion labs and car­bon off­sets toward fun­da­men­tal busi­ness model rede­si­gn that makes pla­ne­ta­ry health inse­pa­rable from pro­fit generation.

For poli­cy­ma­kers, these insights can inform more sophis­ti­ca­ted regu­la­to­ry approaches that incen­ti­vize embo­died actions while reco­gni­sing the struc­tu­ral chal­lenges facing dif­ferent types of com­pa­nies. Rather than one-size-fits-all man­dates, poli­cy could be tai­lo­red to com­pa­ny cha­rac­te­ris­tics and mar­ket contexts.

For inves­tors and consu­mers, it shar­pens the abi­li­ty to dis­tin­guish bet­ween com­pa­nies whose sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty efforts are dee­ply inte­gra­ted ver­sus those whose ini­tia­tives, while genuine, remain per­iphe­ral to core busi­ness strategy.

The ulti­mate goal is not to achieve per­fect embo­di­ment, which is an unrea­lis­tic stan­dard. But rather to sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly expand the pro­por­tion of busi­ness acti­vi­ties that create posi­tive-sum out­comes for socie­ty, envi­ron­ment, and sha­re­hol­ders. This requires ack­now­led­ging that sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty inte­gra­tion is not just a mat­ter of cor­po­rate will, but also of struc­tu­ral condi­tions inclu­ding mar­ket dyna­mics, regu­la­to­ry fra­me­works, and consu­mer preferences.

Com­pa­nies like Pata­go­nia demons­trate that high embo­di­ment is pos­sible under cer­tain condi­tions, while Uni­le­ver and IKEA show both the poten­tial and chal­lenges of sca­ling sus­tai­nable prac­tices across com­plex glo­bal ope­ra­tions. The key insight is that sus­tai­nable busi­ness models are not dis­co­ve­red through good inten­tions alone, but through deli­be­rate struc­tu­ral changes that ali­gn pro­fit incen­tives with pla­ne­ta­ry health.

The Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty Mir­ror Fra­me­work offers a path beyond the pola­ri­sed debate bet­ween pro­fit and pur­pose, toward a more nuan­ced unders­tan­ding of how com­pa­nies can genui­ne­ly inte­grate sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty into their core ope­ra­tions. In an era where cli­mate change demands urgent action, such diag­nos­tic tools become essen­tial for dis­tin­gui­shing authen­tic trans­for­ma­tion from sophis­ti­ca­ted greenwashing.

For more info

Juin, C., Geor­get, V., & Ray­na, T. (2025). Busi­ness Model Inno­va­tion : a Fra­me­work for Asses­sing Cor­po­rate Enga­ge­ment with Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty. Cir­cu­lar Eco­no­my and Sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-025–00565‑9