Sustainability Overview
“We can’t lower the mountains we have to climb, but we can elevate ourselves to ascend them”
“Edmonton and its River” by WherezJeff is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
What is Sustainability
While ‘sustainability’ as a business term is often understood in relation to the environment, it applies to much more. Sustainability by definition is the ability of any one system, or interrelated systems, to operate in balance, indefinitely… This means avoiding un-repairable damage, drawdown or irreplaceable depletion of any required resource, resulting in system(s) breakdown.
Another way to look at sustainability is as ‘resiliency’, the ability to endure - with an ideal state for sustainability as a ‘thriving resiliency of our major global systems’:
Economy
Environment
Society
Going beyond basic 3P or ‘Triple Bottom Line’ (People, Planet and Profit) measurement models, sustainability requires all three of these major systems to thrive not just independently, but in balance. Covid19 is a very real, stark example of the systems connectedness, when our social/environmental systems falter, all three systems lurch out of balance.
Sustainability goes much further than traditional philanthropy for things like social justice, or environmentalism, and further than current Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plans or (ESG) Environment, Social, Governance models. Sustainability as an objective, is about acknowledging it’s no longer enough to simply adhere to base-line regulatory or legal requirements, and call it good. We can, and need to all do better. Aspirational concepts of Social Purpose are going to be a big part of that. Our goal as people, citizens and professionals, as businesses, industries, governments and nations, needs to be ‘global sustainability’ for ourselves today, and our collective future.
This will no doubt take new collective vision and determination in our bold and curious pursuit of innovative solutions, big and small, to redesign our major systems approach to our economy, society, and relationship with our environment. Sustainability is the future path for all of us. The great news is, there is already so much inspiring work happening around the world, across Canada and right here in YEG, Alberta.
It’s BIG, ambitious and inspiring to go after. Hope you feel the same.
Here are some helpful links to other sustainability definition sources so you can noodle on it further for yourself:
For more in-depth info, check out the next sections on economy + environment, and economy + society.
"Ice District, Edmonton" by WherezJeff is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Economy + Environment
Meeting the challenges of an increasingly complex geopolitical world and serious environmental challenges, including climate change, actually provides us with an unprecedented opportunity for our economy to thrive.
It often feels like our interests in growth-focused economy and our environment are at odds – because we’ve known no other way than to heavily favour maximized growth and profitability, where business can often only afford to retroactively invest in innovation, clean technology or environmental clean-up efforts.
This approach seemingly drives great value for us as consumers, delivering the best products or service for best price. But… so far this basic level of market competition hasn't also delivered the environmental protections we know should be there. And it’s understandable. Historically, un-required environmental safeguards that went beyond base-line legal and industry regulatory requirements costs businesses more. In the short-term, it drove operation and production costs up, making companies less profitable, competitive and valuable to shareholders. This is largely because we as consumers haven’t fully understood the larger value equation and long-term impacts.
In economics, cost/impacts outside legal and regulatory standards are often referred to as ‘externalities’. These un-calculated social, environmental impacts and costs, are not factored into the overall value equation and actual costs of doing business or reflected in the market price of the product or service we as consumers purchase.
Looking forward, picture a free-market economy where the best product or service at the best price was based on that overall value equation, and also meant being sustainable - where the businesses that thrived, the only businesses we as consumers patronized, were also the most innovative and proactively sustainable businesses in the market - the ones that built sustainability right into their core business model. It’s not so hard to imagine, a consumer behaviour-driven ‘restorative or circular economy’. Though government policy and law makers have an important role to play, it’s much more about what we as consumers value and reward. A sustainable economy values more than just cheap, fast and convenient. The great news is, as consumers become more knowledgeable about the overall value equation and longer-term impacts we’re having on the environment, change is already happening in a big way. Visionary business leaders from global brands like Patagonia and Marks & Spencer, to small business social enterprise are recognizing the shift as a powerful opportunity to gain competitive market advantage today, and for the long run.
Here are some helpful links to other sources on shifting consumer markets, and the sustainable economy:
GlobeScan - Aspirationals - largest consumer market
CSR Hub - 19,000+ CSR Company Ratings
"Sunny Pride Festival” by Kurayba is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Economy + SoCiety
It’s important to remind ourselves that the economy is a human construct designed to serve society - to unify our efforts and maximize our collective ingenuity, wealth and social progress, improving well-being for all. With this in mind, it’s also important to consider the power of the economy, as embedded inside our larger society, including the immense wealth created by the non-financial economy including households (core economy) and the social commons (shared knowledge).
Profitability and social justice shouldn’t be at odds. In a sustainable model, they should drive each other. Going beyond the basic, value of providing employment, business brings resources to scale, not just for environmental solutions, but also for social solutions in partnership with government and the charitable sector around core issues like:
Poverty
Equity, Diversity + Inclusion (EDI)
Education
Health (incl. mental health)
Some of the most well-known brands in the world are already moving in this direction of empowering social equity, collective innovation, progress and social well-being:
Microsoft’s purpose statement is "To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” [read more]
Google’s purpose statement is "To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” [read more]
There is lots of work to do here, especially tied to ending systemic racism and accelerating our pursuit of equality. Tangible and meaningful shifts in the measure of business success toward more than just financial growth, including social justice are critical for a planet currently projected to have 10+ billion people by 2100 (current 2020 pop 7.8B).
Alignment of business purpose to solve the world’s greatest social challenges, in partnership with government and the charitable sector, needs to have a profound positive impact on society, focused on protecting human rights, creating greater opportunity for all through increased access to fundamental social accelerators like healthcare and education, and economic opportunity, leading us to a more socially sustainable and just world.
And the great news is, our depth of understanding in just how interconnected we all are, with each other the economy and the world around us, is growing all the time.
Here are some helpful links to other sources on social sustainability:
