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PurposeThis paper aims to address the importance of a framework for developing employees' sustainability knowledge, skills, and behaviors.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on in‐depth interviews with executives from five Fortune 1000 companies that are viewed as market leaders in addressing sustainability.FindingsThis paper provides a series of initiatives to equip their employees' talent – from top executives to employees throughout the organization – with the much needed, but often sorely lacking knowledge, skills and attitudes to spearhead efforts to attend to sustainability both today and tomorrow.Practical implicationsThe usefulness of demonstrating a company's suite of ongoing initiatives to address sustainability to potential employees during the recruiting process is highlighted by each company.Originality/valueThe framework covered by this paper can help companies enhance their talent management skills.

Purpose -As a multi-speed recovery from the downturn accelerates progress towards a multi-polar world in which economic power is more widely dispersed, the emerging markets will play a critical role in the future success of multinational companies. The imperatives faced by companies seeking to secure their future competitiveness can be better appreciated through an understanding of the sustainability landscape, and this paper seeks to examine perspectives on environmental, social and governance issues from CEOs in the emerging markets.Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on extensive conversations with business leaders, both through the authors' work with leading multinational companies and their survey of over 800 global CEOs conducted in partnership with the United Nations Global Compact -the largest CEO study on sustainability to date. In the spirit of contributing to the debate on corporate sustainability, the paper presents the findings not as an academic submission, but rather as a reflective practitioner paper based on the authors' applied research. Their intention throughout is to faithfully report the views of the CEOs interviewed and surveyed, offering in places the beginnings of their own explanation of their results, and highlighting areas for future research and engagement by academics and educators.Findings -As one looks towards the next decade, and new waves of growth, it is clear that CEOs are beginning to recognize the scale of the challenge they face in aligning sustainability with core business. They also recognize, however, that this transition will depend on the economy's most powerful force, business -and that, with immediate and sustained action, individual companies can play a critical role in building the foundations of a more sustainable economy. From the wide-ranging set of interviews and survey responses, it seems that nowhere does this seem to be more keenly felt than in the emerging markets, and it is hoped that this is a timely and useful contribution to advancing the debate, with a unique insight into the views of CEOs and global leaders on what it will take to reach a new era of sustainability.Originality/value -This paper, based on extensive conversations with an unprecedented set of leading global CEOs, presents perspectives of leading CEOs in the emerging markets. By examining the forces shaping businesses' response to societal demands and the challenges of corporate sustainability, the authors set out some of the ways in which business is responding -and some of the capabilities that will be required to secure companies' competitiveness on the journey to a new era of sustainability.

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