Sustainability as Strategy: Reflections on CVC’s 2024 Report (Augmented with Chatgpt)

Wix Media

Hi, I’m Leke (Lay-k).My work as an Industry 5.0 Innovation Specialist often sits at the intersection of strategy, technology, and sustainability. Over the years, I’ve come to see sustainability less as a reporting obligation and more as an essential design principle for long-term resilience and growth.

Reading CVC’s 2024 Annual & Sustainability Report reinforced this perspective. What stood out was not only the thoroughness of their disclosures, but how deliberately sustainability has been woven into the architecture of their business and investment model.

Four Priorities, One Direction

CVC’s sustainability agenda is anchored on four priorities that feel as much cultural as they are strategic:

• Investing responsibly for long-term growth. Every new private equity and secondaries investment underwent sustainability due diligence in 2024, with the launch of a Sustainability Index to deepen engagement with portfolio companies.

• Attracting, developing, and retaining talent. By refreshing its people strategy and setting new ambitions for women in leadership, CVC has tied inclusivity to performance, recognizing that diverse perspectives strengthen decision-making.

• Building climate resilience. Operational emissions have been reduced by 65% since 2019, and the Climate Action Accelerator Initiative is encouraging investee companies to adopt validated science-based targets.

• Ensuring robust governance and accountability. From ISO 27001 alignment in information security to universal compliance training, governance has become an active enabler of trust.

Each of these areas reflects a shift: sustainability is no longer peripheral — it is central to how growth is achieved and safeguarded.

Signals for the Broader Landscape

Beyond the metrics, there are broader lessons embedded in CVC’s approach:

• Strategy and sustainability are converging. Executive incentives, governance frameworks, and investment decisions are being shaped by sustainability criteria, not separate from them.

• Resilience is as critical as performance. Where Industry 4.0 optimized for efficiency, Industry 5.0 is leaning into resilience — climate resilience, talent resilience, data resilience.

• People remain the fulcrum. Even with AI and automation advancing, talent and inclusion are proving to be decisive levers for innovation and continuity.

Through My Lens

In my practice at Wonda Designs, I approach challenges through designed methodologies — using tools like design thinking and backcasting, underpinned by VUCA and FLUX principles. These frameworks help organizations not only navigate uncertainty but actively shape it into opportunity.

One example is EcoEpic, a digital solution designed to help individuals verify the sustainability claims of everyday products. It embodies the same principle I see in reports like CVC’s: sustainability is most powerful when it moves from a narrative in documents to a lived experience in markets and communities.

Closing Reflection

CVC’s 2024 report is more than an account of progress. It is a signal that the business landscape is shifting — toward a model where value creation is inseparable from responsibility, resilience, and renewal.

For me, the message is clear: sustainability, when embedded deeply, becomes not just a framework for disclosure, but a foundation for enduring growth in a world defined by change.