Business benefits of sustainability: time for a rethink?

I was just reading an article by Chad Park, Executive Director of Natural Step Canada where he argues that CSR is a flawed approach. He says that we need a “radical transformation of the way that we conduct business”, and CSR isn’t fit for this purpose because it is a business as usual approach that suggests everything will be OK if we just incorporate environmental and social concerns into everyday business practice. If we are going to “turn the car around” and avoid the cliff towards which we are heading then we need to rethink.

Like the car, Park suggests that companies need to turn round their thinking. Rather than asking “based on our business plan what should our CSR strategy be” they need to ask “in light of the global sustainability imperative what should our business plan be”. He then goes on to suggest that for companies that embrace this, “massive opportunities” await, including increased profits.

I agree with the general arguments that Park makes and agree that the Natural Step provides an effective way of approaching this. However, it strikes me that we need to be giving more consideration to business benefits. We tend to talk up the idea that embracing sustainability will lead to traditional business benefits: better reputation, cost savings, increased opportunities and profits etc. I certainly do this. In general we take this approach because we feel that this is how we will get business to take these ideas seriously. But is it really the best approach? If we are talking about a radically transformed business environment is it sufficient to focus on the same old business benefits? Where are the limits of this – if a few companies do something different (i.e. embrace sustainability) then it can give them a competitive advantage but what if all companies do; where will the advantage come from then? By talking about ‘increasing profits’ do we just help to reinforce this as the primary concern of business?

There are other benefits that we could be talking about: helping businesses and the people who work in them achieve a better work life balance; developing more meaningful work; the development of products/services that enhance our lives and society... but we don’t – at least not as much. If the current approach has brought relatively little gain then maybe, rather than being ‘realistic’ and talking in the language we think businesses want to hear, we need to try something different – be more ambitious.

This is all very good in theory but next time I am stood talking to someone who asks why their business should be looking at this ‘sustainability thing’ what will I say?