Video Blog: Signposts to Sustainability

This is a montage of extracts from interviews conducted by Dr Wayne Visser, Senior Associate, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, for the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project. Included are short clips by Polly Courtice, Muhammad Yunus, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, George Monbiot, Elizabeth Economy and Hunter Lovins.



The Top 50 Sustainability Books is now available from CPSL, Greenleaf Publishing and online bookstores. For more information about the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership or the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project, see www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk or email info@cpsl.cam.ac.uk.

CSR/sustainability experts on hope and 2009 prospects

Last night I was at the Science Museum in London attending the 20th Anniversary alumni celebrations of the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry (CPI - where I am a Senior Associate and was formerly Research Director).

The evening included an introductory speech by Director, Polly Courtice. Then we showed a little film (on a BIG Imax screen). The film included extracts from interviews I conducted with Joseph Stiglitz, George Monbiot, Hunter Lovins, Elizabeth Economy, Mohammad Yunus and Jeffrey Sachs. These interviews are the basis of two books that I am writing, which will be published in 2009.

Following the film was a panel discussion comprising John Elkington (Founder, SustainAbility and Volans Ventures), Emma Howard-Boyd (Director, Juipiter Asset Management), Doug Parr (Chief Scientist, Greenpeace UK) and Jonathon Porritt (Founder, Forum for the Future). They were asked to speak about what made them hopeful about the future.

John was placing his bets on social entrepreneurs, Emma commented on substantial growth in SRI in the past year (suggesting that it may be up to 20% of all investments by 2015 if memory serves), Doug cited victories in stalling a new UK nuclear plant and airport runway and Jonathon was putting his faith in a grassroots upswell (and his hopes for Barack Obama).

I would be lying if I said it was an entirely upbeat discussion. John sees the next 7 or 8 years of recession being very bleak and creating serious (and painful) discontinuities, Doug despairs over multilateral policy processes like Poznan and Jonathon thinks the scope for business to make serious progress in the current policy climate is extremely limited.

What all seemed to agree, however, is that 2009 will be an extremely challenging and exciting year for all of us working in CSR and sustainability. Their unified plea was for us to focus on the strategic, systemic reforms, rather than fiddling around the edges with incremental change. And speaking of strategic initiatives, if you haven't yet seen the Posnan Communique, signed by 140 global businesses, check it out at:

http://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/programmes/energy_and_climate_change/corporate_leaders_group_on_cli.aspx

Food for thought: The NON financial crises and CSR

In the midst of the financial crisis media hype, it is easy to forget that other "non-financial" crises continue unabated. I am particularly struck at the moment by the food crisis and its implications for CSR. Here are some of the facts, according to Oxfam:

• The number of malnourished people in the world rose by 44 million in 2008
• In the horn of Africa, 17 million people are on the brink of starvation
• Five months after countries pledged $12 bn to the global food emergency, less than $1 bn has been given
• Meanwhile, over 30% of the world's grain crop goes to feeding animals rather than people directly
• And food companies continue to see sales and profits rise, e.g. Nestle's global sales rose 8.9% January to June and Tesco saw profits up 10% from last year

Of course, food is not the only silent crisis in our midst. A recent study by Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist who led a European study on ecosystems, reports that we are losing natural capital worth between $2-5 trillion every year as a result deforestation alone. Compare that with the losses incurred so far by the financial sector of "only" $1-1.5 trillion.

As George Monbiot argues in The Guardian, the two crises have the same cause. "In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences".

What are the implications for CSR? Are we seeing a food crisis looming at the macro-scale similar to what we saw in Zimbabwe at a micro-scale? And in this case, do companies with operations in developing countries need to start thinking about food security as one of their first and main CSR priorities? Or perhaps business should be lobbying Western governments to deliver on their aid promises? Maybe companies, with their vast land ownership and excess capital, should be the leaders in a reforestation revolution on a massive scale?

One thing is for sure, both the food and ecological crises are likely to get worse rather than better in the coming recession years. And companies, especially those in the food and extractives sectors, are going to find it increasingly hard to justify excessive profits when people around the world are dying from starvation and the world's lungs are being damaged by cancerous economic growth.