Sustainable Business

Sustainability Stakeholder engagement 4/4 Hence the language is evolving to take account of this more ambitious approach. "The position of chief sustainability officer now exists, and the language of policy drive in that sense might be changing. Every industry needs a jargon … it provides shortcuts in terms of explanation. The challenge is when it breaks out of the area where it is supposed to be," he notes. Asked whether he thinks the language is moving to an inappropriate place, Graham says: "The analogy could be that we are used to reading factual books using factual language and then someone presents us with a factual book using fictional language, and we are not sure what it is – is it fact or now fiction? There is an uncomfortableness sometimes when we are bridging those gaps." Interestingly he acknowledges that there is now an emergent tension which may be contributing to confusion over what terminology to employ; as sustainability becomes mainstream, the industry underpinning it is struggling to define what it is actually there for. "How does sustainability now add value when it's becoming business as usual?" he questions. It's a view echoed by Kane, with a degree of irony. "Things which ten years ago would have been seen as green such as ISO 14001 and energy-efficient lightbulbs, are just seen as normal now. A lot of things that were regarded as specialist are becoming commoditised, but we've got to accept that's a sign of success. Ultimately, our ambition as a sustainability industry should be to make ourselves redundant because then our job will be done." Whether or not you feel that the sustainable business movement is too busy carving out an elitist niche for itself, one thing is clear – its practitioners certainly wouldn't wish to talk themselves out of a job. That would be far too 'disruptive'. Maxine Perella is a freelance journalist Simple concepts about the urgent imperatives we need to address are being window-dressed in this blanket of jargon

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