Sustainable Business

Sustainability Stakeholder engagement 3/4 we emit a kilogram of carbon dioxide from a sports car or from listening to whale music – it's a kilogram of carbon dioxide either way. That's what business needs to address, he asserts, not nebulous concepts around mindfulness. If sustainable business is to continue to remain relevant – not just to itself, but society at large – then those egos must be sacrificed. "We are all very passionate about our learning, but none of that is relevant if nothing changes on the ground." Environmental business adviser Brendan May of Robertsbridge Group echoes this view – he goes so far as to suggest that the sustainable business circuit is becoming a jargon-filled parody of itself. "Very clear and simple concepts about the urgent imperatives that we need to address are being window-dressed in this blanket of jargon and clever phrases. None of this really addresses any of the big issues … we need to return to a more grounded environmentalism around what it is that business can do and should do," he argues. Part of the problem he feels is that what once began as a movement has now become an industry and consequently academised. "This is the kind of thing that happens and we have taken our eye off the ball in how we tackle some pretty fundamental issues. Listening to Western academics preach on about less consumption and having a zero growth economy – it all sounds terrific in practice, but it's complete pie in the sky. We have to focus on the battles that we can win. "When we take the really huge issues – biodiversity loss, the fossil fuel crisis, climate change, the state of the world's fish stocks – these determine the planetary boundaries that we can sustain, and we have to look at which forums, which organisations, which companies, which NGOs have had a level of success in tackling those problems at a fundamental level. What metrics can we devise to determine whether we have succeeded or failed? Clearly the answer will be failure." Business leader Simon Graham, environmental strategist at Commercial Group, has a slightly different take. He feels that the environmental industry has grown up and as such, the challenge for sustainability managers has got more complex – it's now about systems thinking rather than simple resource efficiency. Language is key in preventing stakeholders from feeling overloaded and alienated

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