How much will your business need to change in the coming years?

Will you be one of the many caught in a reactive, last-minute scramble to adapt? Or will you chart a strategic course that enables you to survive as an organization, profit your shareholders and employees, lead your industry and contribute to a better world?

The fourth quarter presents important challenges and opportunities for business sustainability leaders, as it does for all executives and managers. It's often the time for planning (and sometimes reflection -- though often at high speed!), for budgeting for the coming year, and sometimes for spending remaining budget for this year.

Here are some specific questions for you to consider as you engage in that Q4 process -- and that we can help you address.

1. Where are you going?

What are your sustainability goals?

I'm sure they're SMART -- Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound -- but are they integrally connected to your business goals? Even more importantly, are they sufficient to the challenges we all face -- as companies, communities and citizens?

Yes, building brand, share and profit, of course. Yes, flattening your footprint -- to build brand, share and profit, to engage the hearts of your employees and stakeholders, and to prevent climate change from being even worse than it will be.

But let's not pull punches. What we're really up to -- all of us dealing with sustainability -- is to transform the economy of a planet in one generation. It's to build, in Bucky Fuller's words, "a world that works for 100 percent of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense, or the disadvantage of anyone."

And that, by the way, is the biggest business opportunity of the century.

It's also what Natural Logic is up to. We do that by helping our clients  succeed by designing, implementing and measuring profitable sustainable strategies that connect your deepest commitments -- what you're really here to do -- to your business goals to build brand, share and profit.

Your starting point can be a strategic briefing for your executives, goals workshop for your sustainability team, an Innovation Charrette with both those groups and stakeholders.