The latest report of the Leonardo Centre introduces a groundbreaking behavioural approach to assess corporate sustainability—moving beyond ESG scores, which often reward risk-focused, symbolic actions over meaningful impact. Using the GOLDEN Dataset of 1M+ initiatives from 15,000 companies, researchers categorise sustainability actions into Advocacy, Preparation, and Transformation.

Key insight: Transformational actions—those embedded in core business strategy—deliver the highest financial returns, outperforming advocacy and preparation efforts by a clear margin.

The study introduces two new tools: Business Impact Maturity and the Impact Finance Maturity Model, helping financial institutions align capital with real sustainability outcomes.

Key takeaway: Companies that integrate sustainability into innovation and strategy outperform. We need finance to shift from ESG scores to behaviour-based, impact-driven decision-making.

Download the full report here.

This publication builds on the GOLDEN Sustainability Dataset. It addresses the important question of whether there is a trade off between sustainability and profitability as many sustainability critics try to make believe us. The question has been studied for decades with conflicting results. But now enabled by the results of the analysis of the GOLDEN Sustainability Dataset this publication breaks new ground by connecting the type of corporate sustainability strategies and behaviour with shareholder returns. In this report the researchers at the Leonardo Centre at Imperial:

• Share the key features of the data used for the analysis of portfolio risks and returns based on the characteristics of company sustainability initiatives.
   
• Leverage that data to empirically test a range of propositions related to the impact of sustainability behaviour on risk-adjusted returns. 
   
• Propose a complete Business Impact Maturity (BIM) model to evaluate Company sustainability performance, including the purpose, strategic, organisational and cultural elements of maturity.
   
• Distil the key insights emerging from the results of the analyses and conceptual developments into key implications for different stakeholder groups including businesses, investors and financial institutions,  policymakers and international institutions.

Download the full report here.

In his blog on Rewilding Markets, John Elkington, one of the thought leaders on sustainability reflects on a conversation with GOLDEN's president, Maurizio Zollo, about the opportunities provided by the GOLDEN Sustainability Dataset allowing a fresh look on the challenges for systemic change.