Links
John Elkington
10 January 2005
A Tsunami of Change?
Sometimes an image of our world and its challenges jumps out at us in startling relief. It happened when Germany's Berlin Wall was demolished by protestors in 1989. It happened on September 11, 2001 when the airliners collapsed the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. And it happened again on December 26, 2004 when the tsunamis hit countries around the Indian Ocean. Just as an X-ray helps us see the deep structure of our bodies, including problems like lung shadowing or cancerous tumours, so the tsunamis created a flood of starkly revealing images of the global challenges we now face.
Apart from the 150,000-plus dead, with all that those numbers mean in terms of shattered families and communities in countries around the world, the disaster's aftermath spotlighted both the growing interconnectedness of the global economy and, more worryingly, our inability to see such discontinuities coming, the growing gulfs between the world's haves and have-nots, the extraordinary incompetence of many governments, the sheer scale of the endemic corruption in many regions, and the desperate political and logistical weaknesses of 20th century institutions like the United Nations.
More positively, we saw encouraging evidence of the remarkable scale and reach of non-governmental organisations, or NGOs. And we have seen images of the tides of destruction from personal video technology which means that today there are now media antennae in almost every corner of the globe, with huge implications for those practising human rights abuses (see, for example, www.witness.org or www.business-humanrights.org).
As we have almost come to expect, we saw a huge outpouring of compassion and generosity from ordinary citizens. Governments and companies were almost forced to compete to show that they cared most. But it is less obvious that these same citizens, NGOs, business people and politicians could see the full import of the X-ray images flashing around their worlds.
In headlines, we are moving towards a world of 9-10 billion people by 2050, a world of seething megacities, of transformed security and human rights agendas, of near-total transparency, of mutating pandemics and of 'off-the-scale' challenges like climate change. No matter how optimistic politicians and business leaders may be about current corporate social responsibility and sustainable development initiatives, existing efforts are very unlikely to bridge the gap between what we are doing today and what the world will need to do tomorrow.
This was the central argument of SustainAbility's recent report for the UN Global Compact, Gearing Up: From Corporate Responsibility and Good Governance to Scalable Solutions. Now the Global Compact is asking member companies such questions as: 'Did your company contribute to the relief efforts?' 'If so, how?' 'Does your company, or a sectoral business association you participate in, have an established program for providing aid to natural disaster relief or was your support a unique response to this tsunami?'
It will be interesting to see the answers, but anyone in business wondering how to respond should take a look at some of the business-led best practice forums now evolving, including those run by the Association for Sustainable & Responsible Investment in Asia (www.asria.org/farchive1) and by the International Business Leaders Forum (www.iblf.org/csr/csrwebassist.nsf/content/b1y2.html).
SustainAbility, too, is thinking through the implications for what we might do next. So, for example, the next issue of our newsletter, Radar, will feature an article by Jennifer Barsky and Kavita Prakash-Mani looking at the impact of tsunami in the context of the broader developmental agenda - and considering what best practice business responses could look like. But we are also reviewing how SustainAbility can most effectively support reconstruction in the most affected countries, long term.
Meanwhile, one prediction for 2005 seems guaranteed to play out: the image of the tsunami will be a key tool for anyone seeking to dramatise and help people visualise major global problems. So, for example, the people behind the Oxford Vision 2020 campaign to spotlight the enormous health, financial and sustainability implications of the rapid spread of type 2 diabetes worldwide are already talking in terms of a 'tidal wave of chronic diseases awaiting us in 2020.' They draw parallels between the lack of an effective monitoring and early warning system in the Indian Ocean and the similar lack of foresight in relation to chronic disease, arguing that this is what they are now trying to provide (www.oxfordvision2020.org).
The $64 billion question at the heart of all of this is how can we leapfrog our 20th century development and business models into the 21st century? Most obviously, we must continue trying to adapt existing businesses - and aid and development programmes - to the new realities. But there is also a growing sense that real innovation must come from outside the system, from the fringes.
In addition to the personal and collective donations SustainAbility's Core Team have made and will make, we are already looking outside the system. One part of this involves SustainAbility's 'Emerging Economies' program. Another initiative, specifically designed to explore the fringes of today's economy systems is a new project on social enterprise, developed with The Schwab Foundation (www.schwabfound.org). This is due to produce a book for publication in the fall of 2005. And given that a number of leading social entrepreneurs began their work in the wake of earlier natural disasters, maybe even this darkest of dark clouds will turn up a silver lining?