QCurrent thinking holds that adopting sustainable practices is
not just good for the planet but can also
be good for a business’s bottom line.
Does your research support that view?
AYes. Businesses are starting to see that they are embedded within a
social system and that the social system,
in turn, is embedded within the environmental system, which has fixed limitations. The challenge for businesses is
to get a sense of what the long-term
environmental limitations are and start
to work within that framework.
has not worked in our favor because the
other areas of the world have been innovating around energy for a number of
years.
DAVID HYATT thoughtleaders
QWhen you say “fixed limitations,” what do you mean?
AWell, carbon emissions are becoming a serious issue for a number of businesses. They are taking climate
change seriously because it affects what their markets are
going to be and where those markets are going to be. Other
issues are energy costs, which in recent years have
increased dramatically. In the United States, energy is heavily subsidized for businesses, leading to prices that are quite
low compared with many other areas of the world. That
QThe subsidy has removed the free market motivation to look for
ways to save energy?
AYes. The challenge is figuring out a way to internalize the externalities
that businesses are creating so that we
price goods to reflect their impact.
That’s where we’re going to be heading
within 20 years.
One big push we’re seeing right now
has to do with all these sustainability score cards and
transparency across the supply chain. In 2009, the
University of Arkansas and Arizona State University
formed the Sustainability Consortium. There are now
about 70 members of the consortium, most of which are
private-sector companies. What the consortium membership seeks to create is some sort of standardized way to
measure the sustainability of consumer products.
Whether this particular effort is successful at that or not,
it shows us the direction.
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