Consulting for sustainability with impact
Sustainability secures long-term success and demands a rethink within companies. Technology, culture and processes change. These changes often meet with resistance from employees. Change management helps overcome barriers — through clear communication and involvement at every level. It fosters understanding, new behavior and acceptance. Our extensively proven approach is the key to successful sustainability and lasting change in the company.
We identify and shape change
Our consulting supports your technological, cultural and organizational transformation — for greater sustainability, innovative strength and future viability.
Our sustainability consulting builds trust
We reduce uncertainties and resistance, strengthen knowledge and shape change together with your employees — for genuine participation and motivation.
We secure the success of your sustainability project
With our experience and know-how as the No. 1 change management consultancy in Germany, we make sure you reach your sustainability goals with confidence.
Our Clients
How we start your transformation: developing the sustainability strategy
Developing your own sustainability strategy is often well received by leaders, employees and the public. But as soon as it comes to integrating sustainability into the corporate strategy, securing commitment in top management, involving stakeholders and defining measurable goals, it gets difficult. Many challenges arise here that have to be overcome.
With our consulting for sustainability, we help you define your own practical sustainability strategy and plan and implement all the related tasks. This brings you a whole range of benefits: your company stays future-proof, builds trust with stakeholders, makes a positive contribution to society and the environment, and much more.
Your benefits at a glance:
Meet requirements
More and more legal regulations and international standards, e.g. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), make sustainability mandatory. With your sustainability strategy, you ensure that you meet these requirements as well as your own goals.
Secure competitive advantages
Our sustainability consulting strengthens your market position. You stand out from the competition, solidify your brand and convince investors with strong sustainability performance — a plus for your capital raising and long-term financing.
Increase resource efficiency
Your sustainability strategy and the goals derived from it promote the targeted use of resources. This lowers costs, reduces waste, saves energy and improves your procurement — sustainably and economically.
Retain & attract employees
A strategic focus on sustainability strengthens your corporate culture and increases employee retention. At the same time, your company attracts new talent looking for a responsible employer.
Improve risk management
Our sustainability consulting helps you mitigate risks arising from environmental damage, resource scarcity or societal pressure. This strengthens your resilience and secures the future viability of your company.
Discuss your project with us
“With their own sustainability strategy, companies ensure that they remain future-proof and build trust.”
Diana Herr, Senior Manager at CPC
We support your sustainability projects with change management
Does your company want to stay one step ahead of the competition and become an industry pioneer in sustainability? Do you no longer want to just react to regulatory changes, but move ahead proactively? Once you have defined and aligned your sustainability strategy and the goals of the transformation, the next step in our sustainability consulting is implementation: setting up concrete projects with which you achieve your goals step by step.
Top management plays a decisive role here: it forms the "guiding coalition" that initiates, steers and takes responsibility for the transformation. It ensures that the right sustainability projects are launched in the right order and staffed competently. Because the necessary adjustments are far-reaching. They typically affect technological developments, cultural topics, organizational structures, processes, metrics systems and incentive models.
Effective change management is essential for success. Only when it is possible to actively involve, motivate and empower business units, leaders and employees does the sustainability transformation become a success.
This is what matters:
1. Break down the strategy
The sustainability strategy and goals have to be made concrete in the business units. We support you in this, make the contributions of the individual units measurable and transparently show the synergies between them.
2. Leaders as role models
Leaders play a key role. Through their behavior they shape the changed corporate culture, motivate their teams and provide orientation. Our change management supports your leaders in leading the way as role models.
3. Inform employees
Not everyone is a born champion of sustainability. Through targeted communication measures, we convey the relevance of the topic to your employees — without overwhelming them, especially at the beginning of the transformation.
4. Enable and involve teams
Training, involvement, encouragement of their own ideas and regular feedback enable and motivate the unit teams to take responsibility and actively help shape the sustainability transformation.
5. Establish behavioral change
Sustainable change only succeeds when new behaviors are permanently anchored. With our SustainABLE approach, we specifically identify levers to foster behavioral change and let go of old habits.
“Only with professional change management do the rollout of the sustainability strategy and the transformation of companies succeed.”
Tanja Fischer, Manager at CPC
Our SustainABLE approach: how your sustainability transformation becomes a success
How does the sustainability transformation succeed? At the heart of our consulting for sustainability is the SustainABLE approach, which views your organization as a whole system — and deliberately aligns strategy, leadership, culture and processes with one another. Sustainability departments, business units, organizational development, culture initiatives and top management work closely together to develop creative yet practical solutions for complex challenges.
With the SustainABLE approach we specifically identify potential for change — and our change management experts then implement it consistently together with you.
Your benefits at a glance:
- You gain transparency and a clear understanding of your sustainability goals and the decisive levers.
- Your organization develops sustainably and responds more resiliently to change.
- Your change processes actively involve employees and encourage co-creation.
Our approach to sustainability consulting follows five clear steps. This iterative and flexible approach ensures that your sustainability goals are successfully achieved:
The SustainABLE approach consists of five clear steps:
1. Clarify strategy and goals
Our consulting for sustainability starts where your company stands today. Together we develop a clear strategy for the transformation. We define measurable sustainability goals and create a shared understanding of the strategy and goals.
2. Conduct analysis
We assess the current state of your organization with regard to sustainability goals and identify necessary adjustments. Our SustainABLE Focus Areas (Anchor, Building Blocks, Leadership, Employees) provide structured orientation.
3. Plan the concept
Based on the analysis, we develop a suitable implementation approach together with you. We involve all relevant stakeholders to develop viable solutions. We then implement the resulting backlog of measures iteratively.
4. Implement measures
Step by step we realize the defined measures together with those involved and the affected employees. We test new approaches, assess their impact and flexibly adapt the approach to changing conditions.
5. Measure success
Sustainability transformations are dynamic and demand adaptability. That is why we carry out regular interim measurements, evaluate the progress achieved and adjust the approach as needed — so you reach your goals with confidence.
Discuss your project with us
In steps 1 and 2 of our SustainABLE approach, we analyze your organization holistically along four central Focus Areas. For each Focus Area we conduct a comprehensive assessment. The results help us develop the right change approach for your organization. In doing so, we consider the following questions:
Anchor
To what extent is the sustainability strategy already anchored in the company? And how should it be anchored in the future?
Building Blocks
Which existing structures and processes support the sustainability strategy? Which additional ones are needed?
Leadership
How do leaders engage with the sustainability strategy? What role-model role should they take on in the future?
Employees
How do employees shape the sustainability culture today? And how should they shape the culture in the future?
With our Focus Areas we precisely analyze the current state and specifically uncover gaps to the desired target state. This creates a sound basis for deriving effective measures for a successful transformation.
“With SustainABLE we identify your change potential and support you through the sustainability transformation.”
Michael Kempf, Partner at CPC
We're grateful for these awards
- CPC is a five-time No. 1 Hidden Champion for change management
- Year after year, brandeins/thema names us Germany's best management consultancy for change management
- We have been a Focus Top Consultant for many years
- Winner of the HR Excellence Award and the European Training Prize together with Deutsche Telekom and Lufthansa Technik
- We are No. 1 Great Place to Work in the 51–100 employees category and a Kununu Top Company.
Let's discuss
your project with us!
The first step is easy — and don't worry: we won't send you dull newsletters or annoying promotional emails. Instead, we focus on what matters: your change goals and how we can move your business forward.
Step 1
Call back or email.
Within 24 hours we get in touch with you, capture your requirements and arrange an appointment with one of our experts.
Step 2
Free initial consultation.
In a video call you explain your project and discuss possible solution scenarios together with our expert.
Step 3
You decide how to proceed.
Proposal, pitch or project kickoff? You set the next steps.
Questions and Answers
The term "sustainability" originally comes from forestry. In the 18th century it referred to the amount of wood that can be removed from a forest without endangering its regeneration. Today sustainability describes the responsible use of all resources — with the aim of preserving them for future generations too.
Since the beginning of this century, sustainability has become the starting point of one of the greatest transformations of the economy. Its urgency and scope are reflected in numerous political initiatives: the Kyoto Protocol, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the EU Climate Law of 2021.
This is not only about climate protection, but about the holistically sustainable use of all resources — ecological, economic and social. Because only through a future-oriented way of doing business do we also give future generations access to these resources.
In addition to the already tangible effects of climate change, the IPCC Report 2022 forecasts a pessimistic future: by the year 2100, scientists expect a mean global temperature rise of 2.1°C–3.5°C. Our transformation speed for reducing greenhouse gases therefore has to change drastically, otherwise we must expect high downstream costs. That is why the political framework is being continuously tightened. And society's demands on companies regarding their sustainability are rising sharply too. For many companies this means a period of upheaval, as existing business models are critically questioned.
The rising pressure to innovate holds great disruptive potential for all industries. Against this backdrop, companies must be positioned to be innovative and adaptable. But when successful companies overhaul structures that have grown over decades, professional support is necessary. Because in addition to the organizational structure, the corporate culture also has to be adapted and the topic of sustainability anchored. Only when leaders convincingly champion the sustainability vision does the transformation succeed.
In projects around sustainability, companies quickly notice that they reach their limits with the usual instruments and methods. Because customer requirements, legal regulations and employees' values change very quickly. Companies therefore need an organization that can react much faster and more flexibly than it did in the past. The resulting changes often affect not only the company itself, but all partnerships along the entire supply chain.
Implementing a sustainability strategy brings technical as well as cultural and organizational changes. Good change management support is therefore necessary to prepare employees for the transformation of the company.
An important step is to make clear to employees what goals the sustainability strategy pursues and what benefits it brings. They should understand why changes are necessary and how they have a positive effect on the company, society and the environment. At the same time, it is crucial to take worries and uncertainties seriously, as change triggers resistance in many employees.
With clear communication, engaging experiential formats and targeted support, change management helps teams actively participate in implementation. It fosters employee engagement and creates a culture that supports openness, collaboration and continuous improvement. This turns a strategy into a shared process that moves your company forward sustainably.
We are the leading change management consultancy in Germany. For more than 30 years we have supported international corporations and large mid-sized companies in a wide range of change projects.
Individuality matters to us: we are convinced that every sustainability project is unique. That is why we assemble the right change building blocks individually together with you. At the same time, after more than 30 years of change management, we have a large methodological toolbox. And since we are convinced of our best practices, we don't have to reinvent everything for your sustainability transformation. That saves time, money and nerves.
Sustainability Use Cases
In our use cases you will find specific examples from companies and illustrations of our concrete approach. Click on the respective case to learn more: