Yet executives are often reluctant to place sustainability core to their company’s business strategy in the mistaken belief that the costs outweigh the benefits.

On the contrary, academic research and business experience point to quite the opposite.

Sustainable businesses are redefining the corporate ecosystem by designing models that create value for all stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, supply chains, civil society, and the planet. Michel Porter and Mark Kramer pioneered the idea of “creating shared value,” arguing that businesses can generate economic value by identifying and addressing social problems that intersect with their business.

Tesla's lack of published details related to its low carbon strategy or business conduct codes,

Tesla has become the most valuable auto industry company by pioneering EVs and expanding into battery storage for electric grids and solar-power systems.

The company expects to lose production of about 100,000 vehicles in North America in the second half, and anticipates commodity costs rising by $1.5 billion-$2.0 billion.

Supply-chain crunches, notably a shortage of chips, and the rising cost of raw materials and labor make it more expensive to produce a vehicle.

GM’s cost of auto sales more than doubled in the second quarter to about $27 billion. I

"With supply conditions showing little sign of improvement, the onus is on the Fed to hit the brakes via higher rates to allow demand to better match supply conditions.

The recession threat is rising," said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

The Fed began tightening policy only in March, and has already raised its benchmark overnight lending rate by 1.5 percentage points

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the average after-tax cost of a company's various capital sources

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the average after-tax cost of a company’s various capital sources

includes common stock, preferred stock, bonds, and other debt.

WACC is the discount rate that a company uses to estimate its net present value.

when analyzing the potential benefits of taking on projects or acquiring another business

WACC is commonly used as a hurdle rate against which companies and investors can gauge the desirability of a given project or acquisition

An optimal capital structure is the best mix of debt and equity financing that maximizes a company’s market value while minimizing its cost of capital.

The lower the cost of capital, the greater the present value of the firm’s future cash flows, discounted by the WACC.

find the optimal capital structure that will result in the lowest WACC and the maximum value of the company (shareholder wealth).

The cost of capital becomes a factor in deciding which financing track to follow: debt, equity, or a combination of the two

Early-stage companies rarely have sizable assets to pledge as collateral for loans, so equity financing becomes the default mode of funding

interest rate paid by the company on its debt

The amount of money that is required to obtain capital from different sources, called cost of capital

is crucial in determining a company's optimal capital structure.