‘It’s important’ We’re ‘doing our bit’. We’re ‘on a journey’. Companies sustainability statements are littered with hackneyed phrases that describe the small steps that companies are taking to reduce their impact on the environment. And while it’s right to acknowledge these small steps, it’s also reasonable to ask if it’s enough and if companies really are ‘doing their bit’.
Some firms doubtless are working hard. Look at the products produced by Method, Desso or Interface to name three. But for many companies what is meant by sustainability is incredibly hard to pin down – absolutely that bar of soap. In many cases sustainability is narrowed to environmental issues. Environmental issues are narrowed to carbon. Carbon is narrowed to turning the lights out, or aiming to fly a little less. Actions which are tangential to core business. And keep sustainability safely out of the boardroom.
And yet incremental resource efficiency gain do not make a business sustainable. Companies don’t protect when they destroy a little less. The real opportunity for business today is to understand how they can take advantage of the huge opportunities provided from the move to a sustainable economy. The 9bn population, half of which will be in developing countries by 2050. The demand for zero carbon products. The opportunities that IT provides to develop new leasing models. Or also how communication can open up every part of your business to your customers to see. A great opportunity. A great threat to the unwary. The opportunity for business is to understand how sustainability can help chart the medium term direction of the business as well as make short term gains. This is far from easy, both because short term financial numbers carry enormous importance and also because it’s difficult to think beyond current paradigms. Setting medium term direction is, however, one of the core roles of a board.
The firms who get this right now will be enormously rewarded later. Business in the Community’s Vision2050 programme (http://www.bitc.org.uk/visioning_the_future/) – a programme which WSP has been close to and which launched last week – will work with companies to help them spot the opportunities for boards to grow through sustainability. Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher Group, speaks about the programmes he has in place. These include looking at turning B&Q into a leasing structure rather than selling tools – that get used just twice a year in the UK. He also talks about launching a suite of products to help ageing people stay at home (and which don’t look like pieces of the planned economy), and working on new delivery models for paint that don’t involve shipping huge volumes of water.
Helping business take the real lead on driving sustainability rather than just operational efficiency is a new, and terrifically exciting opportunity, and one which here in WSP we’re working hard at both ourselves and with our clients. And that bar of soap? Well one project we’re working on is to change the sign in the hotel room to ‘change the towels as often as you like’ – making the sustainable choice the nicest choice for you and me, and changing the rules of the business game. And this will be justified because the system we’re designing will improve the environment from end to end – from the washing mechanism, to the recovery process to the energy used to run the system. If we get this right, it will redefine this small part of the market, it will be a new paradigm for sustainability and will reward our clients handsomely. This is the opportunity for business from sustainability.
David Symons
Director
WSP Environment & Energy
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