Feb '23 in Sustainable Business
Sustainbility, Sustainable Business & Sustainable Development
These terms, Sustainability, Sustainable Development and Sustainable Business are often used interchangeably as if they are representing the same topic. They are really quite different.
It’s a good practice to be precise with your use of language. in this way you will be better understood as you communicate more clearly.
Sustainability - is simply the ability to sustain something, anything. It’s the generic catch-all word that is most often used without any reference to what it is that is trying to be sustained!
The first question I ask of my business coaching and consulting clients who want to work on "sustainability: is: What are you trying to sustain?
Sustainable Development is a term first coined by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in its 1987 report: “Our Common Future”.
Many people can recall the opening sentence of Chapter 2: Towards Sustainable Development. “Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
This is only the macro overview. Sustainable Development is actually two concepts.
- The concept of ‘needs’. In particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given.
- The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.
It is the second of these concepts that is most often thought of when the term ‘sustainable development’ is used. We ought not to neglect the first concept!
“Sustainable Business” is another, different concept. We’ve taken the generic idea of sustaining something and added specificity in that we are directing our sustainability activity towards a business.
This is the 'macro' view.
Now for the 'meso' levels. Exactly which aspects of business are we aiming to sustain?
Typically for businesses, the 3 E’s (Economy, Equity and Environment) or the 3 P’s (People, Planet and Profit) have been suggested.
These are okay as a means of indicating to company executives that there is more to a business than just the financial bottom line.
However, these flat, 2-dimensional images are what I call “simplistic sustainability" and their typical visual representations don’t give us much of a clue as to what we are supposed to do!
Hardly surprising then that in the more than 36 years since the concept of "Sustainable Development was first coined, we've failed to become more sustainable.
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Sustainbility, Sustainable Business & Sustainable Development
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