Sustainability

Corporate sustainability has become a big issue lately, with large companies trying to balance their need for constant growth and expansion with the need to account for environmental concerns and sustainability.  It seems like every day I see a press release from yet another company announcing that it will begin disclosing its greenhouse gas emissions, or commit to using recycled materials.  Even Walmart has a list of long-term goals that includes getting 100% of its energy supply from renewable sources, and creating zero waste.  Both of these seem a long way off, but it still surprises me that Walmart is considering these issues.  Why is this happening now?  What caused the shift?

Does Walmart see growth slowing in the future due to market saturation or a slowing of population growth?  Maybe this is an attempt to influence Wall Street and shift expectations---from future growth targets that they know they can’t match---to sustainability.  Or do they actually really care about the environment?

Gerd Leonhard  has a different take: he believes that the “sharing economy” (i.e.,  airbnb and Zipcar) will soon extend into collaborative consumption of energy sources as well, and that the shift from a competition-based economy to a collaboration-based economy, one that rewards sustainability, will occur within the next five years.  That seems like an optimistic estimate to me but hey, I’m not a futurist.

A fascinating video that touches on a number of other topics as well, take a look: