“Business collaboration” is the great oxymoron of corporate sustainability. Countless efforts by companies to work together to tackle the most complex challenges facing our world today—including climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystem loss—have failed because of competitive self-interest, a lack of a fully shared purpose, and a shortage of trust. To be sure, smart companies have embraced sustainability as a business imperative, and many have successful ongoing initiatives in areas they can address on their own—streamlining their manufacturing processes or reducing their fleet emissions, for instance. But when it comes to developing collaborative solutions to systemic problems, very little progress has been made.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review.