Founded in 1987 by John Elkington, consultancy and think tank SustainAbility was the first company to help business identify and manage environmental, social and economic risks and opportunities. Based in London, Washington and Zurich, the company works with six key industry sectors and its Emerging Economies programme provides advice to national and multinational companies on the sustainable development agenda, with a focus on developing countries. SustainAbility is also involved with the World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative and the LiveEarth concerts. According to one client, the company brings "constructive discomfort" to the table. Elkington also chairs the Environment Foundation and sits on boards including The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, and Institute Ethos in Brazil.

What is your latest project?

"This month I finished off a new book co-authored with Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship focusing on what mainstream business leaders can learn from the work of social and environmental entrepreneurs, called The Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets to Change the World.

"I am also working on our three-year Program funded by The Skoll Foundation, founded by eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll, focusing on scalable entrepreneurial solutions to sustainability challenges.

"And I'm preparing for a trip to India in August, part of our move towards setting up a presence in that country, and to China in September, where I will be facilitating four sessions at the World Economic Forum summit meeting in Dalian."

How has the role of SustainAbility changed since its inception?

"Our values remain the same, but our agenda has expanded. When we started, we focused on mobilising consumer pressure to encourage business to act on issues like ozone depletion, then shifted to work with companies in areas like environmental auditing and life-cycle assessment.

"Having coined the phrase 'triple bottom line' in 1994, we found ourselves increasingly working with the boards of major companies, worldwide. We pursue value right across the triple bottom line agenda and as a result, many companies think of us as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), while many NGOs think of us as a company: in a sense, both are right."

How does SustainAbility differ from other environmentally-focused think tanks and consultancies?

"We aim to be professional and objective, but not neutral - we are not part of anybody's echo chamber. Indeed, one client noted that a key form of value that SustainAbility brings to the table with senior decision-makers in business is "constructive discomfort."

"Our vision evolves continuously. In retrospect, our first generation strategy involved mobilising consumers, with hard-hitting books and campaigns, which in turn led to research and publications in areas such as environmental auditing and life-cycle assessment.

"This strand of our work continues, indeed needs to be re-energized as we engage with companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Wal-Mart. Our second generation strategy, building from the early 1990s, involved building on that earlier work to encourage much greater corporate transparency, reporting and ultimately, accountability.

What future direction are you moving in?

"Our evolving third generation work includes: a deeper focus on sustainability-critical key sectors; business models and leadership styles of social and environmental entrepreneurs and the agendas mainstream business and financial institutions are called upon to tackle; a continuing, accelerating push into selected emerging economies.

"We have been expanding our Network to cover key countries-and are planning to set up our first emerging economies office in India, in 2008; and finally, a push into the worlds of private equity and venture capital, sources of financing needed to drive the processes of creative destruction that global capitalism will need to undergo if it is to have any chance of being sustainable.

"And we are intensifying conversations with key players as we shape our thinking and plans in this area, in addition active involvement with two venture funds, one in the EU, one in the USA.

"After 20 years of resisting growth (preferring to focus on growing our influence rather than our numbers), our team is now committed to a breakout strategy that will take us deep into a growing range of key sectors, into the emerging economies whose ambitions and actions will so powerfully shape our collective future, and into the fast-moving worlds of venture funding and entrepreneurial solutions."

What is the most interesting aspect of your role?

"Personally, I straddle a series of roles. Within SustainAbility, I am on the Board and my job title is Chief Entrepreneur, which is a licence to experiment."

What key factors hold companies back from launching carbon/energy reduction initiatives?

"Ignorance, denial, a sense that it is government's task and blindness to the fact that this will have major competitive implications."

What has been the single most important step taken by the UK Government to forward the environmental agenda, in your view?

"It has succeeded in driving down emissions more or less in line with its Kyoto targets, though a fair amount of this achievement related to shutting down much of the coal industry and switching to natural gas. And there were weak decisions along the way, including the Government's caving in on the fuel tax proposals, which would have cranked up the cost of carbon-based fuels year on year."

What is key to the success of a carbon reducing initiative?

"Predictability, coupled with the capacity to really bite into carbon emissions over time."

What is your proudest "green" achievement?

"Co-authoring The Green Consumer Guide, which sold around one million copies worldwide. Second would probably be taking the word 'sustainability' at a time when no-one understood it or used it and helping to build the concept globally. And third might be coining the term 'triple bottom line.'"

How do large companies encourage their customers and staff to become more environmentally conscious and how do you crack the "hardest nuts?"

"Sometimes the hardest nuts just to have to fall off the tree and be carried elsewhere, or rot into the mulch. Time, alongside death and retirement, has achieved a great deal in shifting mindsets. But then so have the pioneering initiatives of leading companies, from The Body Shop to BP, from GE to Wal-Mart.

"The best way to incentivise staff is through education, information and meaningful incentives. Customers and consumers respond best to offerings - products or services - that are irresistible, combing everything they want with state-of-the-art sustainability. Yes, it's a stretch, but one that will increasingly define successful companies."

What emerging trends do you predict in the realm of carbon reduction?

"On the carbon reduction front, I think we will see some fairly dramatic ups and downs in the clean technologies market, as we did with the biotech and IT sectors, but overall this is a strong growth sector for the future."

What advice would you give to someone starting out as an Environmental Manager in the private or public sectors?

"Think before you accept the job of how well the role is likely to fare in a recession. We are almost guaranteed a major recession in the next three to four years and I suspect that we will see history repeating itself in one respect at least.

"Having worked through a number of recessions, I have seen an energetic weeding out of safety, health and environmental management departments in business over recent decades and the same is likely to happen with today's corporate citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility units.

"So my advice is, by all means take this path, but, as far as possible, make sure that you have the business skills needed to transition into the mainstream or be lucky enough to be so entrepreneurial that you can make the future happen on your own account."

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• If it’s on, it’s costing; if it’s off, it’s not.
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• By turning down your thermostat by 1°C you could cut your heating bills by 10%
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