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Corporate sustainability is evolving. In its early days, sustainability was tantamount to reducing harm by making products and processes "less bad." With a glimpse of the competitive advantage that could be achieved, companies began to embed sustainability principles at the core of decision-making. Sustainability today goes beyond the walls of the organization - it's now about using brand, purchasing and political power to influence stakeholders and create positive change.

"Conscious brands" that are aware of their societal and environmental impact will move into the mainstream in 2014, predicts FutureBrand strategy chief Tom Adams. "No more hair shirts or specialist brands, just products and services across categories that work with the grain of human nature, take sustainability for granted and position themselves around it," he writes

The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, a group helping food and drink companies to achieve sustainable production and sourcing of agricultural raw materials whose members include McDonald's Europe and Unilever, has announced the development of its Principles for Sustainable Beef Farming, what it is calling the most complete guidelines developed for beef production to date.

Beauty brands Coty, L'Oreal, Groupe Clarins and Groupe Rocher have partnered on an initiative to increase sustainability in the beauty supply chain. The Responsible Beauty Initiative will be overseen by supply chain sustainability ratings agency EcoVadis and will encourage businesses to enhance and share sustainable practices.

About half of Unilever's growth last year came from its sustainable living brands, which grew 30 percent faster than the rest of the company's business, according to the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan annual progress report.

Starbucks announced last week that it completed the underwriting of an initial public offering of senior notes, including its first-ever U.S. Corporate Sustainability Bond. The coffee giant said it will use proceeds from $500 million in 2.45% Senior Notes to help enhance the sustainability programs centered around its coffee supply chain management programs through a variety of eligible sustainability projects.

Seafood company Thai Union Group will ensure 100% of its tuna is sustainably sourced and plans to reach at least 75% sustainability by 2020. The company will invest $90 million in efforts to increase their supply of sustainable tuna and open 11 Fishery Improvement Projects.

Corporate sustainability reporting desperately needs to up its game in order to align company-level sustainability performance with the broader systems-level ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and COP21, the UN climate change conference, according to a new report from the UNEP. For example, while 95% of the 108 companies researched in the report disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, only a mere 8% set GHG emissions reduction goals in the context of the science-based target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius - the central goal of COP21.

Shifting cotton production to a more sustainable model presents a number of opportunities across the value chain, yet only 13% of cotton is grown in a sustainable manner, with only 20% of that actually being sourced by companies for their products. Leading international retailers, cotton standards, industry initiatives and stakeholders are banding together to form Cotton 2040, an initiative that seeks to make sustainable cotton a mainstream commodity rather than a niche market.

2017 Sustainability Leaders Survey" (GlobeScan, SustainAbility, and Sustainable Brands) asked more than 1,000 experts to list companies that are leaders in integrating sustainability into their business strategy. The most frequently cited companies included the following: * Unilever * Patagonia * Interface * IKEA * Marks and Spencer (M&S) * Natura * Tesla * Nestlé * BASF * General Electric * Nike

Paris-based Kering, which owns luxury brands Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen, among many others, is working on a 10-year sustainability plan that includes specific green standards for its supply chains. "When you are in the luxury sector, you have a responsibility because you set the trends," said Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering's chief sustainability officer.

On Thursday, Sunny Delight Beverages Co. (SDBC) released its fifth annual Sustainability Report, detailing its sustainability goals and progress - including an $85 million investment in new production equipment to improve efficiency, reducing the calorie count for its beverages 50 percent, and sustaining zero waste to landfill for the fifth consecutive year

UK retailer Marks & Spencer has launched its first sustainable footwear collection, Footglove Earth - the latest component of the company's ongoing Plan A initiative to become the world's most sustainable retailer by 2020. Each of the shoes' components is sourced through suppliers that developed them sustainably or through the use of recycled, post-consumer waste.

If the global business community is to thrive in the long term - and carry us to that flourishing future we are trying to imagine and help build - it needs to continue to scale up the ambition and influence of its efforts. That's much easier said than done, of course, though we are seeing a number of encouraging trends within the Sustainable Brands community that, while still nascent, are promising to deliver a lot of value for years to come. 

Beth Stevens, senior VP of environmental affairs at Disney Worldwide Services, is in charge of making strides in the direction of sustainability. How does the iconic brand not only tell an engaging sustainability story but walk the talk? Disney's sustainability goals are serious. It aims to halve its emissions by 2020 from 2012 levels. It signed on to the White House American Business Act on Climate Pledge ahead of COP21 and the Paris Agreement. It even maintains an internal carbon price. Stevens sees all this as a natural expression of the company's culture.

Sustainable packaging and design is helping beverage brands promote themselves as eco-friendly without appearing less luxurious, write Fiona Bennie and Barbra Wright. Recyclable packaging can help, but it's only a first step. "[I]f we consider packaging in isolation from the rest of the system we will only ever manage to create minimal impact both financially and sustainably," they write.

REI announced that it would roll out rigorous sustainability standards across its supply chain. The more than 1,000 brands that can be currently found on REI's stores or its web site, insists the co-op, will "make it easier for millions of outdoor enthusiasts to choose more sustainable products."

Brands in Unilever's sustainable living lineup, which include Hellmann's and Ben & Jerry's, fueled 60% of the company's growth last year, and are growing 50% faster than Unilever's other brands. "Our results show that sustainability is good for business, with increasing evidence that our 'sustainable living brands' do better," said CEO Paul Polman.

The Target Sustainable Product Standard, the latest initiative supporting a growing sustainability commitment at the retail leader, was developed over the last two years in partnership with industry experts, vendors and NGOs

The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) has announced that its membership has overwhelmingly approved global Principles and Criteria for defining sustainable beef and beef production practices. More than 96 percent of the GRSB General Assembly members voted in favor of the definition, principles and criteria. Every one of the five constituencies - producer, commerce, processing, retail and roundtables - voted to approve the definition.