Business First
Businesses can have a massive impact on global sustainability practices. Giles Crosse investigates how, where and why they might do more.
Photo Credit: Jakub Krechowicz
One of the historical problems with business and sustainability is that the thinking behind them often seems diametrically opposed.
For example, most businesses create goods, to sell them at a profit. Doing so of course uses resources. Marketing and advertising persuade consumers to buy these goods, which they often don’t really ‘need’, if you use the word in its most basic sense.
Sustainability however is about minimising resource consumption. It is about trying to use less, or more intelligently. That doesn’t just cover the products we buy, it also covers how much energy they use in their lifetime, or how much fuel they gobble up.
Even this very simplistic explanation illustrates the difficulties involved. But a whole new raft of more sustainable businesses are seeking better ways to make money in a less resource intensive, and potentially more sustainable way.
Obviously businesses creating solar panels, or new technologies for energy efficiency have sustainability at their core. But how about other companies, whose products fit less obviously into greener mindsets? What are they doing to change their businesses models, and ensure a profitable and more sustainable future?
Green for go
Mercedes Benz is one company making some changes. It has just launched a pre owned car business in India. Called Proven Exclusivity, it aims to make it far easier and more appealing for consumers to buy pre owned cars.
The environmental advantages behind this are pretty obvious. Plainly the moves have the potential to reduce virgin resource use and lengthen the useful lifespan of Mercedes’ products. Might global businesses all be forced to include an element of reuse or sustainability in their practices one day?
According to Mercedes, the ‘program utilizes specific global benchmarks for vehicle evaluation, quality and warranty to offer Mercedes-Benz certified pre-owned cars to customers.’
The point is that it’s not enough just to offer second hand vehicles. The firm explains that ‘every car undergoes a thorough multi-point inspection (over 200 check points) and certification by trained technicians. And in the rare case where a part has to be replaced, only original parts are used.’
This means that consumers should feel more comfortable purchasing old rather than new. That means Mercedes makes more cash, and the environment can benefit too.
Dr. Wilfried Aulbur, Managing Director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, elaborated: “Comprehensive evaluation and refurbishment criteria, scientific tools for audit and inspection as well as manufacturer backed warranty go into the making of a certified ‘Proven Exclusivity’ vehicle. The dream of owning a Mercedes-Benz thus becomes even more achievable. At the same time customers can also drive in their existing vehicles and drive out with their new Mercedes-Benz cars by utilizing the trade-in route under ‘Proven Exclusivity’”.
Mercedes reckons ‘the pre-owned car market in India is estimated at approximately ten to 15 per cent of current new car sales in 2010, and is estimated to substantially grow for the next couple of years.’
It’s not a massively radical idea, but this isn’t always necessary to create an environmental benefit. Perhaps understandably, it’s likely Mercedes’ emphasis will remain on selling new, top end cars. But the moves do show willing in the right direction.
World of waste
Of course, there are all sorts of other areas where modern business could seriously raise its game. Among these are elements familiar to all people living in developed countries, the supermarket shop.
UK Charity Action Aid reckons people ‘in the UK waste 25 per cent of all the food they buy – that’s £12 billion of groceries each year, including £280 million of milk and nearly 100,000 tonnes of poultry.’
The reasoning behind this is complex, but there is more that supermarkets could do to help end such waste, like ending Buy One Get One Free promotions, where all too often food is wasted as it just can’t be eaten quickly enough to meet sell by dates.
There is more fundamental change required. The UK Food Ethics Council published ‘Food Justice, The report of the Food and Fairness Inquiry’ in July 2010. The report was developed because The Food Ethics Council was ‘concerned that issues of social justice were underplayed in debates about food policy. The Inquiry committee’s report vindicates this concern. It finds that injustice is widespread throughout the UK and global food system; and it shows how a fairer food system is central to achieving wider sustainability and health goals.’
Melanie Leech, Chief Executive of the Food and Drink Federation, explained, “Over the past five years I’ve seen more and more food businesses squaring up to the challenges facing the food system. We all want to make a real difference to enhance people’s lives and contribute to the future of our people and planet. This Inquiry has shown that what unites us should – and can – outweigh our differences. Together we can make a fairer food system.”
The document argues there are all sorts of measures that would contribute to more sustainable food and business systems. Among these, it suggests, ‘the government should show leadership in bringing down global food price volatility by strengthening financial regulation to limit speculation on the price of food.’
And ‘On corporate taxes it calls on businesses to back up their claims to good corporate citizenship by revealing their tax payments as share of turnover for every country they operate in.’
There are other blindingly obvious steps that could be taken. Action Aid notes that misshapen vegetables and carrots are wasted even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them. At a time when, in some African countries, yield from rain-fed agriculture is predicted to drop by as much as 50 per cent by 2020 because of climate change, that seems an unacceptable thing to be doing.
The real irony is that supermarkets would make even more money if they sold such misshapen produce. It’s difficult for governments to force business into sustainable change, but tax incentives and other drivers can be a way around it. The truth is that inequitable business needs to end.
The UN’s 2008 report on ‘Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa’ noted that ‘a person living in a developing country will still only consume half of the cereals and a third of the meat consumed by a person in an industrialized country,’ Bearing in mind how much extra food we are also wasting in the developed world, these figures seem all the more upsetting.
What are your views? Not sure? Read the resources below for more information. Add your comment below. W e welcome your thoughts and proposals. Not a Planetary Citizen? Sign up to Our Future Planet today!
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Resources
Food Justice: Report from the Food and Fairness enquiry
Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa - UNEP
