What’s wrong with the world and how do we fix it?
L-R: Andrew Winston, Janine Benyus and Lynne Twist
In true Sustainable Brands style, the SB 2020 Leadership
Summit
started by blowing minds wide open with this galvanizing and inspiring panel
conversation. What’s wrong with the world, the panel argued, is that we are not
listening or learning from the natural world; and instead, we are listening too
much to money.
Lynne Twist, founder and President of the Soul of Money
Institute, pointed out that money was originally
invented to facilitate the sharing of resources so that everyone had what they
needed; however, our current money system generates and exacerbates inequality.
Referencing Buckminster Fuller, Twist said we need to move from a ‘you or
me’ paradigm to a ‘you and me’ paradigm — and to work to be “known for what we
allocate, not what we accumulate.”
Janine
Benyus,
co-founder of Biomimicry 3.8 and the Biomimicry
Institute, said that in the natural world there is no
proxy for money; rather, reciprocal trade holds ecosystems together.
Organizations can learn from organisms; the ones that are generous get to stay.
She asserted that we need to ask more of everything we design and make; so that
each design has several beneficial functions.
the exciting potential of cultivated, fermented and plant-based protein innovation
Join us as Aleph Farms, the Better Meat Co, the Good Food Institute and Plantible Foods discuss the latest advancements in cultivated, plant-based, and fermentation-derived proteins — and how incorporating alternative proteins can help brands significantly reduce environmental impacts, while conserving natural resources — Tuesday, Oct. 15 at SB'24 San Diego.
As moderator Andrew Winston concluded: “We are
asking too little of everything. The fix is that we are connected, and we
embrace that with empathy and sufficiency.” You can be sure the SB community is
fired up to connect and embrace the challenge, and, as Twist exhorted, “to
leverage our privilege for social change.”
Turning uncertainty into opportunity
Christian Busch
In his breakout discussion, Christian
Busch,
Director and Professor at the NYU Global Economy Program, shared how to use the
science of serendipity — which he describes as unexpected good luck
resulting from unplanned moments in which proactive decisions lead to positive
outcomes — as a tool for innovation and impact. He explained how being involved
in a car crash when he was younger made him think about serendipity and what
life is all about. During his career as a social entrepreneur, he noticed that
the most inspirational people somehow cultivated serendipity.
Busch recounted how Viagra was invented when medical scientists noticed that
a drug being developed to cure angina had a particular effect on men; the drug
was then developed to treat a different problem. The current global
pandemic has also
created interesting examples of businesses that have adapted to the unexpected
change
— including breweries manufacturing hand sanitizers and fashion designers making
face masks. For those wanting to cultivate serendipity in their lives, try these
practices:
- Ask questions differently - such asking ‘why?’ five times;
- Look at mistakes differently – see what could come out of the situation; and
- Develop a dual north star — as Paul
Polman
successfully did with Unilever’s strategy for sustainable
growth.
How, then, shall we lead?
Clockwise from left: Nathalie Green, Evelyn Webster and Rick Shadyac
Here, in the new now, there’s a real feeling that people are looking for answers
as they try to make sense of the world around them.
“Never before has true leadership been so important,” said Evelyn Webster,
CEO of The Guardian US & Australia, in a conversation that took in the
latest thinking from four CEOs heading up very different organisations.
As the impacts of COVID-19 continue to reinvent the rules for living and
working, Richard Shadyac, President & CEO of
ALSAC — the
fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude Children’s Research
Hospital — maintained that
courage will be a key business differentiator and a “must for leaders in
difficult times.”
Shadyac called on CEOs to put principles such as inclusion, justice and humanity
at the heart of their business. Referring to the work of St. Jude, which has
helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancer from 20 percent in 1962
to more than 80 percent today through offering free treatment and care, he said:
“In a pandemic, that model — access for all — it looks awfully humane, doesn’t
it?”
Arguing that there was no force equal to the power of human compassion, Shadyac
said that collaboration was no longer optional if businesses want to step up and
help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.
“One of real positives of self-isolation is that it’s proven we need each other
now more than ever,” he said. “Failure thrives in isolation, that’s why it’s so
frustrating to watch the world’s fractured response to COVID-19.”
Taking consumers on this journey will require new types of engagement that can
empower them to make better choices, according to Nathalie Green. She heads
up Doconomy, which has launched a credit card and
app called
DO
that can not only track the CO2 emissions of purchases, but cap the climate
impact of users’ spending.
Hailing DO as a new type of financial service tool that can inspire people to do
the right thing for everyday climate action, Green pointed out that global
consumption amounted to US$24 trillion last year. “90 percent of people don’t
know that the greater part of their carbon footprint is linked to their
consumption,” she said.
Green said one of her next aims was to help establish a global standard for
measuring and tracking global consumption, as part of the company’s wider
efforts to scale up financial solutions that can deliver banking with a
conscience.
Purpose is what drives Richard Bergfors, CEO of Max
Burgers — a popular burger chain in Sweden. Each
year 6-10 percent of the company’s profit go to charity and aid projects, but
Bergfors has his eye on doing even greater good by redefining what fast food
means.
Simply put, it means offering the world’s first climate-positive
burgers.
Max has already mapped out how it intends to do this — mainly through a
combination of capturing at least 110 percent of emissions, offering fewer beef
products and more plant-based
burgers,
and working with suppliers who support regenerative
agriculture.
“We can serve so many things between two buns that can have a really low climate
impact,” said Bergfors, adding that the company’s total climate impact has been
reduced by 20 percent per earned dollar since 2013. Its next goal is for every
second meal sold in the company’s restaurants to consist of a non-beef product
by 2022.
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
Maxine Perella is an environmental journalist working in the field of corporate sustainability, circular economy and resource risk.
Published Jun 2, 2020 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST