Navigating Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap for Boards and Corporate Leaders
Navigating Sustainable Growth guides corporate leaders, students, educators, and the public in how companies can thrive in a future that prioritizes decarbonization and dematerialization. With over 300 examples of global best practices, this timely book conveys that:
- To deliver sustainable growth, companies cannot rely on strong financials alone. They must also demonstrate a track record of reducing negative impacts and creating value through sustainable offerings — and help suppliers and customers do the same.
- The board must own the critical 5-7-year planning horizon that is key to how successful companies create long-term value. The short-term focus of most executives leads to missing new opportunities while facing new perils.
As a bonus, the book offers The Climate Story. This eight-step, data-rich synopsis explains how we arrived at this crossroads, and where it will take us.
The publishers selling price is $29.99. To facilitate purchase 50 or 100 copies or more to share across the organization, the publisher agreed to hefty discounts:
- 25% discount: 10-24 books
- 30% discount: 25-49 books
- 40% discount: 50-99 books
- 50% discount: 100-500 books
- 60% discount: 501+ books
"The importance of sustainability in business is widely acknowledged, yet few grasp how to effectively integrate it into corporate strategy to drive growth. With a focus on best practices and actionable guidance, Navigating Sustainable Growth bridges this gap by providing a clear roadmap for leaders. Gib Hedstrom offers valuable insights and practical steps for driving sustainable growth and this book is an indispensable resource for any executive or board member committed to creating long-term value while addressing climate challenges."
Dave Regnery
Chair & CEO, Trane Technologies
“In a world that urgently needs business to lead with purpose and long-term vision, Navigating Sustainable Growth offers timely and practical guidance for boards and executives. Gib Hedstrom makes a compelling case that sustainable growth isn’t just about doing less harm — it’s about creating more value for society than we take. For leaders serious about building future-fit companies, this book is a vital resource."
Paul Polman
Former CEO, Unilever
“In Navigating Sustainable Growth, Gib Hedstrom provides the roadmap for boards to enhance fluency, drawing on decades of helping boards and corporate leaders address the most challenging issues of the day.”
Wendy Kei
Chair, Board of Directors, Ontario Power Generation
“This isn’t another book about why sustainability matters; this is the ‘how.’ Gib bridges the strategy gap between today’s short-termism and the climate-aligned economy taking shape. Essential reading for boards, CEOs, and the next generation of business leaders in every MBA classroom."
Dave Stangis
Chief Sustainability Officer, Apollo Global Management
“Timely, insightful, and action oriented. Over the next five years, customers will increasingly demand innovative solutions to climate and other material sustainability challenges. This guide helps to understand value creation opportunities as well as risks of inaction.”
Alexa A. Dembek, PhD
Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer, DuPont
"This is the guide C-suites have been waiting for. Navigating Sustainable Growth is a much-needed resource for executives committed to turning sustainability into a competitive advantage. This approach builds on Gib Hedstrom’s decades with ESG Navigator helping hundreds of major companies. That platform has been incredibly helpful for conducting an honest assessment, gaining executive alignment, and preparing for board dialog. Now, having a practical ‘how-to’ guide to create alignment and stimulate the right type of board discussion is invaluable. The book speaks to each corporate function, blending boardroom insights with global best practices."
Jennifer Aspen Mason
CSO & EVP, J.M. Huber Corp
“Navigating Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap for Boards and Corporate Leaders is essential for directors looking to learn more about the impacts of climate change, gain alignment between the board and management, and make boardroom discussions more productive and impactful. In Gib Hedstrom’s feature “Climate and Sustainability for Boards” for Directors & Boards, he expertly explained why climate change is a pressing issue for directors and why the time is now for them to enhance their fluency and knowledge on the topic. If he can do that in six pages, imagine what he does with 165."
Bill Hayes
Editor in Chief, Directors & Boards
"This book belongs on every CEO’s desk. As climate risks to assets and society intensify and geopolitics become more complex, CEOs need an action-oriented guide that cuts through the noise. Companies committed to leading and growing sustainably must future-proof their businesses by embracing — not resisting — emerging regulations from the EU and beyond. Gib’s book delivers that blueprint, just when it's needed most."
Mike Mabry
CEO, Global Resources International
“Boards can no longer treat climate as a side issue—it’s as critical to long-term value as AI and digital transformation. Despite the pressure to deliver short-term results, management must assess how the company’s strategy will deliver sustainable growth over the next five years and beyond. Gib Hedstrom offers the roadmap to align corporate strategy with sustainability and secure resilience and profitable growth.”
Jo Mark Zurel
Chair, Board of Directors, Fortis, Inc.
“The challenges we face today are complex and urgent. Solving them will require public, private, and nonprofit leaders to work together in new and exciting ways. Of these, only the private sector has the people, energy, and resources to move fast and deliver outcomes at scale. Gib Hedstrom has provided a roadmap for how corporate leaders, especially board members, can engage fully in ways that will generate strong economic outcomes and durable solutions to the climate crisis.”
Larry Selzer
President and CEO, The Conservation Fund
“The risk of climate change is widely recognized, but few people understand how good governance can mitigate it. The famed “triangle” of governance—connecting directors, managers, and investors—can and must become a fulcrum for balanced approaches. That is the major lesson from Navigating Sustainable Growth. Gib Hedstrom is a true pioneer in climate governance, qualified by his decades of board-level consulting work and influential publications. His newest book is chock full of practical insights and steps for prospering on our planet while at the same time respecting it.”
Alexandra Lajoux
Chief Knowledge Officer Emeritus, National Association of Corporate Directors
“The thing about climate is it doesn't care what you think about it, like whether it's caused by humans or not. One way or another, a shifting climate will affect all corporations, everywhere. The ones that embrace the challenge are poised to reap the rewards and increase shareholder value. With Navigating Sustainable Growth, Gib Hedstrom lays out a practical, non-partisan roadmap for corporate leaders and boards to achieve sustainable growth and profitability. This is a must read!”
Bill Davis
CEO, Stance Capital
"In these critical decades of transition, successful companies will phase out the destructive business models of the past and grow those decarbonizing and dematerializing the value chain. Boards of directors have the vantage point and power to guide that strategic shift, and every corporate functional leader – and MBA professor – must weave climate and sustainability into their daily activities. Navigating Sustainable Growth helps boards, corporate leaders, and business schools to navigate a course toward sustainable business. Gib’s book provides a timely, “how to” toolkit."
Jason Jay
Director, Sustainability Initiative, MIT Sloan School of Management
"Gib Hedstrom’s work here, much like that of his distinguished career in governance and sustainability, is an exemplar of high-quality research, logic, and practicality. Organizations that follow his advice will be well served in both the immediate and longer term."
Robert Galford
Board of Directors [retired], Forrester Research
"In this terrific, highly readable book, Gib Hedstrom makes a clear and compelling case that you can't have a healthy business on an unhealthy planet. More importantly, he lays out a climate strategy every executive and board of directors should follow — one grounded in the volatile dynamics of this moment. It is a practical and insightful guide, worthy of study by every business leader — and anyone who strives to become one."
Joel Makower
Chairman and Co-founder, Trellis Group
Sustainability: What It Is and How to Measure It
This two-part book was published by De Gruyter in 2018. Part 1 was an update of the small 2017 book. Part 2 detailed the ESG Navigator corporate benchmarking and strategic planning platform. (At the time, the platform was called the Corporate Sustainability Scorecard.)
Since this book was published, ESG Navigator has evolved considerably. It was endorsed by The Conference Board in 2020 and over 150 major corporations input benchmarking data. The scoring system has been fine-tuned and since 2023 has consisted of 100 KPIs (we refer to as Key Sustainability Indicators or KSIs).
Sustainability: A Guide for Boards and C-Suites
This 100-page book, published in 2017, captured Gib's experience participating as an outside advisor in dozens of board meetings at major companies. This included meeting with outside directors in executive session as the CEO and company management left the room.
The book is available on Amazon.
The Environmental, Health, and Safety Auditor's Handbook & Environmental Auditing: Fundamentals and Techniques
Gib led the development of environmental, health, and safety (EHS) auditing in the 1980s - initially in the U.S. and then globally. He oversaw Arthur D. Little's auditing practice involving several thousand audits across the globe and wrote the initial EHS auditing standards, still largely intact today.
With Arthur D. Little colleagues, Gib wrote the widely-read foundational books on the then emerging field of EHS auditing.
