This blog, along with the Part 2, are pretty deep, so buckle up. I was inspired by a recent LinkedIn post from Alison Taylor arguing that we shouldn’t always need a business case for doing the right thing, linking to her excellent article in Harvard Business Review way back in 2017. If you haven’t read that, I highly recommend making a few minutes to do so.
I’ve given the sustainability business case thought for years (indeed the basic ideas are the foundation for my book) and was encouraged by this week’s Masterclass on The ROI of Sustainability hosted by Daniel Aronson (listen to his podcast with me here) that also included legends Helen Sahi and Andrew Winston.
We have to start with this: sustainability isn’t inherently a problem. At its heart, sustainability is a business issue.
Corporations were created to serve ever-evolving human purposes and problems. Sustainability challenges are directly related to business meeting human wants and needs. Those fundamentally drive economies and business, along with related benefits (e.g., medical advancements, improvements in living conditions, satisfying “wants”) and downsides (e.g., strain on natural resources, pollution/climate impacts, human suffering). Sustainability encompasses both.
Every sustainability issue or problem ultimately comes down to human/business dynamics.
Should we change human behavior or push companies to solve problems we create? Ken Pucker and Diane Osgood (two of my favorites) write about the need for behavioral change all the time. But that needle isn’t moving even with decades of data showing environmental and social costs of increasing consumption – think fast fashion, plastics and GHG emissions. Companies must meet increases in product demand and financial goals while concurrently compensating for a lack of human behavioral change. A business issue requiring business solutions.
Governments pass laws and promulgate regulations related to sustainability concerning product content/safety or impacts of manufacturing processes and impose additional operating costs. A business issue requiring business solutions. (Ken points out governmental policy sometimes does have direct effects – “Since imposition of the 145% tariffs on China + the cessation of the de minimis exemption… The President endorsed degrowth noting ‘Maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30’… According to Bloomberg, price increases from Temu and SHEIN resulted in sales decreases of 17% and 23% last week.”)
Alison wrote about corporate ethics and doing the right thing – a business issue requiring business solutions.
Impact, climate risk management, responsible supply chains, brand value/reputation, intangibles, the “value of values” – all business issues requiring business solutions.
I may sound like Debbie Downer here, but I’m not. In the next blog, I’ll explain why and ways sustainability professionals can truly catalyze change.
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