By Rob Abbott

Let’s face it, people are nervous right now. The economy is convulsing and there is much talk about the environment being "off the table" of policy and business decision-making as the focus shifts to job protection or the containment of losses.

While the fear is real and understandable, the solution is less about expensive and incremental change through bailouts and stimulus packages than a national economic strategy that heralds whole system change. And for all the polite talk of a "green stimulus", this sends the wrong signal — we need a 21st century economic strategy that does more than give a nod to green; we need a strategy that is smart enough to feature green throughout its underlying logic.  

Well intentioned but incremental thinking is akin to doing the best we can within the rules of the game. The events of the past six months tell us the game has changed, the ground has shifted. We need a strategy that serves us well in this new game - regardless of our vocational or political affiliation.

Context
In Robert Frost’s iconic poem, "The Road Not Taken," the narrator takes the road less traveled by. "And that has made all the difference."  It is time for businesses and governments in Canada to similarly shift to a new and different road, one with which they are unfamiliar, but that can make "all the difference."  

As one who has worked closely with businesses and governments all over the world, I’m sympathetic to the idea that society should reward successful initiative with profit.  However, as we have seen too often, especially in recent years, profit-seeking activities can have disastrous economic, social and environmental effects. And these effects, unchecked, can eat away at the foundations of civilization. This realization led John Ruskin to suggest, as the industrial revolution was still in its nascent stages 150 years ago, that what "seems to be wealth may in verity only be the gilded index of far-reaching ruin."  Ruskin coined the term "illth" to describe the side effects of an economic system that doesn’t work for everyone.
    
I’ve thought about this a good deal lately because although much has been written and said about the global financial crisis, there is another, parallel crisis that also heralds the need for whole system change. In October 2008, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that at least one-quarter of mammals worldwide are heading toward extinction - caused almost exclusively by human activity. In addition, the IUCN reported that reptiles, fish, and birds across the world are all in decline. 

Answering the call
In light of the above, I believe we need to resist the temptation to take the environment, or social justice concerns for that matter, off the table and focus solely on getting the economy moving. Such a response might staunch the bleeding, but it will do little to create the conditions for long-term health. The combination of ecosystem decline and the global financial crisis creates a rare opportunity for the kind of whole system change we need.

Seventy years ago Joseph Schumpeter, in his influential book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, defined profit as "the premium put upon successful innovation in capitalist society and [it] is temporary by nature: it will vanish in the subsequent process of competition and adaptation." In an era characterized by hyper-competition and uncertain economic conditions, it seems clear to me that businesses need to reinvest a portion of any profits in activities that deliberately push the envelope of their firm’s business model - incremental change won’t cut it. It also means governments have to get smart about innovation and macroeconomic policy. I envision a two-step process moving forward to seize the opportunity. 

Seizing the opportunity
Business has to ask some simple and yet powerful questions about where sustainability can help:
ï    Contain costs (by reducing waste or accelerating permit approvals, for example);
ï    Keep people motivated (leveraging sustainability in talent recruitment);
ï    Reduce exposure to costly future regulation (broaden project incentive structures from cost and schedule to include natural resource consumption or carbon risk mitigated); and
ï    Create economic opportunity in new, 21st century technologies 

At the same time, governments have to put aside old ideas and step up to forge a new dialogue with business, academia, NGOs and other stakeholders that intentionally links innovation, R&D, and the economy with the environment and sustainability. Why can’t we talk about how we meet the challenges of climate change, for example, while simultaneously securing our economic future? It is time we bridged the gap that has too long separated economic and environmental concerns in this country (and elsewhere). 

We can still talk about jobs, but why can’t they be green jobs? And for those who have lost their jobs, I’m all for creating the conditions that support you in transitioning to something new or better. This is a strategic investment, not a knee-jerk reaction that props up an old (and beaten) business model. We can still talk about technology, but why can’t that technology be in service of a 21st century economy? Most importantly, we can still talk about quality of life, but quality must increasingly be defined less by material consumption of goods and services and more by awareness of our individual and collective environmental footprint.

Forging a new dialogue
If crisis does indeed create opportunity, I believe the winning strategy for the new economic game that is emerging lies in disenthralling ourselves from conventional wisdom, to use Lincoln’s phrase, and getting on with the work of building the new economy we need - one that respects people and the environment; one that links jobs and the environment; one that reconciles radical innovation and sustainability.
 
Rob Abbott (rabbott@stratos-sts.com) is the Director of Sustainability for Stratos Inc., an Ottawa and Calgary-based strategy firm focused on helping organizations secure competitive advantage through sustainability. This column is excerpted from his forthcoming book, Conscious Endeavors: Essays on Business, Society and the Journey to Sustainability. 
 

< Prev