Light at the end of the tunnel – hurrah!
An article in The Economist last week (“A stress test for good intentions”) provides a ray of hope that big business is finally ‘getting it’; CSR initiatives are worthy of consideration on cost grounds… and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Ever since the green lobby started imposing themselves on the consciousness of the corporate sector, there has been an ongoing resistance to change, or a move to a more sustainable business strategy, on the basis that environmental or socially responsible considerations have no place in the board room, especially at a time when the business is being challenged by financial constraints in the money markets.
It seems that common sense is starting to prevail; Gap, the global clothing retailer, announced that their CSR strategy meeting this year will not involve flying executives in from 20 odd countries around the world – instead, they will be teleconferencing.
Their CSR lead, stressed, however, that this decision is a purely financial one, not a CSR one.
Who cares? The end result is the same; lower carbon footprint as a result of a lower cost strategy. Consultancy agency Accenture calculates that it has saved $8 million in a single year by replacing travel with tele-meetings (and, incidentally, 2,000 tonnes of CO2).
Hurrah! Mars and Cadbury have separately announced plans to increase cocoa sourcing from sustainable sources, not because they are planet and people friendly, but because they are concerned about future diminishing supply.
The point is made in the article that some companies are starting to wake up to another truth; that the economic downturn is due, in part, to the sustained corporate irresponsibility practiced by the major blue chips in the years leading up to the recent financial implosion.
Now I don’t want to give the impression that we’re on the road to responsible recovery - we are still a long way off celebrating that particular milestone – but it’s good to see that some of the big guns are starting to wake up and smell the (sustainably sourced!) coffee. Small companies like Biz4Green, and others, have been saying for years that cutting carbon equates to cutting cost; we’ve even delivered the solutions, ready for companies to act upon immediately.
Yet, however ‘smart’ we might persuade ourselves that we are, it is taking time for decision makers to grasp the nettle (which actually has little or no sting if sound business principles are applied).
So does this signal the end of the beginning? Even the London array has been given the go-ahead this week, so things are looking up. I hope so; after all, we’re not out of the woods yet.
Every day there are still newspapers being sold on the back of redundancies, home repossessions and other loosely linked misery as a direct result of the financial sector’s irresponsible dealings over the past decade. The government is still demonstrating a lack of real leadership and responsibility, so it is all too easy for many businesses to languish in outdated business paradigms.
For my part, I like the smell of the coffee and believe more and more businesses (and, more importantly, some market leaders at that) want a sip too. If the only reason they want to partake is because it will save them money then all good and well; what’s important is the outcome and if the only way to achieve it is to justify it without seeming to come across as a tree hugger, you won’t hear any criticism from me.
