Green is the New Color of Economic and Social Growth
Sustainability is a global challenge that requires strong commitment for change on the part of institutions, companies, and civil society. Especially the energy industry: its companies and the services they provide will increasingly be involved in this major change and forced to reconsider their business models and roles in society. Undoubtedly, sustainability has become crucial for the recovery of national economies from the crisis, also in terms of restoring competitiveness. Within such a framework, it becomes imperative to identify the key levers fostering corporate sustainability.
Last September, two very important documents were drafted by the UN in New York, while "Strategy and Sustainability", the first major world conference on sustainable corporate strategy was held in Atlanta by the Strategic Management Society.
The first UN document is the "Universal Declaration of Sustainable Development", modeled on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a set of recommendations issued by a panel of experts led by Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs and the President of the UN General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, according to whom achieving sustainable development will the "main challenge of the 21stcentury". It is made of ten points, ranging from decarbonization of energy systems by 2050 and the fight against climate change through economic incentives that should promote the sustainable and transparent management of water, agricultural and forestry resources. In short, every year governments should report on their progress on the front of sustainable development, which must integrated with measures to boost economic and social growth, while companies should keep yearly accounting of the environmental impact of their business activities.
The second UN document is a report written by the UN General Secretariat, titled "Corporate Sustainability and the United Nations Post-2015 Development Agenda", presented at the 2013 UN Global Compact Leaders Summit. Its objective is to understand how to "involve firms in pursuing sustainability objectives". In this respect, the byline of the Leaders Summit was explicit: "Architects of a better world".
Finally at the Atlanta conference, colleagues unanimously pointed toward the growing complexity of competitive dynamics, which has led to new modes of value creation aimed at sustaining long-term economic viability of firms. Sustainability has become a new management model, based on the valorization of corporate relations and the ability of firms to strategically integrate social and environmental issues in their operations, beyond what laws and ethics prescribe. Thus corporate sustainability is playing a large role in innovative approaches to business success.
In fact, sustainability is promoting the birth of new entrepreneurial initiatives, as well as product innovation (both on the technological and social front), so that corporate governance and business models are affected by it, as companies strive to create economic prosperity, social capital and environmental sustainability. When sustainability is integrated into strategy, competitive advantage ensues. Those companies that are resisting the sustainability trend are doing so at their own peril...