Corporate jargon and management consultants often talk about three models – the Business Model, the Operating Model and the Governance Model. Each answers one of the three 'HOWs': how an organisation creates value, how an organisation executes strategy, and how an organisation makes decisions. And the key word here is 'organisations'. Models, by intent, are about how an organisation works.
But organisations are also a matrix. The horizontal 'building blocks' are the business functions – often operating in their own silos. And the vertical 'streams' aim to cut across those silos to create end‑to‑end value. Yet businesses consistently struggle to blur the lines between these independent streams.
Sustainability adds a third dimension of complexity. It behaves less like a traditional organisational construct and more like a tracing paper overlay placed on top of the organisational blueprint. It is less about an organisation and more about a system.
And like all operating systems, it is technical. It requires inputs (e.g., regulations, stakeholder expectations), a processing layer (e.g., governance bodies, integration with enterprise risk management, technology platforms for data collection), outputs (e.g., disclosures, risk assessments, transition plans, audit trails), and outcomes (e.g., reduced emissions, number of 'green' products sold).
The intent behind structuring corporate sustainability as an Enterprise Sustainability Operating System is to signal the obvious: ESG can be integrated, automated, continuous, data‑driven, cross‑functional, and most importantly embedded into daily operations.