Posted by Michelle Holliday on 06 Nov 2010
I was the last of five speakers at a local business school's Sustainable Business conference a few days ago. The experience should have left me feeling encouraged at all the good things happening across industries. But instead, it left me heartbroken. Soon, I know my sadness will turn into strengthened resolve to share the new story I see emerging in the world -- one with life at the center of its plot. But I think the sadness is also part of that story.
The first three speakers represented companies whose activities are very harmful to the environment and who are making impressive efforts to be less bad. But they're still incredibly harmful. I realized this as I sat listening to the first speaker, and suddenly I felt lost and alone, like I accidentally showed up at the wrong party. Why were we celebrating these companies? Couldn't the organizers find anyone who was doing impressive things and actually doing no harm?
To make things worse, each of the corporate representatives made the point that their sustainability efforts were secondary to profit. The woman from a large hydroelectric company started her presentation with that point. "Sustainability is also about the sustainability of the company," she said, and if they can't make a profit on something, they're not going to do it. For example, she said that they wouldn't change all the toilets in a building if it weren't the natural time to do that or if they couldn't recoup their investment in a certain number of years. It also has to be profitable to them. This sounds logical. But what about just doing the right thing? What about doing everything in our power to ensure that life can continue to thrive on Earth? What is that worth? And who decided that a company must be sustained at all costs?
At another point in her presentation, she had a picture of a beautiful river on 2 screens behind her and she was talking about how they want to put a dam there, but they're being really responsible by working closely with native people and doing a thorough environmental impact assessment. Someone in the audience gently raised the point that there is public opposition to the project and that many people think they should reduce consumption and increase efficiency of transmission lines instead of adding capacity. And she said that in reality they're doing all three -- that even with reduced consumption and increased efficiency, they still want to do the dam because they can make a lot of money by exporting that extra capacity. And that was the end of that. So I sat there looking at this beautiful river and I thought, my God, that's an acceptable answer here: we want to destroy this living ecosystem because we can make lots of money. Hey, why not just kill random people on the street and sell their organs? That's probably quite profitable, too.
She ended her presentation with the amount of profit returned to their single shareholder, the provincial government: nearly $3 billion. Wow, I thought: how much is enough? At what level of profit would they feel that they could afford to do the right thing just for its own sake -- that they could afford to protect and sustain life, for its own sake -- not because it would earn them even more money?
Then there was a company that purifies heavy metals and sells them to solar panel companies, among other customers. They've received a string of environmental awards because they contribute to solar energy, and they also developed a way to recycle the heavy metals once they've been used. But they see the recycling as a competitive advantage, so they'll only provide that service to their own customers. No one else in the world has the technology yet to recycle heavy metals, which are extremely toxic to all forms of life. But this company refuses to recycle the stuff unless it was originally bought from them. Someone raised the question: have you thought about charging other companies a premium to recycle their heavy metals, even though they didn't buy it from you? That way it would be profitable. And the answer was that that wouldn't make business sense because their goal is to try to get everyone to buy from them in the first place. It wouldn't make business sense. It's more important to try to thwart a competitor than to do everything in our power to ensure the continued viability of the human species.
I felt nauseous.
Even the fourth speaker, offering a short version of the Al Gore presentation, felt like the same old story, for understandable (but still frustrating) reasons. The first part of the presentation outlined the dire situation. And then the punchline was about how working against that situation makes good business sense: it helps you reduce costs, retain top talent and build a good brand image. It's all true. And clearly, this line of logic has been the motivation of the first three companies in the line-up. But just as clearly, it leads them to act only insofar as it makes good business sense. And to me, that isn't far enough.
It broke my heart to see how disconnected we've become from life, that this line-up of people could stand up and say that protecting life doesn't make business sense, and that we, a roomful of people in the audience, calmly sat there and accepted that logic.
I want to change the definition of "good business sense." I want to help people see that life is the real bottom line -- that the goal is not sustainability but thrivability. I want to figure out how to tell that new story more courageously and compellingly and frequently. And I want to find ways to help people connect with that story and make it their own.
