NEW YORK, NY — One size fits all simply doesn't apply to corporate sustainability. That's the top-level finding of a new report out from Deloitte Consulting this week. The report, "Sustainability in business today: A cross-industry view," is based on surveys of 48 sustainability executives at companies across five sectors, and finds that there is no single way that firms are looking to go green.

Definitions, methods and even levels of engagement vary from company to company, according to the survey; but what the report finds is that businesses are taking sustainability to heart more than ever before.

"Overall, our survey highlights a clear recognition among respondents of the importance of sustainability to the future of their businesses," Chris Park, a principal at Deloitte and the lead author of the report, said in a statement, "as well as some of the challenges that sustainability leaders face in their efforts to align their organizations' sustainability practices with the principles companies often espouse."

Although most executives surveyed said that their sustainability programs focused on a triple bottom line model covering the planet, people and profit, the report found that environmental efforts were front and center among CSR reports from those companies.

"Some respondents omitted the social side of sustainability from their definitions altogether," the report says. "More commonly, respondents would acknowledge the social side of sustainability in their definitions while reporting only environmental initiatives when asked about their companies' sustainability improvement priorities."

In the survey, Deloitte also asked companies to identify what areas of environmental issues were most important to their work. Across all five sectors included in the survey, energy efficiency was listed as by far the most important issue at hand, with water and land & soil falling to the bottom of the list.

The chart below breaks down the responses by sector; click on the image to see a larger version.

The report explores a number of areas of corporate sustainability; in addition to the top-level issues, Deloitte asked companies how innovation figures in to their green goals, what -- if any -- impact the federal Stimulus Act had on efforts, how firms are shaping their workforces for the low-carbon economy, and what factors will most shape their sustainability programs in the coming years.

Responses to the survey from all 48 companies led Park and his co-author, Kathryn Pavlovsky, to identify four key success factors that can enable companies to turn sustainability efforts into business value:

• Aligning sustainability strategy with business strategy.
• Integrating sustainability into operations and processes across the value chain.
• Structuring non-traditional collaborations and extending existing collaborations.
• Setting up a governance structure that is supported by the right infrastructure.

"We believe sustainability is a strategic business issue and, to be successful, companies need to consider integrating it into their core business models." Pavlovsky said in a statment. "Our experience indicates that companies approaching sustainability through ad hoc programs or isolated initiatives do not achieve their desired outcomes and goals as effectively as companies that take an integrated approach."

The full report, "Sustainability in business today: A cross-industry view," is available for download from GreenBiz.com.

_{Lightbulb photo CC-licensed by David G. Romero.}