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The Comprehensive Business Case for Sustainability

Harvard Business Review

Today’s executives are dealing with a complex and unprecedented brew of social, environmental, market, and technological trends. Yet executives are often reluctant to place sustainability core to their company’s business strategy in the mistaken belief that the costs outweigh the benefits.

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The Real Reasons Companies Are So Focused on the Short Term

Harvard Business Review

Quarterly profits have only increased 5% since 2012 , but investors’ valuations of those profits (as measured by earnings per share) has increased 59% over the same period. Investors punish companies with a short-term orientation by applying higher discount rates to them, which increases the cost of capital for those companies.