Curiosity before conclusions
Start with what the business needs to achieve. Explore different responses and focus the effort where it can create the most value.
About Sustainable Edge
Make sustainability work
for the business.
We help businesses make the best commercial use of sustainability: making more of necessary change and developing opportunities of their own.
We identify the evidence that matters, bring the right people together and develop a response, investment case, product, service or business model the business can act on.
Our working principles
Thinking inside and outside the box.
Some requirements are fixed. The business response rarely is. We work within real constraints while remaining open to better possibilities. A necessary change might be applied across a product range, built into a new service or addressed through a different partnership.
Bring the right perspectives together
The answer is rarely held by one function. We involve the relevant people from sustainability, product, sales, marketing, operations and finance while choices can still be shaped.
Imagination with commercial discipline
Develop the possibilities, then test them against customer value, economics and feasibility. Use the best available evidence and make the important uncertainties clear.
The story of Sustainable Edge
The requirements are often clearer than the commercial possibilities.
Sustainable Edge grew from an observation that kept returning during founder Nic Kaftan’s broad exploration of sustainability. Businesses could see what they needed to measure, report or change, and the work and cost involved, but not always how to make the investment count, protect value or develop something better from it.
Sustainable Edge was created to help businesses connect the two: make more of changes they need to make and develop opportunities of their own.
About Nic Kaftan
Nic has more than 20 years of experience in consulting, innovation and commercial leadership. At BASES, an innovation and marketing consultancy, he advised senior teams at Fortune 150 and DAX companies on product, portfolio and innovation decisions, including sustainable packaging and claims.
His experience also spans product development, portfolio management, business development, global accounts and regional P&L responsibility. He has seen these decisions from both sides: advising the client and being accountable for the result.
Since 2023, Nic has undertaken a deliberate deep dive into sustainability, spanning reporting, climate and carbon, human rights, circular economy, sustainable innovation and business models. This includes Business Sustainability Management and Sustainable Finance at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and his work as an MBA candidate at Leuphana. This breadth helps Sustainable Edge connect what businesses must address with what it means commercially and what they could develop from it.
Explore the thinking
Access is the starting point.
Advantage takes more.
The Access Advantage examines how sustainability shapes permission to compete: buyer requirements, evidence and organisational capabilities. Securing that access matters, but does not automatically differentiate a business.
The Perspectives collection examines the next commercial questions: when sustainability changes customer choice, whether an opportunity merits investment and what makes an offer more competitive.
Work with Sustainable Edge
A commercial perspective.
Applied to your business.
Explore the consulting work or talk to us about a requirement, opportunity or direction you want to develop.