The heart of sustainability

Ultimately, sustainability can only be built on the transformation of human character. The brilliant John Elkington did a great job by presenting three dimensions of sustainability – economic, environmental and social (people, planet and profit). Its becoming ever more clear, that the myopic pursuit of economic sustainability alone, is ironically, unsustainable. Or to put it another way, its getting hard and harder to make a buck for most people. Our economic systems are getting more and more complex and encumbered by their own dysfunction. And consequent erosions of social and environmental systems compound the dysfunction.

The iceberg model

Sue Knight’s iceberg principle indicates that the behaviours we get (what people say and do) is determined by what is below the surface (purpose, identity, beliefs, values and capabilities). You can’t change behaviour sustainably without changing the sub-surface drivers. I have road-tested this model over the years with observation of human behaviour (including my own) and I find it it be very useful. The remainder of this blog is predicated on the iceberg as an excellent model of human behaviour. It is applied here not just for explaining individual behaviour, but also for the behaviour of collectives, such as corporates. If your not convinced, you can exit here or maybe comment on the validity of the model.

The fractured iceberg

Where sustainability behaviours artificially overlay a conventional culture of myopic profit pursuit, the iceberg is fractured. The old “beneath the surface factors” aren’t compatible with true sustainability and the resulting behaviours include green washing and reputation-mending. I suspect that even overlaying the more enlightened strategy of sustainability as a competitive advantage will not be truly sustainable until the sub-surface drivers change. Internal forces will continue to generate company behaviours compatible with the old drivers.

The sustainability iceberg and transformation of character

True sustainability will naturally emanate from below the surface sustainability drivers such as those in the diagram below. Motives of extraction and exploitation will be supplanted by those of contribution and service. (The examples of purpose, identity, values, beliefs and capabilities used here are arbitrary and could be replaced by others.)

The drivers that underpin sustainability will translate, over time, to the transformation of character. But can we change? We definitely can! For eons, humanity has been driven mostly by survival drives (see my blog on The End of Empires). When the survival drive is our default mode, more elevated and altruistic expressions of character, innate in humans, are suppressed.

As more of us begin to see that our ancient embedded drives are actually counter-productive, and compromising our survival, I believe we will refine our character and generate sustainability drivers for the benefit of our businesses and communities. An exciting prospect is the reinforcing nature of this virtuous cycle. As we improve character, a more sustainable environment is a more compatible ecosystem to work and live in. Over time, we learn that sustainability is in our self-interest. As we reach a tipping-point where these drivers become more common, there will be multiple unintended beneficial outcomes.

The evidence.

So does this sound too optimistic? I believe there is strong evidence to support this position. In the interests of brevity, here are two examples.

Jeremy Riftkin’s RSA Animate video anticipates “the empathic civilisation”. He argues that we are wired more for empathy than competition.

There is a rich vein of evidence that a more human focussed approach to running business generates better outcomes than older command and control models. A recent paper from the Maritz Institute posits that “Outdated beliefs about human action and interaction hold us in a transactional model of engagement.” Their paper links “the new normal” to a enlightened understanding of human drivers and interaction. These support better stakeholder engagement and (I would add) sustainability.

“A new framework for stakeholder engagement is needed … a framework anchored in the latest research relative to human drives and behavior. The goal of this framework is to create better business results that, at the same time, enrich stakeholders in ways that are most meaningful to them. It is about building a win-win proposition … Better Business. Better Lives”. (from The Game Has Changed, Maritz Institute)

Let me know if you think we are on the road to achieving this – or not.

Sustainability, engagement and the end of empires, part 2

We are nearing the end of the age of empires (see part one of this post). As the old world is crumbling under its own dysfunction, the new shoots of a new civilisation are discernible. This is the context for the shift to sustainability.

Civilisation by engagement and community building

With the old world essentially a spent force, impotent to deal with the complex issues we now face, the required course correction is a radical reorganisation of human communities and patterns of civilisation. In addition to develop the new institutions to support a new world order, we face the far more profound challenge – that of disrupting ancient and ingrained assumptions and patterns of behaviour, and supplanting them with new ones. This is no simple task.

Current sustainability discourse calls for change, but it is frequently posited as incremental change (albeit challenging enough itself). The environmental and social challenges facing us are enormous. We will struggle to reverse, or slow down some of the alarming trends, such as climate change, species extinction and resource depletion. But In some ways, the task of supplanting old patterns of behaviour, anchored and expressed in age-old human behaviours, is even more challenging. But the good news is, when we can achieve this, new patterns of human interaction will make it much easier to build sustainable communities.

The changes we are facing require the displacing of these old patterns of human behaviour with often diametrically opposed new patterns. For example, most human communities have used slavery as an economic resource. The practice persists today in locations where the prevailing cultural norms of subcultures view humans as objects for exploitation. This practice is unsustainable where human dignity is a dominant value and poverty is banished.

At present, we are in a twilight zone, where many are working hard to implement sustainability interventions, but are doing so on the foundations of the old order. Many corporates struggle with schizophrenic personalities – the old “profit maximisation at any cost” personality, and the emergent “sustainability” personality. BP’s gulf oil spill personifies this. I have no doubt, the companies’ leaders are genuinely aspirational, but the hyper-competitive marketplace invokes “profit maximisation” behaviours. We are attempting to build a new world on shaky foundations.

Green shoots – community building

There are encouraging developments. Take community building for example. I am hopeful that we have reached the nadir of dislocated urban and suburban communities and we are beginning to connect more with our neighbours. In the following Ted talk, Rachel Botsman talks about the growth of “collaborative consumption” – a phenomena driven partly by new peer-to-peer technologies.

And in my corner of the world, the city of Christchurch recently experienced two devastating earthquakes. Amidst the tragedies, it was heart-warming to see neighbours looking after neighbours. Two “armies” were mobilised – the student army, and the “farmy” army, the former, tertiary students, and the latter, Canterbury farmers. These armies cleared away the tonnes of liquefaction that covered streets and suburbs.

More green shoots – the global community

A hundred years ago most of our exposure was to homogenous others – those that were much like us. It was very easy to be embedded in and “us and them” world, when most other nationalities are strangers. Now we mix a lot more, we are broadening our empathy far beyond the homogenous cliques of the past. We are more likely to respond to the plight we see our fellow humans suffering. And science has taught us to that biologically, we are all much the same.

The attitudinal foundations

In the previous post, I outlined the underlying assumptions that supported the empire building ethos – “growth is good” – “extracting value” and “us and them”. Our new world requires an entirely different assumption: unity of action. Rachel Botsman advocated a shift from competition to collaboration.

 

We also have to overturn some deep-seated beliefs about human nature. For example, we can live peaceably together, and we can transcend self-interest.

Is it arrogant to think that we are living in the midst of epochal change? Could it be that we are indeed part of a transformation of human consciousness? I believe so, and in my next post, I will assemble some supporting evidence. What do you think?

 

More excellent sustainability videos – The Empathic Civilisation

You may not immediately get the connection to sustainability with this brilliant presentation by Jeremy Rifkin, but as you watch it the connections become clear.