What is "Sustainability"? in UK the "on the ground" issue is "climate change" and "sustainability" is a high level, almost academic issue.
In the US many doubt existence of climate change and we need a word like "sustainability" to speak to the masses, bring the greens & browns together.
Brundtland Commission report definition

What about examples of wins?
Walmart, started with Rob Walton to CEO. Started as marketing but became a part of the organizational culture as "cutting out waste". Fit in with the culture, tapping in to a vein that already existed.
What are the veins for other companies? What if there isn't a strong corporate culture?
In FedEx it is "innovation".
Sovereign Bank has employee-led sustainability initiative but no sr. manager involvement. Buy-out and lay-offs complicate. Think the buy-in will come from cost savings.
Ask of JP Morgan, what is "sustainability" to a bank. Get past "we got rid of statements" move into micro-finance and micro-lending, then equator principles & carbon principles where banks say "we're not going to lend in certain circumstances"
In academics how to teach students that they need to live in a carbon-free world.
If there is a culture there, you have to figure out how to relate to the culture. "can't bomb sustainability in". only 10% know what their culture is. most are only focused on the next quarter. How to create the revolution without a culture.
No culture is a fantastic opportunity. An opportunity to create a vision. Embed sustainability in whatever the emergent culture is.
Look at the way work gets done to help identify cultural drivers.
3 very different cultures - testosterone, waste reduction, innovation. Are there anti-sustainable cultures? e.g., plenty of innovative companies that aren't sustainable.
We have Fortune 500 company that hasn't come out on what they are doing. They are conservative, see this as risky, but have done quite a lot.
External factors important too - e.g., customers. Increasingly "on the RFP". attracting talent.

Are there easy tools that make the business case? Need to show the ROI. Dan's Book (Green to Gold) is great.

3 to 4 to 5 years out is time horizon for showing business imperative for sustainability. starting to see a little of it. "go to where the money is" and now the money is in green efficiency in federal built environment. we're a few years out from seeing a generalizable case.

2004 or 2005 survey of stanford students said that they'd forgo ~9% of compensation to work with a firm that matches their personal values.
Johnson Controls - return on sustainability initiatives shows up in the number/quality of employee applicants as well as finance. Case study.
HP figured out a way to save $30M by switching from wood to plastic (without even counting carbon). Case study on Accenture website.

Building in carbon cost can help investments meet the hurdle rate - are you looking at the right ROI calculation?