The CMO Benchmark Study offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of how organizations are navigating this transition.
As sustainability moves to the mainstream of business strategy, marketing leaders are finding themselves at the center of a fundamental shift. No longer viewed solely as stewards of brand and communications, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are increasingly expected to help drive growth, shape consumer behaviour, foster innovation, and contribute to long-term business resilience.
The newly released UN Global Compact–Kantar CMO Benchmark Study offers one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of how organizations are navigating this transition. Drawing on insights from more than 1,700 leaders across marketing, sustainability, innovation, and operations functions, the study measures progress against the CMO Blueprint for Sustainable Growth (download link found further down the page), a practical framework designed to help marketers embed sustainability into business strategy and value creation. The Benchmark establishes a baseline for how organizations are performing across five pillars: Growth Strategy, Brand Strategy, Innovation, Communications, Advertising & Media, and Collaboration & Partnerships.
The findings reveal encouraging momentum and a clear call to action. While sustainability is increasingly recognized as a driver of growth and competitive advantage, many organizations continue to struggle with translating ambition into execution. The strongest-performing companies are those that move beyond sustainability messaging and instead integrate sustainability into how they innovate, measure success, allocate resources, and engage stakeholders.
Growth Strategy: sustainability as a driver of value creation.
One of the Blueprint’s central messages is that sustainability should not be viewed as a compliance exercise but as a catalyst for long-term growth. It encourages CMOs to advocate for greater sustainability ambition, assess how growth strategies impact the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), embed sustainability metrics into performance management, and develop compelling value-creation narratives that inspire stakeholders.
The Benchmark suggests that many organizations are beginning this journey, but relatively few have fully integrated sustainability into core business planning. The report highlights leading examples such as Zespri, which embedded sustainability KPIs into planning, reporting, and incentive structures while aligning its growth strategy with broader societal outcomes. The result was not only measurable environmental progress but also significant revenue growth and stronger stakeholder engagement.
The implication for marketers is clear: sustainability initiatives are most effective when they are connected directly to growth objectives, business performance, and long-term value creation.
Brand Strategy: purpose must be backed by action.
The Blueprint encourages organizations to define a purpose beyond profit, align brand commitments with sustainability goals, and incorporate sustainability metrics into brand performance measurement.
This aligns closely with one of the Benchmark’s most important findings: organizations tend to perform well in sustainability communications and brand positioning, but often struggle to connect those narratives to tangible action. Consumers increasingly expect evidence, not just promises.
Several case studies featured in the Blueprint demonstrate what this looks like in practice. Diageo’s Don Julio brand, for example, built its sustainability strategy around water stewardship, an issue directly connected to both its product and supply chain. Rather than leading with marketing claims, the company first invested in water replenishment initiatives and developed a robust claims framework before launching consumer-facing campaigns. The result was stronger brand differentiation, high engagement, and increased trust.
The lesson is increasingly relevant in today’s environment: credibility is becoming one of the most valuable assets a brand can possess.
Innovation: turning sustainability into competitive advantage.
Innovation represents one of the Blueprint’s most significant opportunities for growth. It calls on organizations to align investment with sustainable innovation, develop business models that encourage sustainable behaviour, and use consumer insights to guide product development.
The Benchmark found that many organizations recognize the importance of sustainable innovation but have yet to fully capitalize on it. This creates a significant opportunity for forward-looking businesses.
Natura’s concentrated moisturizer provides a compelling example. By reducing packaging, transport emissions, and waste while maintaining product performance, the company successfully aligned sustainability benefits with consumer needs. Rather than asking consumers to sacrifice convenience or quality, Natura focused on demonstrating how sustainability and performance could work together, a strategy that helped the product exceed sales expectations while generating measurable environmental and social benefits.
For marketers, the takeaway is that sustainable innovation succeeds when it solves real consumer problems while creating measurable environmental and social value.
Communications, Advertising & Media: from storytelling to systems change.
The Blueprint recognizes that marketing’s influence extends far beyond promoting products and services. It challenges CMOs to use communications and media not only to build brands, but also to encourage more sustainable lifestyles, improve representation and inclusion, reduce the environmental impact of marketing operations, and communicate sustainability claims with credibility and transparency. The framework emphasizes the importance of equipping marketing teams with the tools and knowledge needed to avoid greenwashing, while integrating sustainability considerations into media planning, procurement, and content creation.