The sadness is still here. But I feel the resolve kicking in.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle Holliday has 20 years’ experience in brand strategy, with particular expertise in authentic marketing. She founded Cambium after observing that the predominant organizational concepts and ways of working are neither optimal nor sustainable. And she is driven by the desire to help usher in an expanded set of beliefs and practices based on a view of organizations as living systems. [Read more]
Apparently they are paying attention to the market or the research that shows why profit emerges from sound stewardship. Nor have they done their homework into the success of companies that operate from a higher purpose documented by Christine Arena in The Higher Purpose company. Nor are they paying attention to the emergence of an increasingly complex business environment otherwise known as VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity() because it they had they wouldn't be treating sustainability as a pr campaign. This is why i wrote this article: http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-two-september/the-evolutionary-impera...
One thing for sure, those companies who are complacently hoping to be exempt from the living system we are part of, are not cultivating the agility required to utilize change to real advantage. Though we all lose in the end, employees of those companies lose the most in that they are unable to contribute a fraction of their talent. Thanks for sharing this. Fortunately, there are progressive minds who see the Whole system and are ramping up ability to lead the way. Now we just have to increase the numbers.
I attended the event and was very inspired by your presentation. I understand your sadness...I have sat through some of my classes and felt the energy draining out of me as I listened to the rationale behind putting the profits and shareholders ahead of ethics and sustainability. Congratulations on standing up for your values. It is my hope that more companies will use your comprehensive approach to sustainable business practices instead of giving it lip-service to avoid lawsuits and improve PR. The problem as I see it is that most senior management are focused on short-term profits, and they are the decision-makers, for now...
I am optimistic that, with time, this mentality will change and that "thrivability" will become the norm. Keep up the great work, Michelle, because after watching you speak, I feel even more strongly that I will never compromise my own values for my career.
Thank you both, Dawna and Vimala! As John Lennon sang, "You might say I'm a dreamer....but I'm not the only one." Your words help give me courage to keep telling the new story, and I hope mine do the same for you.
Wow, thanks for that brave and too-seldom-noticed post, Michele. Just a quick thought, and one we've heard many times before, but it's something about being willing and able to affirm the evolutionary life in ourselves, while not closing to the societal reluctance to see, and holding them both . . . But each of us must confront what you're doing here, Michele; thanks for sharing the courage of really looking at our common problem.
Andrew
This is a beautiful, intelligent and heart-felt post, Michelle. Thank you for speaking out. I was just at a mainstream business luncheon that had a panel discussion on the topic, "Is 'green' the next bubble?" I was astounded by the mindsets and assumptions behind the questions that came from audience members. You have captured it perfectly here. Most business people are at a level of development that values competitiveness and monetary gain very highly. It's really the center of gravity of our culture at this moment. Fortunately, things are changing -- but at a snail's pace, it seems like!
Your slide show, "Humanity 4.0," is a great map of the present and the future that should be required viewing in all business schools. A helpful adjunct to it could be the "Awakening the Dreamer" symposium -- but I fear that's a bit of preaching to the choir. I don't know many business people who would willingly attend one. Which is too bad, because the central message is that our biggest unexamined assumption -- the one that's causing all these "negative externalities" -- is that we are separate from the natural world and from each other. Strikes me as another way to say what you are saying about putting life at the center.
Thanks so much, Julie! We have much work to do. But thank goodness for technology that allows us to find each other, share stories of a better future, and take courage in our growing numbers.
Hi Michelle,
I like the support that Andrew & Julie offer through their posts above. Sadness and disappointment are part of the process; your recognition of that indicates your awareness of the challenging reality we are faced with. And, making the choice to stay with your resolve around what you know to be right and good is what will help to tip that centre of gravity to the side of evolution. Bravo!
Here is to resolve and optimism coupled with connection to what is good beyond doubt!
Thank you, Ginny. I'm smiling after reading your comment and imagining raising a glass: "Here's to resolve!" :-)
Dear Michelle and friends,
Your frustration and sadness about the failure of these companies to value comprehensive efforts to transition to a sustainable and respectful world is understandable. However it also leads to some important questions and understandings. How many of us are really doing enough; how much is enough - in regards to making changes; and where and how can I focus and make my best contributions?
First we have to recognize that we live in a system that is ultimately designed in an unsustainable manner. So, given this situation none of us are probably doing enough. It would be almost impossible to do. If we want to live sustainably we have to change almost everything that we do - almost a full time job in and of itself. Probably the only ones that live anywhere close to this today are those that live in ecovillages and don't use any form of transportation other than walking or bikes. Other than that most of us are using natural resources in a most unsustainable manner. So, none of us are doing "good enough".
So, for example, I can chastise and try to change my partner (because she is not nearly as energy conscious as I am and eats much more meat) or I can focus instead on my work to improve how things are done on a societal level. Of course I can do both, but at some point I have to realize that she is just making different life choices than mine and is not yet willing or interested in doing any more to deal with the energy situation or to eat less meat. And that I am somewhat the same. I could ride my bicycle every time I go to town; but I only do it 50% of the time. I could sell my car and convert to using bio-diesel but that would take a lot of time and effort to figure out how to do that. I could buy only organic or figure out how to grow all of my own food; but that would take a lot more effort or cost more too. So, I don't. So, I have to accept, that even with all of the good I am doing in the world, I am still part of the problem.
Thus, we have to realize that none of us are really all that different from the companies that give lip service to doing things sustainably but are still making many of the wrong choices to achieve this. It is just a continuum of how good or bad we are doing in making the transition.
From a practical level, we can say, "they should not put their profits first," but our economic models are based on this. If a company cannot make a profit they will probably not be in business long. Then you will not have a job and cannot take care of your family. So, of course everyone puts profit first. We would have to change our whole economic system to change this. So, we have to figure out, in the short term, how we can transform things so that companies can make a profit by or while at the same time becoming as sustainable as possible.
Yes, it is a big shift we have to make; and it can be extremely frustrating at times; but still at least more and more of us realize that it has to be done now.
Thanks anyway for sharing,
Rob Wheeler
Thanks so much for this thoughtful and well-reasoned comment, Rob.
As I wrote this post, I wondered whether it was really constructive to point out that many companies aren't doing enough, when really none of us is. In the end, I felt that it was important to highlight the limitations of our guiding economic story. More and more of us are becoming aware of environmental problems and of the need for new behaviors, but I haven't sensed as much broad awareness of the need to expand our underlying economic story. And it's in adding to that story that we'll really see the global transformation that's needed. Instead, the profit-for-its-own-sake-and-at-all-costs story still seems to be taken as the complete and inevitable way things have to be. We seem to have resigned ourselves to that limit to our vision and aspirations, at least in the business world.
But it's a false limit. We're starting to see the emergence of a new chapter in the economic story - one that shows that honoring and nurturing life actually brings better results, including financial results. I've seen this with my own clients and with well-known pioneers like Seventh Generation, W.L. Gore, and Whole Foods. There's a story in the Art of Powerful Questions about HP Labs. They started out exploring “What does being the best industrial research lab in the world mean?” Then an engineer noted: “That question is okay, but what would really energize me and get me up in the morning would be asking, ‘How can we be the best industrial research lab for the world?’” This one small change had a profound effect - including financial and productivity gains - and led to many other meaningful shifts at individual, team and global levels.
Of course, companies need money to survive, just as we need food to survive. But Maslow showed that we can't thrive on food alone. And the same is true of our organizations. Our focus on money alone and for its own sake is actually counter-productive, in addition to being unsustainable.
I know you know all this, Rob. It's a challenge for me to articulate my views without it sounding like I'm against profits. So I very much appreciate this exchange.
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