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In This Issue:
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EcoSTEPS NetLetter - 20 Feb 2008
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Welcome
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Hi there! Welcome to the EcoSTEPS netletter. Each month we aim to bring you an interesting mix of sustainability news and information. We always welcome your comments and feedback.
Many readers will appreciate that this month's issue is published at the start of the 'Year of the Rat', according to the Chinese zodiac. By tradition, a Rat year is a period of hard work, activity and renewal, and is a good time to begin a new job, launch a product or make a fresh start. In a business context, ventures we begin now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. We'll see...
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Leader Businesses
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'Leader Business Strategies' provides new research on sustainable development and the business case. It found that companies are profiting from treating sustainability as a strategic issue.
In the past, companies asked: 'What should our sustainability strategy be for our business?' Now they're asking 'What should our business strategy be, in the light of sustainability?' There has been a shift from 'risk' to 'opportunity'. The key messages of the report are:-
First, sustainability will drive the strategic context for business for the next decade – indeed it's already an important driver.
Second, there is an opportunity for bold action now from businesses that are both profitable and create a sustainable future – anticipating how sustainability will affect the strategic context. Companies who ask, “What should our strategy be, in the light of sustainability?” have the chance to thrive – sustainability and profitability will increasingly be seen as the same thing.
Third, there are Leader Businesses capturing the opportunity in these business strategies.
This echoes EcoSTEPS recent experiences with a range of organisations in Australia.
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Green Business
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State of Green Business has recently been released by Joel Makower and the editors of GreenBiz.com.
It addresses the question: 'How are US businesses doing in their quest to be greener and more environmentally responsible?' It introduces the GreenBiz Index, a set of 20 indicators of progress, tracking the resource use, emissions, and business practices of companies: carbon, materials, energy, clean-tech investments, e-waste recovery, paper use, employee commuting, and more.
While the focus is the US, there is a wealth of excellent material and ideas that have applicability all around the world...
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Climate Code Red
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'Climate Code Red: The case for a sustainability emergency' is a new report, prepared by Carbon Equity and the Greenleap Strategic Institute (Philip Sutton). It argues for the need to declare a climate emergency. It's passionate and articulate - and very sobering reading.
Climate Code Red was reviewed by Ian Dunlop as follows:
'Nationalism and short-term vested interests have so far prevented the development of a global governance framework capable of handling this “Tragedy of the Commons”. However, the issue of global sustainability is now much bigger than any nation state. Global warming, in particular, is moving far faster than the scientists had predicted, to the point where we are already in the danger zone.
The stark fact is that we face a global sustainability emergency. But it is impossible to design realistic solutions unless we first understand and accept the size of the problem. We know those solutions; what is lacking is the political will, firstly to honestly articulate the problem and secondly to implement those solutions.'
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Ten points from Green Gurus
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Forum for the Future asked nine green business and branding gurus to review recent trends towards sustainable business. Here's what they came up with:
1. A real sea change is underway
2. Land ahoy... but not docking just yet
3. Get your house in order first
4. Take sustainability to the heart
5. Delivery and performance is everything
6. Challenge and change the business model
7. Business [not consumers] in the driving seat
8. Rise of the [green] opportunity agenda
9. Changing marketing
10. And the winner is… M&S's (Plan A) and GE's Ecomagination were the most mentioned for best practice and leadership – as well as cases that are already commercially benefiting from sustainability.
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Treading Lightly
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'Treading Lightly' is a wonderful book by knowledge management expert Karl-Erik Sveiby and artist Tex Skuthorpe. Given the recent 'Sorry' apology, it's highly recommend reading to gain some insights into Australian Aboriginal society’s model for sustainability - which has the longest proven track record on earth. While societies outside Australia emerged, prospered and went under, Aboriginal society withstood and proved its sustainability over tens of thousands of years of dramatic events, until the Europeans’ arrival in 1788. How did the Aborigines do it? How did they organise for sustainability? What type of leadership did it require? They must have had a ‘recipe for success’. What was it? Could we reconstruct it?
Read the book to find out more... And in the meantime, from all the EcoSTEPS team: Keep treading lightly!
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