The desire to make sustainability “fit” into current ways of doing business is pervasive. Most companies wait for customers to ask them to be sustainable, or don’t take sustainable actions without a guarantee of customer approval. They are, of course, motivated by the need to sell – companies might have a fear that customers will not want a product that is marketed in a sustainable way, or most likely, a fear that customers will not pay for the extra expense of sustainability (which businesses often pass on to customers).
Sustainability topics are complex. To wait for customers to demand sustainability from businesses is to assume the customers even know what sustainability requirements they should have for the brands they buy from. Can we really expect most customers to understand things like Scope 2 carbon emissions, factory labor regulations, and so forth – not to mention the relative importance of various sustainability topics – when they often aren’t even widely understood within companies outside of sustainability teams?
Given this, it has to be the businesses’ responsibility to articulate their sustainability vision and execute to it – regardless of whether customers “get it” or are willing to pay for it. To wait for consumers to respond and ask for sustainability is to treat sustainability as an optional, nice-to-have that doesn’t need to be prioritized for the long-term viability of businesses and the economy.
As I write this, I’m realizing how this is also true in my own business as a sustainability consultant. Sustainability consulting work requested by organizations tends to have limited themes (and sometimes, unrealistic expectations for fitting sustainability into business-as-usual). In order to catalyze more sustainability as a result of my work, I, too, am going to have to offer things clients have never asked for, in line with my beliefs and vision of sustainability. They may not be things that clients – or most clients, or my current clients – are willing to pay for.
These posts are the beginning of my articulation of a vision of sustainability. I’m documenting these reflections as an offering to those who find value in them (and to those who don’t, feel free to let this pass).