I read an interesting article today in the McKinsey Quarterly by Adam Werbach. Adam is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, and was the youngest ever president of the Sierra Club. He is the author of many works on sustainability, including the 1997 book Act Now, Apologize Later. The article I read is adapted from Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, Werbach’s new book.
In 2004, he argued in a widely discussed speech that environmentalism had hit a wall because it focused on green issues rather than a larger goal: sustainability – an argument that still resonates today.
His willingness to help Wal-Mart’s efforts to achieve it made him still more controversial among environmentalists, but is probably one of the great corporate sustainability success stories, and is a strong precursor to much of the corporate sustainability programs that we see today.
Adam points out that of the world’s 100 largest economic entities, 63 are corporations, not countries – a statistic that is both terrifying and inspiring. Imagine how much easier managing environmental issues would be if made a priority by the world’s largest corporations, and not stagnated by the in-fighting that characterises most government dealings.
He goes on to talk about how true sustainability has four equal components:
- social, to address conditions that affect us all, including poverty, violence, injustice, education, public health, and labor and human rights
- economic, to help people and businesses meet their economic needs—for people: securing food, water, shelter, and creature comforts; for businesses: turning a profit
- environmental, to protect and restore the Earth—for example, by controlling climate change, preserving natural resources, and preventing waste
- cultural, to protect and value the diversity through which communities manifest their identity and cultivate traditions across generations
Although the challenges to sustainability are acute, there has never been a better time than the present for a company to play a critical role in helping to resolve them while building up its business. Many of the social and environmental trends we face are sad, even tragic, but sustainability isn’t about throwing your business down the drain and embracing your inner saint – it’s about finding a way to tie sustainability in with corporate strategy, and ultimately making a strong profit by doing the right thing.
You can check out the full article here (may require free sign-up, but trust me it’s worth it – those McKinsey people are clever cookies, and have some fantastic articles).
