Sustainability and Resilience

Sustainability and resilience are prominent themes in social, economic, and political discourse, yet their relationship and practical implications often remain misunderstood. Sustainability broadly signifies achieving human prosperity within stable and supportive environmental conditions, whereas resilience emphasizes the capacity to endure, adapt, and maintain a desirable status quo amidst disruptions. Although these terms frequently appear interchangeable, substantial differences arise when assessing their implications for organizational strategies.

Organizations frequently hesitate to fully embrace sustainability due to its inherent threat to established business models, operational competencies, and traditional investment practices. Companies often perceive the sustainability transition as disruptive to their proven economic viability and market resilience pathways. Conversely, organizations deeply committed to sustainability may encounter challenges sustaining market competitiveness, indicating that a balance between resilience and sustainability is crucial yet inherently complex.

This Blog post, Based on Prof. Dror Etzion's research, introduces a configurational approach, outlining three distinct strategic pathways organizations may adopt to concurrently pursue sustainability and resilience: the Absorbtive, Transformative, and Adaptive pathways.

Practical guidelines from this configurational perspective encourage managers and sustainability practitioners to evaluate their organization's initial sustainability position critically, challenge existing assumptions regarding resilience and sustainability alignment, strategically select the appropriate pathway, and cultivate an organizational culture conducive to ongoing learning and iterative improvement.

The configurational approach proposed by this research highlights the complexity of aligning resilience and sustainability. It underlines that successful strategic alignment requires tailoring approaches to each organization's unique characteristics and conditions. Organizations can progressively achieve a resilient and sustainably viable state in the long term by appropriately selecting and committing to a strategic pathway.

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*Dror Etzion is a Grossman School of Business professor at the University of Vermont, United States.