The Breakthrough Challenge

10 Ways to Connect Today's Profits with Tomorrow's Bottom Line

By: John Elkington, Jochen Zeitz

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

The world's most forward-looking CEOs recognize the real challenge facing business today: a fundamental shift in the nature of commerce. While sustainability programs, government action, and nonprofits are all parts of the solution, CEOs and other leaders must focus on social, environmental, and economic benefits - not only because it will make the world a better place but because it will ensure lasting profitability and success in the business climate of tomorrow.

The Breakthrough Challenge is both an inspiring call to action and a guide for this transformation based on the work of The B Team, a major initiative uniting leaders in sustainability. As a founding advisor and a member of The B Team, John Elkington and Jochen Zeitz map out an agenda for change. The most important goal for businesses must be redefining the bottom line to account for true long-term costs throughout the supply chain. To achieve this leaders must rethink everything: what counts on balance sheets, how to incentivize performance, who does what in the C-suite, and even what inspires us.

The Breakthrough Challenge draws on more than 100 exclusive interviews to show this shift in action, sharing the pioneering work of leaders such as Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever; Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of The Huffington Post; Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman of the Nestle Group; and Linda Fisher, pioneering chief sustainability officer at DuPont, among many others. Change-as-usual strategies are not enough to move business from breakdowns to breakthroughs. The Breakthrough Challenge shows leaders how to achieve true transformation and refocus the definition of profitability on the lasting well-being of people and planet - for the lasting success of their business.

©2014 John Elkington and Jochen Zeitz (P)2014 Audible Inc.