Human life has been on this earth for about 50,000 years (or somewhere between 6000 and 200,000 depending on the source). If we assume that 50,000 is correct, for the first 49,800 or so years man has lived in the open fields, in the mountains, in the forests, next to lakes, rivers and oceans, or in the savannahs. As a result, this kind of life has been embedded in the human gene as being normal. It is called biophilia from the Greek word meaning “love of nature.” In the past 100–200 years, however, man has lived in cities consisting of brick, concrete, steel, glass, etc. Genealogically, this is not normal. Consequently, when a person wants to feel good, he takes a vacation to the ocean, lake, mountains, or open fields. That is why most people have paintings of landscapes in their homes. This makes people feel good when looking at them.
Even many of the world’s religions are greatly concerned about protecting the environment. For example, the beginning of the Sunday worship service in the Eastern Orthodox Church starts with, “For favorable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and for peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.” Disrupting nature’s life cycle invariably will cause some harm to the environment, something that is opposed by God. Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, has verbalized this thought when he said: “If human beings were to treat one another’s personal property the way they treat their environment, we would view that behavior as anti-social and illegal. We would impose judicial measures necessary to restore wrongly appropriate personal possessions. It is, therefore, appropriate for us to seek ethical and even legal recourse where possible, in matters of ecological crimes. It follows that committing a crime against the natural world is a sin.”. The Holy Bible goes further in stating: “If we destroy the earth, then God will destroy us”.
As we deplete our natural resources and the population continues to increase, what is in store for human life on this planet? China’s economy as well as India’s and several other countries are growing as are their populations while the availability of fresh water is decreasing. This means that these countries and other ones may have to import more food. But how are we going to feed this growing population? A new business paradigm is necessary.
In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, a business concept was introduced called Total Quality Management (TQM). This was promoted excessively in journals and by consultants. This eventually led to other business strategies like lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and just-in-time inventory. These strategies were embedded in such a way that they became the standard operating procedure (SOP).
Today, more than ever, it is critical to adopt sustainability strategies as well as practices that are considered “green” but are not necessarily sustainable. Included in this latter category of what can be called “less bad” are energy efficiency, pollution prevention, waste reduction and recycling, supply-chain management, and others. All of these can still be considered critically important.
But then again, how does one know whether they are going in the right direction? This is where measuring certain key performance indicators (KPIs) is important. And being able to communicate this information to the business community, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the government and, most of all, to the consumer is very important. Fortunately, there are many companies worldwide that have made sustainability to be very important and have embedded it in their operations.
Sustainability strategies are needed more in organizations today, and the old business model with concentration on shareholder value seems to be replaced too slowly by the stakeholder value concept. We need to move on from short-term strategies to long-term ones, the core element of which will be more balanced relationships between communities, the environment and economic performance. Perhaps in 10 years we will not be talking about sustainability since all the organizations will have already implemented it just as it happened with the TQM concept. Sustainability should not be the responsibility of a person or a department within an organization, but rather the concept should be embedded in the culture of the organization so that everyone within will work together to help solve our environmental issues.
Adopting sustainability strategies followed by measuring and reporting the results has become and will continue to be an important dimension of the business world and, more important, the global environment for the next few decades. While it will become the new norm, the importance of this business philosophy will only diminish after we are assured that the “environmental cliff” is not on the horizon.