Beyond the Greenwash - can we ensure Global Sustainability?

This is the first blog in a ‘Sustainability Insight' online series created by the Society for Sustainable Business - a group of business and academic professionals motivated to provide leadership to accelerate the change to an economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially healthy society.

As the pressure to be green and to do green, heats up, we run into two major questions:

1. What criteria do we use to choose the route we follow?

2. How do we know that we are successful?

Let's deal with the criteria. Any green measures may have pluses and minuses. We are working with a system that is not just the region, the state or the nation, but one that is ultimately global. How can we get to a level where the decisions we take are in the best interests of people everywhere and the environment?

There is only one way that I have found, and that is to define an Ideal Vision for the world that we and our grandchildren's children would be happy to live in. This was the idea of Professor Emeritus Roger Kaufman of Florida State University in 1992. Kaufman has tested this proposition on five continents with different political systems, different religions and different races, and has found an amazing degree of unanimity about the future that people really want.

So what do they agree on? They agree on: no war, no disease, no crime, no accidents, and they want health, happiness and a chance to live out their potential. There is also a growing concern for the environment.

Is this just ‘idealistic'? Think of the Ideal Vision as a guiding star towards which we get closer as we go. And please note that it is measurable - there are even surveys to determine the happiness of populations, as well as their health and ecological footprints.

This is the first step in choosing the way forward, and measuring our progress.

For more on the Ideal Vision, see World of Tomorrow's Child [1].

Next time I will take up the practical planning methodology that follows from this.

Managing Director of Leaderskill Group, Ronald Forbes has led projects ranging from scientific and educational research to systems and system consulting in Australia, the United States and Latin America. He has degrees in geology and geophysics from London, Paris and UCLA, is an Associate Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute and Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management. Dr Forbes is a Foundation Member of the Society for Sustainable Business.
http://www.drronforbes.com/ [2]

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The Society For Sustainable Business (SSB) is a vehicle for multi-disciplinary professionals and their organisations to network, exchange ideas, support one another, build partnerships, and to dialogue on the technical, social and practical aspects of achieving sustainability.

Major goals include the creation of a network of qualified change agents who will give presentations, forums and workshops to senior business leaders, as well as provide presentations, education and workshops to business professionals at all levels.