Sustainability partnerships

Companies engage in sustainability partnerships as a way to address complex social and environmental challenges that exceed the coping capacity of single organisations, even societal sectors (public sector, corporate and civil society). In this chapter, we examine corporate engagement in such sustainability partnerships along the questions of ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘with whom’. We further guide you through the different stages of the partnering process and suggest critical questions to ask and best practices to consider. We address the key challenges involved and also look at the potential dark side of sustainability partnerships, before we close this chapter by exploring which individuals skills will help you successfully engage in these partnerships.