Perhaps because of the ‘turbulence’ we are facing, sustainability and sustainable businesses are a popular topic of conversation. Here, my take on it from the 2019 Global Wellness Summit, in Singapore. #retail
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Whether it is a glossy corporate report, a video ad, or a simple exchange among friends, we hear a lot about sustainability and what businesses do to be sustainable, particularly with regard to the ENVIRONMENTAL and SOCIAL pillars of sustainability.
ENVIRONMENT is a visually resourceful, sexy subject.
Coffee companies abandon straws – although not quite the cups. Significant amounts of good intent and energy are invested in looking for ways of reducing the physical impact on nature: better selection of materials, non-invasive manufacturing facilities, packaging, and so on. Innovative entrepreneurs develop visions of up-cycling, applying decades-long production experience to the frugal art of recovering.
This, while we realize the need to slow growth and to monitor the complexities of globalized manufacturing practices, as we are only now starting to grasp and, most importantly, calculate externalities of fifty years of intensive global use of resources and manufacturing, thanks to a new breed of economists.
Think: China intensive agricultural and manufacturing impact on the country water resources and soil erosion.
We also frequently talk about sustainable business in terms of its SOCIAL components: the employees, the stakeholders, the community.
After years of distraction, the importance of social responsibility is re-emerging and occupying much of corporate communication. Employers ‘refocus’ on identity and gender representation, while social media portray employees’ experiences and various degrees of happiness. Communities seem to be relevant once again; factories and supply chains are re-designed.
At the same time, we deal with the regular ‘discovery’ of factories’ appalling working conditions in Bangladesh, as well as in the more supposed-to-be developed countries.
So, why is it that conversations on sustainable businesses do not often include open discussions on its ECONOMIC pillar, its music conductor and, one would argue, the most important condition to the survival of any good intent.
A sustainable enterprise should execute its objectives – through transparent processes, compliance and governance – and guarantee that environmental and social purposes are effectively implemented and could be sustained within a supportive economic framework, and with the consensus of the entire organization.
Building such favorable framework and obtaining such consensus among companies’ components – ownership, board, stakeholders, users – is not simple. And yet it is key to the creation of an organization that needs profits but would like to act in the respect of all, beyond lip service and elaborated advertising.
Say. Producing close to home to preserve the well-being of local constituencies, now that we have understood ‘again’ that unemployed people can’t really consume, let alone survive or vote you.
Or implement permanent and immediate changes to working hours and remunerations that have in costing the only barrier to large application. Paying fair prices to suppliers or delivering tangible quality to consumers.
Visionary founders of billionaire corporations and digitally native entrepreneurs are showing us — should we still need to be convinced — that with courage, governance and obsessive alignment, well-lead companies could produce social wellness well before charities and philanthropies are asked to intervene.
And that is where we should focus our attention: encouraging the creation of new business models for change governance.
Systems and tools helping entrepreneurs to stay true to their commitments and aspirations; leadership empowered and enabled to take effective, long-lasting action.
Why? ENVIRONMENTAL and SOCIAL initiatives need an ECONOMIC framework to thrive and last.
Un-suspiciously, the HEALTH & WELLNESS segment is where new sustainable business models seem to have a better chance to happen and thrive.
With a global business estimated to 4.7 bill US$, it comprises a wide range of activities and services owned and managed by a community of practitioners who appear to be still closely connected to their constituencies and understand how they are evolving.
These are professionals committed to improve the life of users and stakeholders alike and serve – around the world – an equally well-minded and uncommonly passionate tribe with an obsessive devotion to self-development, environment preservation and social wokeness.
More than other industries, wellness could be an ideal incubator of new business models and systems of management because of the commitment of its owners and operators; for the size and leanness of its individual companies; for the impact innovative talent-management initiatives could have on its large work force; for boards and shareholders we would like to imagine more benevolent and progressive, and, most of all, because of the readiness and belief of users who would almost unquestionably support authentic efforts to ‘save’ the world a company at time. A potentially perfect alignment of purpose, delivery and use.
Does wellness have the potential to become a powerful driver for a new economic model?
It certainly appeared so at the 2019 GLOBAL WELLNESS SUMMIT.
There is a dynamic new movement out there.
Looking forward to the promise.
published on linkedin, october 23rd 2019.