GreenBiz Executive Editor Joel Makower recently reported on a study suggesting that sustainability professionals should avoid talking about "sustainability" within their organizations to be effective. EMC's Kathrin Winkler offers another perspective.
Last year, I heard James Woolsey said something that has been a useful guide to my behavior in my role as CSO. He said (paraphrasing) that what needs to be done is so important that we can't demand the luxury of people having the motivation we want them to have; we must be satisfied with their taking the action that we want them to take.
It comes up often in my role. People say "we didn't do that to reduce GHG emissions; we did it to save money". My response? "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a world where saving money always reduced GHG emissions?" After all, isn't that our ideal - to have an economy in which what's right for the business is always good for the well-being of the planet and society?
There are so many reasons why sustainability is good for business. It helps attract, retain, and motivate the best talent. Our customers use it to differentiate products and suppliers in an increasingly commoditized world. Reducing waste improves the bottom line. Sustainable performance improves market value (or at least some studies say so). And it's good (I am convinced) for long-term shareholder value. As the Dow Jones Sustainability Index says, a sustainable business "creates long-term shareholder value by mitigating risks and embracing opportunities from economic, environmental, and social developments."
And yet…
In my last post, I talked about what is happening in my calendar. Here's some of what's happening inside my head.
My job is to influence change. I am confident that I need to tap into whatever motives yield the behaviors that make the change we seek.
And yet…
Next page: Some values can't be reduced to market terms
Have you watched the Harvard Justice series with Michael Sandel? (You should. It's available on iTunes U, YouTube, and Harvard.edu, and worth every minute of the nearly 12 hours.) My husband and I have been watching it, and I also have just read Sandel's latest book - What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.
Sandel asks the question of whether there are values that cannot, or should not, be reduced to market terms. Values, in fact, that are "crowded out" or suppressed by attaching a dollar figure to them. This is essentially a question of philosophy. Immanuel Kant v. John Stuart Mill, if you will. And it puts words to what has been niggling at me.
Yes, sustainability is good for the bottom line. Yes, I believe in my heart of hearts that creation of financial value and sustainability need not be, and indeed are not, mutually exclusive.
And yet…
There are higher reasons for caring about the future of the planet and the others who live here now and will do so in the future. But for fear of being labeled anti-business, idealistic, "do-gooders", or (heaven forbid) "environmentalists", the sustainability community generally avoids talking about them.
I'm lucky. My CEO talks about all the good business reasons for EMC's commitment to sustainability, but then he says "and besides that; it's the right thing to do."
Let's keep pointing out the business benefits. But please - let's not forget that it is the right — the moral - thing to do.
Great article; I always
Great article; I always stress to my employees that our commitment to sustainability is more than just words in our business model, we truly believe in environmental change.
I agree with nearly
I agree with nearly everything Kathrin says, as well as the importance, emphasized by the title, of maintaining the Sustainability term.
In a limited space she makes several very valid, rare and brave points: the relevance of moral values (and even uses the term “justice” in a CSR space), some things can’t be quantified, sometimes the business case for sustainability isn’t there, the value of philosophy (don’t see that very often!), and the “fears” that keep us from talking about the future state of the planet.
I liked the repeated usage of “And yet…” It shows a willingness to think about different sides of a point, a realization that things might not be as crystal clear as they are often made out to be, humility—all things often lacking in this (and many other) fields.
However, in 3 areas there are small problems that, with small extensions, could be resolved:
• The arguments didn’t directly tie back to the title of the article about the "S-word." Someone could say: "OK. You’ve sold me that moral values are important and relevant in business. But I still don't see why we need to frame things as ‘Sustainability’ to invoke them.” A short, but powerful statement that sustainability in a business context inherently involves and invokes morality, would be useful
• The discussion of motives is nicely contrarian, but, again, there isn’t an explicit completion of the argument that motives (not just behavior) actually are important. With the evidence already compiled, a short statement that it does should be sufficient
• There is also a potential response that if the sustainability community knows the threat to the planet—which I think is only selectively true--but is keeping quiet because of their “fears” of the reaction if they said anything, then who needs the term? That is, while the term might facilitate sensitivity to sources that provide some with this knowledge, if we’re just going to sit on it then we’ve forfeited the benefit of the term.
Yet as I think the latter is exactly one of the essential benefits the “S-term”, at its best provides, the counter-counter-argument is that professionals have to fight off their fears. Knowing what’s at stake, sustainability practitioners have the moral duty to go forward with this message, even though some won’t like hearing it. (Certainly, though, there are better and worse ways to do so).
This is a very fine piece.
I agree with nearly
I agree with nearly everything Kathrin says, as well as the importance, emphasized by the title, of maintaining the Sustainability term.
In a limited space she makes several very valid, rare and brave points: the relevance of moral values (and even uses the term “justice” in a CSR space), some things can’t be quantified, sometimes the business case for sustainability isn’t there, the value of philosophy (don’t see that very often!), and the “fears” that keep us from talking about the future state of the planet.
I liked the repeated usage of “And yet…” It shows a willingness to think about different sides of a point, a realization that things might not be as crystal clear as they are often made out to be, humility—all things often lacking in this (and many other) fields.
However, in 3 areas there are small problems that, with small extensions, could be resolved:
• The arguments didn’t directly tie back to the title of the article about the "S-word." Someone could say: "OK. You’ve sold me that moral values are important and relevant in business. But I still don't see why we need to frame things as ‘Sustainability’ to invoke them.” A short, but powerful statement that sustainability in a business context inherently involves and invokes morality, would be useful
• The discussion of motives is nicely contrarian, but, again, there isn’t an explicit completion of the argument that motives (not just behavior) actually are important. With the evidence already compiled, a short statement that it does should be sufficient
• There is also a potential response that if the sustainability community knows the threat to the planet—which I think is only selectively true--but is keeping quiet because of their “fears” of the reaction if they said anything, then who needs the term? That is, while the term might facilitate sensitivity to sources that provide some with this knowledge, if we’re just going to sit on it then we’ve forfeited the benefit of the term.
Yet as I think the latter is exactly one of the essential benefits the “S-term”, at its best provides, the counter-counter-argument is that professionals have to fight off their fears. Knowing what’s at stake, sustainability practitioners have the moral duty to go forward with this message, even though some won’t like hearing it. (Certainly, though, there are better and worse ways to do so).
This is a very fine piece.