A couple of recent news items highlight how common sense and quality leadership can help build sustainable practices and how the lack of it is still hindering it.

In the green corner, Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has told men working in local government (as well as government ministers) to stop wearing suits, jackets and ties in order to reduce their reliance on energy-intensive air-conditioners. The country’s official dress code is even being amended to accommodate the move, which has been made to try to alleviate the strain on the country’s energy use and reduce the incidence of power cuts.

In the grand scheme of things, perhaps a small step; but that’s where big changes often start and here’s an example of a (relatively) young parliamentary democracy just getting things done.

In the brown corner, however, we have a report recently published by CDW (the US IT hardware/software vendor) that shows that, although companies (they surveyed over 700) are using their IT better and are realising energy savings as a result, companies could be cutting a further 17% off their IT energy bills by buying more energy-efficient IT equipment.

These potential savings to the companies’ bottom line and their carbon footprint are not being made, however, since IT professionals are under pressure to keep short term costs down in the current economic climate and so are buying cheaper, inferior product. This short-termism isn’t entirely down to them, though; it’s a result of spending criteria issued from higher up the food chain and demonstrates that the majority of businesses are still struggling to break out of old patterns of behaviour which, ultimately, will only serve to limit their long term success.

Whilst we are also reading stories about companies that have managed to look at the future of their business in a different way (HSBC is a good example of this), the polarity of the stories above is still very commonplace and highlights the two traits that are still missing from most commercial organisations.

1.      Common sense. Sheikh Hasina just understood the common sense of changing the dress code to reduce energy usage. Yet commercial organisations seem to be missing the common business sense that dictates that investing a little more today will deliver a far better return on investment than buying cheap. If the latter is the better business decision, then why are company execs not driving Skodas or getting their kids to make their corporate web sites?
2.      Leadership. The kind of leadership stance taken by Sheikh Hasina has not been seen in this country for some time; our politicians seem incapable of taking an unequivocal stance on anything (and sadly this appears to be true of the full spectrum of parties in the UK) and, by the same token, very little leadership is being demonstrated by most commercial organisations who seem only too ready to wait for direction to come from Westminster before they initiate any sustainable actions that do not deliver an almost instant return on investment.

These themes have cropped up here before; what is becoming of greater concern is that no measurable progress seems to be visible, despite the various challenges the business sector is facing in terms of, for instance, the carbon reduction commitment and other carbon-related legislation that will force certain organisations to divert a proportion of their business growth funds to meet, still relatively arbitrary, carbon emissions levels. When the science becomes even more invested in legal instruments, the burden will only become greater, so why not take the long view now – before it costs even more.

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