The Benchmark Study identifies Communications, Advertising & Media as one of the strongest-performing pillars, suggesting that organizations have made meaningful progress in incorporating sustainability into brand messaging and stakeholder engagement. However, the Blueprint makes clear that future leadership will require marketers to move beyond awareness-building and toward measurable impact. Leading organizations are already demonstrating what this looks like. L’Oréal, for example, has focused on reducing the carbon footprint of its digital advertising ecosystem by measuring campaign emissions, optimizing creative assets, and collaborating with partners across the media value chain. The company has shown that sustainability and marketing effectiveness can coexist, achieving meaningful emissions reductions without sacrificing campaign performance.
For marketers, the opportunity is significant. As sustainability expectations continue to rise, communications and media strategies will increasingly be evaluated not only on their ability to shape perceptions, but also on their ability to inspire behaviour change, demonstrate accountability, and reduce their own environmental footprint. Organizations that successfully connect authentic storytelling with measurable action will be better positioned to build trust, strengthen brand equity, and contribute to sustainable growth.
Collaboration: the industry’s biggest opportunity.
Of all five Blueprint pillars, Collaboration & Partnerships emerged as the area with the greatest room for improvement. The Blueprint emphasizes cross-functional alignment, shared sustainability KPIs, supplier engagement, and partnerships with governments, NGOs, and industry stakeholders to drive systemic change.
The Benchmark reinforces this finding, identifying collaboration as one of the weakest-performing areas across organizations. Yet many of the most successful examples highlighted in the Blueprint, from Mastercard’s refugee support platform to Tata Consultancy Services’ sustainable sports initiatives, demonstrate that meaningful impact often occurs when organizations leverage partnerships to address challenges that no single company can solve alone.
As sustainability challenges become increasingly complex, the ability to collaborate across sectors may become one of the defining capabilities of successful marketing organizations.
Underlying every pillar of the Blueprint is a common theme: what gets measured gets managed. The Blueprint emphasizes the importance of establishing clear metrics, benchmarking progress, and continuously refining strategies based on evidence and outcomes.
Taken together, the Benchmark Study and the CMO Blueprint for Sustainable Growth offer both a diagnosis and a roadmap. The research confirms that sustainability is now firmly established as a business priority, while the Blueprint provides the practical guidance needed to move from ambition to implementation.
For marketing leaders, the challenge ahead is not simply communicating sustainability more effectively. It is embedding sustainability into growth strategies, brand development, innovation pipelines, media investments, partnerships, and performance measurement systems. Those who succeed will be best positioned to create lasting value for their organizations, their stakeholders, and society as a whole.
Invert Insights.
💡 A recurring theme throughout both the Benchmark Study and the Blueprint is that sustainability delivers the greatest value when it is embedded into business strategy, performance management, and decision-making. Leading organizations are moving beyond standalone sustainability initiatives and integrating sustainability KPIs into growth targets, brand metrics, innovation pipelines, and employee incentives. Companies such as Zespri and Intrepid Travel demonstrate that aligning sustainability objectives with business performance can drive revenue growth, strengthen customer loyalty, and improve organizational resilience.
💡 The Blueprint reinforces a critical principle for marketers: sustainability communications are most effective when they are built on measurable action. As consumers, regulators, and stakeholders become more sophisticated, organizations can no longer rely on broad sustainability claims alone. The most successful examples highlighted in the Blueprint—from Diageo’s water stewardship initiatives to Natura’s regenerative product innovation—demonstrate that tangible action, transparent measurement, and evidence-based storytelling are the foundations of trust.
💡 While organizations have made significant progress in brand strategy and communications, the Benchmark Study identified Collaboration & Partnerships as the weakest-performing pillar. Yet many of the Blueprint’s strongest case studies illustrate that transformative impact rarely happens in isolation. Whether through partnerships with governments, NGOs, suppliers, industry associations, or technology providers, leading organizations are leveraging collaboration to solve complex challenges, accelerate innovation, and create systemic change. As the reports highlight, the greatest opportunities for innovation and impact often exist at the intersection of sectors, disciplines, and value chains.
