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Sustainability insights: Ralph Thurm

BLOG BY SUSTAINABILITY HUB NORWAY - 04.04.22

We’ve asked some of our speakers from across the world about sustainability reporting and its challenges, their best sustainability hacks and more. Read on for our second interview with Ralph Thurm, leading professional in sustainable innovation and strategy, operational sustainability, sustainability change management, sustainability reporting, transformation and ThriveAbility. 

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With about 30 years of experience working for major corporations, industry federations, governments, NGOs and advisory services globally, Ralph adds value as an advisor, trainer, facilitator, moderator and writer on a huge variety of sustainability topics. He is the Founder & Managing Director of A|HEAD|ahead, a management advisory firm focused on sustainable transformation and strategic positioning. In 2012 he co-founded the NGO r3.0 (Redesign for Resilience and Regeneration) and works on a systemic work ecosystem that allows a leapfrog towards the urgently needed regenerative & distributive economy. His 2021 bestselling book ‘The Corona Chronicles - Envisioning a New Normal for Regeneration and Thriving’ ranked #6 on Amazon.
​

​How can we collectively advance sustainability reporting and
sustainable finance? 

“On the reporting side r3.0 has presented the ’New Impetus’ in which reporters focus on purpose, success, and scalability as the three focus areas. Success measurement is context-based and multicapital-based in order to allow a statement of the System Value Creation of the reporting organisation. The Investment World is asked to pick up context-based multicapitalism in their ratings, rankings, indices and investment decisions. A green or sustainable finance product that is unable to prove System Value Creation remains unable to show true sustainability performance, only ESG performance at best, which as it stands says nothing about sustainability.”
In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge in sustainability
reporting and sustainable finance at the moment?

“Overcoming a major cognitive dissonance by simply not wanting to understand the difference between ESG and sustainability. There’s a constant pull to drill deeper and deeper in existing standards and schemes as a second step, while not having finished homework on the first step, and that is to align thresholds and allocations to individual performance topics.”
 
Are there any best practices, industry collaborations, or measurements
​you would like to highlight? 

“The development of the r3.0 Work Ecosystem with its 9 Blueprints has been a major collaborative effort. Deriving from that our collaboration with UNRISD (Sustainable Development Indicators), and our recently started ’Transcending Incrementalism’ campaign, all ramping up to the instigation of a Global Thresholds & Allocations Council (a proposed multi-stakeholder council to establish an authoritative approach to reporting economic, environmental and social performance in relation to generally accepted boundaries and limits) are getting us ready for a thresholds & allocations-based sustainability and regenerative economy design.”
 
What do you consider to be the future of sustainable finance and/or
reporting? 

“Success in the above-mentioned initiatives!”
 
What's your best sustainability hack?  
“There is no sustainable business in an unsustainable economic system! Hack the system!”
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  • About
    • About Us
    • Team
    • Join us!
  • Membership
    • Discover our memberships
    • S•HUB Members
  • S•HUB Offerings
    • CFO Network
    • Sustainable Innovation
    • Sustainable Procurement
    • Metrics and Reporting
    • S•CONNECT
  • Events
    • S-HUB Summit May 7 2025
    • S•HUB Events
    • Event Sponsorship
  • News & Resources
    • S•HUB ARTICLES
    • State of Sustainability Survey
    • Job Portal