Many global challenges - including climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality- cannot be effectively addressed without meaningful engagement from the private sector. However, prevailing economic incentives and competitive pressures can lead businesses to prioritize profits over social and environmental considerations. This session will explore the challenges companies face in aligning sustainability with business strategy and discuss how governance frameworks and policy instruments can support businesses in contributing to societal well-being and environmental sustainability while remaining profitable. The gap between sustainability commitments and corporate practice is not simply a failure of corporate will – it is a design problem. Performance metrics, accounting standards, fiduciary duties, and investor expectations remain overwhelmingly calibrated to short-term financial returns, making it structurally difficult for even committed businesses to prioritise long-term value creation for society and planet. Closing that gap requires more than voluntary initiatives: it demands a fundamental rethinking of how business performance is defined, measured, and governed. The Oxford Rethinking Performance Initiative brings to this session both the diagnostic rigour and the governance imagination to move the conversation from aspiration to architecture.