What sustainability means
Sustainability is a massively overused word. So let’s spend some time thinking about what sustainability really means.
What’s the opposite of sustainable?
From a business perspective, I find it helpful to remember that the opposite of sustainable is unsustainable – if you want your business to be here in 10 years then you need to be sustainable.
And this can mean:
Making enough money to be financially viable
Innovating to remain relevant
Treating the people and communities you interact with in a way that builds long term relationships and means they want to keep interacting with you
Not taking resources from the planet at a faster rate than they’re able to be replenished
Not producing waste that the planet can’t deal with
Some examples
To make this a bit more real, let’s look at some examples of things that aren’t sustainable.
1. Enron
Enron failed because of poor governance. There was a lot of dodgy stuff going on and the internal processes and controls weren’t effective in stopping it. The main issue was dubious unethical accounting practices – and Enron’s auditors, Arthur Andersen one of the largest global accounting firms at the time, ended up collapsing too.
2. Food supply chains
Empty supermarket shelves have become a familiar image over the last couple of years. The resilience of our supply chains has been questioned, especially the just in time model and international nature of our food supply chains.
As climate change impacts increase, our supply chains will become increasingly fragile. For example, extreme weather events around the world could disrupt supply chains. And changing climate is affecting the regions that produce crops like coffee, making supply less reliable.
This creates risks for businesses. Supply chains need to be resilient for businesses to be sustainable.
3. Rana Plaza
In 2013, the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 1000 people and injuring many more.
The building contained 5 clothing factories that supplied companies like Primark, Walmart, Prada and Gucci. Its collapse raised awareness globally of poor and dangerous working conditions within fashion supply chains.
Whilst there’s still a huge amount of work needed to make the fashion industry sustainable, this incident raised consumer awareness and has seen the creation of a number of fashion industry coalitions and consumer movements, looking to drive change across the whole industry.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainability means a lot of things. The 17 UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) were developed in 2015 and cover the whole breadth of what we might mean by sustainability. They include things like:
Eliminating poverty
Ensuring no one goes hungry
Access to quality education
Gender equality
Clear water and sanitation
Reduced inequalities
Peace and justice
As well as the things which fall under the banner of environmental sustainability like:
Action to tackle climate change
Biodiversity
Thriving oceans
Reduced waste and the circular economy
The SDGs can be a great place to start when you’re beginning to talk about sustainability within your business – you can go through them as a team and see what applies to your business. And which ones you’re most excited by.
That said, they can feel quite overwhelming. No one company can tackle all these things. And yet business can play a vital role in helping us collectively achieve these goals.
The future = sustainable business
The direction of travel is clear. We’re entering a new era for business.
There’s a huge opportunity for the businesses that get ahead of the curve, developing new products and services – and even new markets and industries. They’ll be the leaders of the zero-carbon future. They’ll be able to attract the best staff, attract new customers and access funding.
For more practical advice on how to get clarity on what steps to take to scale up your impact, check out my FREE Scale Up Your Impact Guide: