To Gabriel Griffa and Mateo Goretti, for their condence. To Carlos Lamarca and Fernando van Peborgh, for their friendship.

SUSTAINABILITY 2.0Networking Enterprises and Citizens to Face World Challenges

Visit our blog at: www.elviajedeodiseo.com/blog This book is not the work of a single author, but the result of the exhaustive and enthusiastic research, writing and editing carried out by the entire Odiseo Team. The Odiseo Team: Mara Noel lvarez Mara Eugenia Balio Santiago Craig Andresa Guareschi Lvia Magalhes Alejandra Procupet Gabriela Ramos Contributors: Teresa Buscaglia Luciana Malamud Photographs: Mria Antolini Page 26: The Children At Risk Foundation/ CARF: www.carfweb.net Page 30 and 133: Mark Achbar/ Big Picture Media Corporation Page 111: lvaro Ibez/ Microsiervos Page 193: Mariana Vzquez Cover Design: Clara Lagos Interior Design: Mateos-Davenport design English-Language Translator/Editor: Dan Newland: dan.newland@gmail.com 2008, Ernesto van Peborgh, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Drafting and editing of the original Spanish-language text of Sustainability 2.0 was completed in August 2007. This book is the result of exhaustive research, but as in the case of all research, it can always be improved on and expanded. It is our aim, then, for this work to circulate among citizens, business people, academics, organizations, universities and activists, so that it can expand and grow through the collaboration of its readers. Because Sustainability 2.0 can only exist where there is interaction with others. You can participate, adding your knowledge to the Wiki version of this book, by visiting www.sostenibilidaddospuntocero.com/wiki/ ISBN XXXXXXXXXX

A Personal Journey into the Future

I feel like a privileged observer of the times. I think Ive reached this privileged vantage point thanks in large measure to some decisions I made in recent years, which ended up letting me see the world from a different perspective. The year 2004 was a very special year for me. In fact, it was probably the most important one of my life. By then, I had invested 20 years in the nance business. My success rate was clear: I was so regularly churning out a 35% return on institutional investors money that this ratio was pretty much the mantra of my professional identity. I started my career in nance at Citibank. I left that job to step up to the post of Financial Director on the founding team of the Exxel Group. When I Ieft Exxel, it was to form a partnership and create my own investment rm called Argentine Venture Partners (AVP). Up to then, the full thrust of my work and commitment was only focused on one thing: creating economic value, with no real thought of the far-reaching social and environmental impact of what I did. But as I say, in 2004, guided only by what might be called my intuition, I decided to leave the world of high nance behind and change course. So much so that it was as if I were driving

7

down the highway, turned on my blinker, pulled over into the right lane, and got off at the next exit. I was a 44-year-old father of three, with vast experience in private equity, a talent that had ung open the doors of Harvards classrooms and of Wall Streets posh ofces to me. My career steeped me in nancial success. But I couldnt help feeling a need to take a different path, to get involved in something that could bring another kind of value to my personal life and to society.

First Wave: The Value RevolutionThe rst adventure on that heady new road which, looking back, bears little comparison to my past life was the decision to make a lm. I wanted to tell the story of Agostino Rocca, Jos Luis Fonrouge and Germn Sopea, a businessman, a mountaineer and a journalist, whose common denominator was their fascination with Patagonia, that legendary and largely unexplored territory that was soon to become my own passion as well. Spirals of Stone was the result, a lm documentary about an expedition undertaken by a group of family members and friends in homage to those three men. The trio died in a plane crash in 2001, when they were ying to Argentinas

Glacier National Park to hoist the countrys ag, in honor of Francisco P. Moreno, the famed Argentine explorer and scientic expert, who had done the same thing 124 years before. Like Rocca, Sopea and Fonrouge on their Patagonian journeys before me, the whole adventure of making the same climb and lming the documentary broadened my horizons. I felt that the torch that those extraordinary men of such sound values had held so high was now in my hands, and it was my job to keep its ame from waning. When the lm premiered at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA), several business people expressed a desire to promote a dialog among parents and children on issues emerging from Spirals. That made me stop and think: If telling the story of these three men can spark a debate on human values, what would happen if we started telling the stories of other people who are changing the world? By then, I had already heard about some social entrepreneurs and the initiatives they were heading up. I knew about the work of people like Swiss philanthropist and former industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, founder of the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development) and the AVINA Foundation, who, through such enterprises, was

8

providing support to social leaders and their organizations, who were working to improve life in their communities. It was then that I made the rm commitment to get to know and understand those who were spearheading humanitys value revolution. But most of all, I wanted to know what made them tick, what it was that inspired them to attempt to stimulate this change. Motivated by the achievements of these people and by the work in this same eld carried out by Bill Drayton, creator of the Ashoka organization and the gure that I took as my second reference point among social entrepreneurs, I directed my second documentary: Faros, seales de cambio en Amrica Latina (Beacons, Signs of Change in Latin America). My aim was to spread the word regarding the work of many individuals who are making a tireless effort in the struggle against poverty and inequality. Faros gave me a chance to tour Argentinas most marginal neighborhoods and to get to know Fabin Ferraro, founder of a civil association called Defensores del Chaco, which uses sandlot soccer as a method of social inclusion for some 1500 children and adolescents at risk. The making of this lm also took me to a jungle town in the Bolivian Amazon, where

children are learning Baroque music and are making their own instruments, thanks to the work of Rubn Daro Surez Arana. And I was also able to discover admirable people like Rodrigo Baggio, a young man from Rio de Janeiro who, in 1995, founded CDI (Committee for the Democratization of Information Sciences), a group that has been responsible for setting up 376 computing schools in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Japan, and that in Brazil alone has helped 600,000 young people breach the digital gap. I also met Bartolom Silva, a Chilean social entrepreneur who uses his World Circus (Circo del Mundo) as a platform for giving youngsters at risk a new chance. And Ins Sanguinetti, who invites youngsters with no material resources to learn to dance and express themselves, motivating them with the echoes of applause. Directing Beacons, which premiered at the close of the IDEA business colloquium in 2005, also allowed me to understand that while what prevailed in business was competition, selshness and lack of motivation, on the other side of the tracks, in the world of the so-called excluded members of society, there was beauty, motivation, cooperation and recognition of achievements, especially those reached collectively.

9

This led me to ask myself, then, which world I wanted to leave to my children, and to what extent it made sense to keep generating economic value without taking care of other, indispensable aspects of preserving life. Was it possible to change the world by transforming the values that motivated Mankinds actions? My recent experiences have taught me that it is, that there are many people out there who are working for a new and better future. And little by little I began to want to join in this collective effort that is taking shape.

Second Wave: Sustainable DevelopmentAnxious to tell the stories of social entrepreneurs to an everincreasing number of people, I called on media owners to publish and broadcast the work of this silent movement that was growing at two or three times the rate that the private sector was in what today we are calling the the worldwide associative revolution. This obliged me to quickly change my perspective. I suddenly went from the favela shantytowns of Brazil to the luxurious personal museum of Carlos Slim, owner of Telmex and Televisa in Mexico City and to the comfortable ofces of Ricardo Salinas Pliego, owner of TV Azteca. Although I wasnt met with the enthusiasm I had

hoped for, I didnt give up, because several major personalities from the corporate world did indeed decide to accompany me and acted as consultants, providing me with invaluable guidance in my search. I refer, among others, to Manuel Arango Arias, businessman and environmentalist, who is chairman and founder of the Mexican Foundation for Environmental Education and of the Xochitla Foundation; Reese Schonfeld, co-founder and rst president of the CNN news chain; Julio Saguier, chairman of the media holding company, La Nacin S.A. and of the Diario La Nacin Foundation; businessman Ricardo Esteves, co-chairman of the Iberoamrica Forum; and researcher, former Harvard professor and author of the bestseller, Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind, Larry Harrison. At the same time, another unstoppable wave began to carry me on its crest like a surfer: awareness about sustainable development. Taking this second exit from my old highway, I got to know companies like Natura Cosmticos and Patagonia, which were born with sustainability already in their DNA and were measuring their bottom line in economic, social and environmental terms. I had the opportunity to talk to Luiz Seabra and Guilherme Leal, Naturas founders, and thus nd, nally, the kind of people I had been looking for in the private

10

sector. And as my knowledge of sustainable business practices began to grow, I stopped feeling like Don Quixote jousting with windmills and started coming to grips with the idea that humanity was at the threshold of a change of cultural paradigm that would make history.

Third Wave: Web 2.0The tipping point came for me in 2006. That was the year when something unusual that I had already begun to observe began to have an increasing impact on companies, people, citizens and governments. It was only then that I came to the certainty that this future for which I was willing to work was a lot closer than I had supposed. Perhaps it had even already arrived. At the beginning of that year, Grupo Gerdau and Jorge Paulo Lemann invited me to speak at a forum of 200 business people on education via correspondence. Participation was the key word that I pronounced that day during my presentation in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in referring to the relentless advance of the new communications media and particularly of the Internet, which, in its role as a participative, collaborative and creative application for communities, has revealed itself as the most effective catalyst in the transformation of the cultural paradigm.

This conclusion arose, once again, from my own eld of action: My collaborators and I had spent considerable time trying to gure out where and how to place Spirals of Stone and Beacons, as well as other content that we had created on the Internet. This research led us to discover YouTube when it was just getting started. And so it was that after a two-year search for a channel through which to inform and commit individuals, organizations and businesses with regard to sustainable development, I concluded that the natural platform for this was the Web. My initial enthusiasm with the Web 2.0 application was followed by a period of exhaustive research on and experimentation with the tools it offered. Despite my admiration for the fabulous disruptions it was causing, I had to admit that Web 2.0 wasnt a revolution in itself, but a mere platform for a series of revolutions in thinking. Web 2.0 is still in an early stage and many of its applications remain confusing for the digital immigrants of my generation. Nevertheless, in another decade, the Net Gen the generation of young people born into the digital age will have taken the reins in the worlds enterprises and this wave will have enveloped us all. Once again, I opted not to just sit by and watch these changes happen. I wouldnt want to wake up tomorrow and see that

11

everything has changed and that Ive missed out on being part of the transition.

Prolog EpilogThe only way to cross the desert is to keep walking. This adage may sound a little trite, but I learned its meaning in the most extreme of practices. In another of my past lives, I took part in dozens of grueling races and marathons. I participated in my rst Eco-Challenge in 2001. In eight days, we raced across 350 km of pristine and desolate lands in New Zealand. We climbed mountains and navigated raging rivers. When you walk 22 hours a day non-stop except to grab a few hours of sleep, you get in touch with the most intimate essence of human nature. You dont feel the cold or the physical fatigue, only the overwhelming need to eat, like some powerful animal reex. In 2004, my passion for challenges took me to the Atacama Desert. In six days, we ran seven marathons in the most extreme environment on earth. Withstanding temperatures of 40C by day and 6C by night, we crossed that salt desert through places where no human being had ever tread before. These tests seek to underscore the virtues of teamwork. Thats why the prime rule is that everybody has to make it to the nish

line. If one member of a team drops out, the entire team is disqualied. The key is to put the interests of the group as a whole over and above those of the individual contestants, and that sometimes means having to sacrice food or water to revive someone who has suffered dehydration, or having to cut back the pace in order to let a team member recover. And it is as moving to receive the solidarity of the rest of the team as it is to give it. The possibility of experiencing extreme perspectives desert and mountain, individual and group interests, corporate empires and massive shantytowns has permitted me to incorporate what I have learned in these years and identify some values of my own from the new paradigm: condence, responsibility, collaboration and transparency. The trust that social entrepreneurs and their organizations place in their projects and in the community as architects of a change in values. The responsibility of many consumers and citizens, who are ever more committed to their times and to the planet. The collaboration applied by the Net Gen in the Web when they collectively create new realities. The transparency revolution implemented by certain companies that have pioneered in sustainability, even before society started to demand it.

12

This is, in a nutshell, the story of the personal journey I began in 2004, the year that I learned to know the desert, the year my father died, and the year I began to have a new outlook on life. That year too, I had another son, an event that moved me to reassess the world I was building for him, and for my other three children, and their children. In response, I found an unprecedented motivation spreading the word about sustainable development. In the Net Gen, there is hope. And in Web 2.0, there is a space from which to start building enterprises, social organizations and citizens groups, based on this motivation and on this hope. Over time, my vision began to capture the interest of journalists and communicators, who, motivated by their own personal journeys, expressed their almost natural empathy. And despite their having been brought up in related but still diverse disciplines like psychology, history, philosophy and advertising they came together to form the inter-disciplinary team that is now known as Odiseo, a group that has promoted research to afrm my hypotheses and of which this book is a mere sketch. As a result of the road undertaken, I feel today, as I stated at the beginning of this prolog, like a privileged observer of these times. Standing atop the peak that permits me to main-

i tain my perspective, on one side I see the business world with its economic power that draws strength from bottom-line results and growth. And on the other, I see a silent movement, but one that is growing at a dizzying rate, a movement that, incredibly enough, has remained beyond the radar of the media, governments and businesses alike. Its leaders are entrepreneurs that are concerned about life and about us, the members of the human species, the inhabitants of this single, global village. These are people who, with responsibility and condence as their powerful motivations, are attempting to change the world and build a better future. In both of these sectors, among companies and social entrepreneurs, there are young members of the Net Gen, with the multiple tools of Web 2.0, the natural platform from which to transmit the sustainability paradigm. We are living in the best and in the worst of times. The road to a better future promises to be a long and winding one. But it also promises to be full of surprising discoveries, some of which we will try to share with you in the chapters you are about to read. Ernesto van Peborgh

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ACTIVISM AL_GORE BIODIVERSITY EDUCATION

AMAZON

AN_INCONVENIENT_TRUTH

ANITA_RODDICK

AUTHENTICITY

BILL_DRAYTON ECOLOGY

CITIZENS CIVIL_SOCIETY

CONSUMER CONSUMPTION DIVERSITY ECO-EFFICIENCY

ENTERPRISE ETHICS ETHOS EXCLUSION FORESTATION GLOBAL_WARMING GRAMEEN_PHONE

GREENWASHING HUMAN_RIGHTS INCLUSION INTERFACE JOHN_ELKINGTON KNOWLEDGE LONG_TERM NETWORKS NGO LUIZ_SEABRA MARKETS NATURA NEW_PARADIGM NIKE NO_LOGO ODED_GRAJEW PARTICIPATION PATAGONIA PAUL_HAWKEN POVERTY RAY_ANDERSON RECYCLE RESOURCES RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBLE_CONSUMPTION REUSE SOCIETY STAKEHOLDERS STARBUCKS STEPHAN_SCHMIDHEINY SUSTAINABILITY SUSTAINABLE_

DEVELOPMENT TOYOTA TRANSPARENCY TRIPLE_BOTTOM_LINE VALUES VIRTUAL

WAL-MART WATER WOMEN

YVON_CHOUINARD ACTIVISM AL_GORE AMAZON AN_INCONVENIENT_TRUTH ANITA_RODDICK AUTHENTICITY BILL_DRAYTON BIODIVERSITY CITIZENS CIVIL_SOCIETY CONSUMER CONSUMPTION DIVERSITY ECO-EFFICIENCY ECOLOGY EDUCATION ENTERPRISE ETHICS ETHOS EXCLUSION FORESTATION GLOBAL_WARMING GRAMEEN_PHONE GREENWASHING HUMAN_RIGHTS INCLUSION INTERFACE JOHN_ELKINGTON KNOWLEDGE LONG_TERM NETWORKS NGO LUIZ_SEABRA MARKETS NATURA NEW_PARADIGM NIKE NO_LOGO ODED_GRAJEW PARTICIPATION PATAGONIA PAUL_HAWKEN POVERTY RAY_ANDERSON RECYCLE RESOURCES RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBLE_CONSUMPTION REUSE SOCIETY STAKEHOLDERS STARBUCKS STEPHAN_SCHMIDHEINY SUSTAINABILITY SUSTAINABLE_DEVELOPMENT TOYOTA TRANSPARENCY TRIPLE_BOTTOM_LINE VALUES VIRTUAL WAL-MART WATER WOMEN YVON_CHOUINARD ACTIVISM AL_GORE BIODIVERSITY EDUCATION AMAZON AN_INCONVENIENT_TRUTH ANITA_RODDICK AUTHENTICITY BILL_DRAYTON ECOLOGY

CITIZENS CIVIL_SOCIETY

CONSUMER CONSUMPTION DIVERSITY ECO-EFFICIENCY

ENTERPRISE ETHICS ETHOS EXCLUSION FORESTATION GLOBAL_WARMING GRAMEEN_PHONE

GREENWASHING HUMAN_RIGHTS INCLUSION INTERFACE JOHN_ELKINGTON KNOWLEDGE LONG_TERM NETWORKS NGO LUIZ_SEABRA MARKETS NATURA NEW_PARADIGM NIKE NO_LOGO ODED_GRAJEW PARTICIPATION PATAGONIA PAUL_HAWKEN POVERTY RAY_ANDERSON RECYCLE RESOURCES RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBLE_

Sustainable Development

A New Paradigm

Chapter 1

At the end of 2006, the world premiere of An Inconvenient Truth established the issue of worldwide climate change as a reality and not just as the obsession or paranoia of a few scientists and activists by showcasing the ght waged by former US Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore against global warming. That same year, Wal-Mart announced its commitment to sustainability. It began a plan by which, within a threeyear period, some of its lines would only offer products manufactured employing sustainable practices. Today, 60,000 companies are modifying their production processes in order to satisfy this chain-store giant that welcomes 100 million shoppers a week. A survey run by The Synergos Institute in several countries showed that 95% of all consumers believe that companies have an unpaid debt with their workers and their communities.

Meanwhile the number of civil action organizations was growing and continues to grow at an ever-faster rate due to the ineffectiveness of government in the face of issues that call for urgent solutions: poverty, environmental protection, defense of human rights and the preservation of democracy. It appears that the tipping point the moment at which something unique and unusual changes the habitual, according the denition by Malcolm Gladwell is growing nearer all the time. And that Mankind is converging on a new paradigm. A veritable ethos or starting point. And with it will come the sustainable development that urges us not to try to live beyond our means, not to burn down our houses in order to keep warm, not to saw off the branch that were sitting on. The proposal of this concept is, actually, pure common sense: the common sense that impels us to turn off the lights when we leave home and to not leave the tap running while we brush our teeth.

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Viability or Sustainability?

The terms viability and sustainability came to the fore in the popular vernacular along with the new electronic information media that became the driving force behind widespread awareness of growing worldwide problems including overpopulation, lack of water, famine and environmental degradation. In the academic world, however, these terms had already been introduced in the book called The Limits of Growth (Meadows and others, 1972), published by The Club of Rome. There is no clear consensus regarding the meaning of viability or sustainability. Nevertheless, one of the rst denitions of sustainable development was provided by the Brundtland Report put out by the United Nations World Commission for Environment and Development, which was originally called Our Common Future (1987). Chapter 1 of that Report gives the following denition: Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future. But it was not until the Rio Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) that Mankind adopted a global perspective with regard to global issues and that the concept of sustainable development

began to be dened more fully and as we conceive of it today. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the notion of sustainability had basically been applied to the environmental eld. But over the course of that decade, its use began to extend to social, political and business issues. Little by little, such questions as inequality in the distribution of wealth and diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, nutrition, health, access to information and security began to be incorporated into the debate. Governments, business groups and a growing number of civil organizations became the driving forces behind a series of global conferences whose aim was to create a framework of governance, through which to come to grips with a new form of development that would bear in mind the environmental, economic, social and institutional needs of both present and future generations. The latest UN Earth Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002, where discussions surrounded strategies for promoting the principles of sustainability and ensuring their adoption by nations worldwide and in every region of the planet.

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Conditions for Environmental Sustainability

1 No renewable resource should be 2 No non-renewablearesource used at a faster rate than it can should be used at faster ratebe generated. than that necessary to replace it with a sustainably renewable resource.

be 3 Noapollutant shouldthatproduced at rate faster than at which it can be recycled, neutralized or absorbed by the environment.

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The Three Waves of Sustainability According to John Elkington1961Amnesty International, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are founded.

THE FIRST WAVE: The Green Revolution

It was within the framework of the Cold War, the hippie movement and the May Revolt in France that the rst ecological organizations, such as Greenpeace, emerged. It was also during this period that the rst environmentally aware companies Patagonia and Natura came onto the market.

THE SECOND WAVE: Market Economy Comes to the Forefront

The Berlin Wall comes down and democratic systems take a foothold in Latin America. The Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill makes people start taking the ecological movement seriously. Marketing begins to adopt green messages on a massive scale.

1983The UN creates the World Environment and Development Commission.

1984Bhopal Disaster (India).

1986Chernobyl Disaster (USSR).

THE THIRD WAVE: Toward Responsible Globalization

Globalization bursts onto the scene, and antiglobalization with it. The Internet grows at a swift pace, bringing the birth of participative media, and ad agencies begin to study on-line advertising. Companies like Shell and Nike face complaints regarding their production processes and must account for their actions before society.

1999Battle in Seattle (USA).

2000First World Social Forum (Porto Alegre, Brazil). Publication of No Logo, by Naomi Klein (who denounced Nikes use of slave labor).

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1962Publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring.

1971Greenpeace is born.

1972Publication of The Limits of Growth by The Club of Rome. The Stockholm Conference (rst UN Environmental Summit).

1973Seveso Disaster (Italy). Watergate Case (USA).

1975The UN declares International Womens Day.

1987The Montreal Protocol is signed. The Brundtland Report is published.

1988John Elkington launches his Green Consumer Guide.

1989Exxon Valdez Case (following the Alaska oil spill). Fall of the Berlin Wall (unication of Germany).

1992First Worldwide UN Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is founded.

1995Shell Scandal (petroleum spills in Nigeria). The Ethos Institute (Brazil) is created.

1997The Kyoto Protocol is signed. NIKE Scandal. The Triple Bottom Line concept is published.

2002World Sustainable Development Summit (Johannesburg, South Africa).

2003Third World Social Forum (Porto Alegre, Brazil).

2004Tsunami (Indian Ocean).

2005Hurricane Katrina (in the states of Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi and in the Bahamas).

2006Muhummad Yunus receives the Nobel Peace Prize for the founding of the Grameen Bank.

2007Al Gore receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to halting global warming.

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In Search of the Perfect DenitionThe ideas of most people regarding the meaning of the word sustainability are simple and on target: Sustainability refers to human survival and the avoidance of ecological disaster. Be that as it may, the language of sustainability becomes clearer and more effective when we focus on what is unsustainable instead of on the positive denition. Farmers and ecologists, for example, would surely be in agreement that soil erosion due to human activity is unsustainable, even if they were to disagree about how to make soil use sustainable. Here are a few diverse, though not contradictory, denitions regarding sustainable development and sustainability in general:

Sustainable development is a dynamic process which enables all people to realize their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways which simultaneously protect and enhance the Earths life-support systems.

Forum for the Future - OAS

es on and when the light bulb go Sustainability comes everything is are all involved, that you start to see that we . ur actions affect others interconnected, that yo Paul Hawken

Sustainable development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.World Commission on Environment and Development UN

In essence sustainable development is about ve key principles: quality of life; fairness and equity; participation and partnership; care for our environment and respect for ecological constraints.

Understanding is 50% of the solution. Every time we are about to make a decision, we should think of the people around us and ask ourselves if that decision is going to cause a problem for any of those people. If thats the case, change it or dont do it.Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka

Forum for the Futures Sustainable Wealth London Project

It requires education , more efcient use of resources, more open of democracy, as we forms ll as societys particip ation in decision-mak It also requires econo ing. mic growth, focused on generating more opportunities. equalStephan Schmidhein y

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The New ParadigmThe many nuances of the denitions show that many concepts are currently being articulated around sustainable development. Intellectuals that are pushing a new intercultural philosophy based on an awareness of diversity and interdependency, theorists who are for a systemic focus on science, social leaders that promote the creation of subsistence communities and economies, ecological militants and business people with a long-term view oriented toward responsible resource management, all rally today around this new paradigm, that is the incarnation of the need to integrate human beings into their environment once more. In the end, it is about producing a change in the cosmovision: from the anthropocentric vision that Mankind began to build in the Modern Era centered exclusively on human and individual interests and conceiving of the Earth as nothing more than a raw materials warehouse that is at Mans disposal to a biocentric cosmovision, which conceives of Nature as a combination of interdependent organisms and in which life itself is at the center of everything and Man forms part of this, as one of its intelligent manifestations. A change of cosmovision also implies a change of focus, in order to face the problems that 21st century society is suffering. This has emerged as an inescapable fact following the failure of States self-proclaimed as the source of all of the basic necessities of their citizens to provide solutions to such vital questions as scarcity of resources, environmental pollution, health care, poverty and lack of quality of life, among many more. And so the old Welfare State went out with the 20th century, indeed leaving in its wake very serious conicts in a variety of elds, which, in order to nd a solution, require the joint interaction of a broad spectrum of interests. As a result, the new sustainability paradigm has been enriched by a focus that underscores the value of association, interaction and networking, above and beyond simple exchanges among individuals, sectors or corporations, which function as closed special interest groups.

23

ModernANTHROPOCENTRISMFocus: Man Earth: Raw Materials Warehouse Link:

The Direction and Sense of ChangeThere is no real consensus at present with regard to the direction that the advance of change toward the new paradigm is taking. In his book, Blessed Unrest, ecologist Paul Hawken analyzes this largest movement on earth () that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media and that, according to him, is being organized, like Nature, from the bottom up. Hawken says that in every city, town and culture, it is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of peoples needs worldwide. For his part, John Elkington, author of Cannibals with Forks, points out that the driving force behind sustainable development is a qualitative transformation the affects both supply and demand. Ray C. Anderson, Chairman and CEO of Interface, Inc., a pioneer in the trend toward sustainable development, in that same vein goes on to say: When the marketplace, the people, show their appreciation for these qualities and vote with their pocketbooks for early adopters, the people will be leading. The good guys will win in the marketplace and the polling booth and the rest of the politicians and business leaders will have to follow. Regardless of agreement or not about what drives the change toward sustainability and the directions the movement is

IR RESPONSI BLE C ONS UMPT I ON

Post-ModernBIOCENTRISMFocus: Life Earth: Inter-dependent Organisms Link:

SU STA I NA BI LI T Y

24

taking, the majority of voices worldwide agree as to the urgent need to do something about Mans relationship with Nature and to the need be successful in this effort, bearing in mind the magnitude and seriousness of the risks involved. And in spite of the multiple denitions, variations and meanings that simultaneously coexist, there can be no doubt that sustainability has gained almost universal acceptance as a good thing. (Few people indeed could nd a defense for non-sustainability). There are those, however, who disagree as to whether development can be considered a possible road to sustainability. Among these are members of the alterglobalist or antiglobalization movements, a school of thought made up of ecological groups, pro-native movements, leftist intellectuals and union leaders throughout the world, who share their rejection of capitalism, the neo-liberal model, multinational companies and the IMF. Gathered at the World Social Forum and congregating around such renowned ideologues as Noam Chomsky, Leonardo Boff, Jaime Petras and the newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, these groups deny the effectiveness of development in the achievement of a more sustainable and fair world order, since they consider that it is based on the presumption of economic

growth ad innitum, which implies unlimited consumption of resources and the absence of social equality. They believe, however, in sustainability, and promote it, as anyone can see by consulting their communications channels on the Web: Indymedia, Nodo 50 and Rebelin.org, among others.

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Dimensions and Issues of Sustainable Development

Science, ecology, civil society, business...each group or individual promoter of sustainable development stimulates construction of the new paradigm from the eld of action in which it/he/she operates. This gives rise to the different dimensions of sustainable development, with each of these being characterized by a variety of issues or areas of debate:

EnvironmentalPollution Climate change Natural disasters Biodiversity Waste

SocialHealth and quality of life Education Equality Human rights Equal access to opportunities

26

EconomicScience, technology and society Business and trade Energy Efcient resource use Sustainability indicators

InstitutionalAgents/institutions Governance and transparency Participation and democracy Globalization /alterglobalism International cooperation

27

Agents of Change

Within the framework of the new paradigm, which underscores the value of association and cooperation, the work of civil organizations NGOs among them has made a considerable impact. Emerging from the urban middle class, which burgeoned with the economic expansion of the 1960s, these began to operate in the 1980s and acquired a stellar role in the 1990s, substituting for a State that was reduced to its minimum expression and incapable of providing answers to problems relating to health, education, poverty, human rights, environmental pollution, promotion of womens development and consumer rights, among other issues. In society, the action of many NGOs involves divulging information and generating awareness. In their role as a forum for citizen interaction combined with lodging demands that governments and companies prevent, correct or mitigate unsustainable conducts, the actions of these organizations transcend geographic and socio-economic boundaries. And with the coming of the communications revolution especially the Internet they have become so inuential that it is often enough for an NGO to threaten involvement in an issue for government ofcials or business people to reconsider their planned actions. The following are details of a few well-known

cases in which NGOs have demonstrated their inuence: In 2000, Amnesty International reported the deaths of civilians and grave human rights violations committed by guards in production areas managed by Talisman Energy Inc. in Sudan. Following two years of protests, several pension funds withdrew their participation in the oil company, which was obliged to initiate its withdrawal from the country. After ve years of reports regarding child slave labor in the harvesting of cacao in the Ivory Coast children as young as 10 were forced to work 12-hour shifts, were poorly fed and were locked up at night in 2005, Equal Exchange and other NGOs managed to get Hershey, M&M, Nestl and other major chocolate manufacturers involved in the issue. They ended up exercising responsible care practices and agreed to certify their products as being child slave labor-free. The Canadian mining rm Meridian Gold in 2002 announced plans for open-sky gold-mining operations in the Andes range near Esquel, Chubut Province, Argentina. There were fears that the acid drainage from the thousands of tons of rock that would have to be moved and the use of thousands of liters of cyanide to process the ore would have a pernicious effect on the ageless and pristine Alerces National Park. An NGO called

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Movimiento de Vecinos Autoconvocados por el No a la Mina (SelfConvened Movement of Neighbors against the Mine), managed to get the issue into the domestic and international media and to organize a referendum in which 80% of the population expressed its rejection of the mining project. As a consequence of such widespread repudiation, the government of Chubut Province was forced to slap a prohibition on open-sky mineral ore mining and on the use of cyanide in mining processes.

Social Sector

The Power of the Intern

et

s Hopkins untries by the John carried out in 22 co r Project revealed that NGOs repStudies luded rot Secto Comparative Nonp -earning labor force in countries inc of the wage employment in resent 5% d 1995, at between 1990 an growth rate for the in the study and th es faster than the tim w work that sector grew 2.5 Civil society organizations apply ne with whole. economy as a style in accordance s d a management anges ha methodologies an rowths of these ch sector e of the outg their mission. On private, non-prot l organized, e emergence of an s, worldwide, economic, socia been th world-clas that has become a litical force. and po

Just as printing beca me Protestant ideas pro a fundamental tool for the disseminatio n of vo Roman Catholic Churc king the greatest revolution suffered by the h in its 2000 years of is today supporting existence the Intern the capacity of civil so ciety to interconnect, et take advantage of ins grow, tant access to a wide range of information nancing and comm , unities, and to create collectively. NGOs have given bir th also through the Internet to campaig that have paralyzed comp ns thanks to the Web, the anies that were not operating correctly. And volume of data regard porations is so huge ing the actions of co that, according to an raly into ever more soph isticated use of marke sts, it will soon develop t intelligence.

Networked Organizations

at underlies the d cooperation th of of association an n rise to networks The value e nizations has give tion of these orga ns. These in turn network with on ac e, ilding of an activ rian institutio humanita r in the bu plement each othe munity, that is recognized another and com m g international co nt wait self-administratin cle for information and that does at are of vehi s th as a source and take up the issue ditional media to around for the tra ther, takes action. bers, but ra interest to its mem l distances omic and cultura raphic, socio-econ raction within the sector So it is that geog inte vor of synergetic ty. are spanned in fa ther the different sectors of socie ge and of bridging to

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Civil Society versus Business

Within the rst few pages of her book, No Logo: Taking Aim at Brand Bullies, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein a renowned gure in the anti-globalization movement states: This book is hinged on a simple hypothesis: that as more people discover the brand-name secrets of the global logo web, their outrage will fuel the next big political movement, a vast wave of opposition squarely targeting transnational corporations, particularly those with very high name-brand recognition. In recent years, the world has witnessed business scandals and citizen boycotts that have swiftly taken shape through the communications media. Their shockwaves have reached the employees of the companies involved, who began to bring pressure for changes toward more sustainable production processes. In order to come to grips with these demands, some rms decided to partially modify their processes, while adopting corporate social responsibility policies, with the aim of cleaning up their images and repositioning themselves on the market as environmentally friendly by adopting a green outward appearance (greenwashing). But when these policies are not the result of the values that the company actually maintains, their positive impact is nil.

According to political scientist Rajni Kothari, sustainable development demands, above all, an ethical change. It is not a matter of a technological x or a new way of making nancial investments. It is a change oriented toward valuing Nature for what it is and not simply as a source of resources and to fuel the motor of economic development.

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OLD PARADIGM DISPENSABILITY OF OTHERS Focus: Man / Sector Link: Exchange Instrument: Individual Project Objective: CONSUMPTION

ETHICAL CHANGE

NEW PARADIGM RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY Focus: Life / Cultures Link: Interaction Instrument: Common Strategies Objective: SUSTAINABILITY

OLD VALUES

NEW VALUES

It is Professor Kotharis belief that the ecological crisis that the world is suffering is due to the fact that we have considered Natures diversity dispensable. And by transferring the lack of respect for Nature to Man, we had virtually declared a major portion of the human race dispensable as well, generating one of the ercest socio-economic crises in history. Thus, in order to halt this crisis, we need an ethical change based on the premise that all life is indispensable.

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1

Companies start to notice that their customers and the markets are checking out their commitment to economic, social and environmental sustainability.

23

ture is transformed: It is Little by little, corporate cul of of making money, but also no longer just a question and social values. incorporating ethical issues

Feeling themselves suddenly in the public eye, companies have to assume the fact that even though they try and control news of their actions, these actions beco me public knowledge anyway. This is the reason why they start ope rating transparently.

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The companies become aware of the importance of designing new techniques and processes that reduce the economic, social and environmental impact of their products.

s among themselves, Companies form strategic alliance anizations from other or between themselves and org itionally considered sectors, even some that were trad enemies.

6

Gradually, the way of conceiving corp orate time frames changes and a need emerges to think more and to plan on a long-term basis.

7

The TBL (Triple Bottom Line) Agenda is incorporated into the companies strategic management (to control the economic, social and environmental impact of processes and products).

The Sustainable Company

Chapter 2

These points summarize the Seven Revolutions that could lead companies to Sustainability as set forth by consultant John Elkington in his book, Cannibals with Forks (1997). In it, he also dened the concept that he coined as Triple Bottom Line (TBL), pointed to as the differentiating attribute of companies that were categorically committed to sustainability: e.g., companies whose management systems take into account the impact of their processes and products on the economy, society and the environment. Subsequently, sustainable companies began to be dened as those that were capable of reformulating their strategies by including three complementary parameters: economic growth, creation of social value and environmental conservation. So it was that in the last ve years of the 20th century, this new paradigm began to repeat itself throughout the productive sector: Businesses began to talk for the rst time ever about incorporating such concepts as the creation of economic, social and environmental value for their stakeholders (workers, shareholders, customers, civil and government organizations)

and to process re-designing with a view to the long term. At the same time, and by the hand of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), new concepts that were applicable to business sustainability began to take shape. These concepts stressed the need for companies to not only seek eco-efciency, but also to properly think about (or re-think) their relationship with society and the environment, by incorporating practices encompassed within the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Dened by the WBCSD asthe decision of a company to contribute to sustainable development by working with its employees, their families and the local community, as well as with society as a whole, to improve the quality of life, it placed the company in a key position within the architecture of the new paradigm. Within the neo-liberal model, which at the time was enjoying broad acceptance in much of the world, change toward sustainability required the action of companies, considered, as they were, to be the main driving force behind economic growth.

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Business in the 21st Century

1. Market Pressure 2. New Values 3. Transparency 4. Technology 5. Partnerships 6. Long-Term Vision 7. TBL

The 7 Revolutons toward Sustainability, according to John Elkington

With the dawning of the new millennium, an ever-growing number of business people joined the debate and began to rethink the place that their companies were occupying and the role they played in society and on Planet Earth. In this way, the concept of what constituted a sustainable company continued to develop and be enriched, especially in ethical and social terms. Inwardly, a new corporate culture emerged, one that recognized the people that made up the company and the know-how that they generated (e.g., its human capital) as its main asset, since the competitiveness of the company depended on their capacity for action and innovation. Outwardly, companies started to recognize themselves as integral parts of the communities where they operated and, as such, as jointly responsible for both the welfare and the problems of these societies, as well as being participants in the denition of their values. Out of this emerged the incorporation of the environmental variable into corporate strategy, along with the creation of economic and social value or in other words, the Triple Bottom Line mentioned earlier. Information technologies and the development of the Internet facilitated both internal changes in companies and their communications with society. The Web provided a means

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of boosting the impact on consumers of the change toward sustainability. In many cases, consumers preferred to pay a little more for clean products, that is to say, ones that, besides providing the manufacturers with a prot, were made in accordance with standards that protected the environment and created social value. In this way, brands associated with sustainability began to gain prestige, which in turn began to bolster the value of these companies shares. Similarly, investor interest in these rms increased, since sustainability had become an almost indispensable attribute in convincing those who sought to expand their capital by investing in a productive enterprise. But it was on the Web too that, with equal swiftness, voices were raised up against the new paradigm, especially through campaigns and protests organized by some earlier-mentioned NGOs, as well as through blogs which, now in their tenth year, number more than 70 million and encompass some 4.2 million active bloggers. Regarding the inuence of growing consumer cyber-activism, Zed Digital, a rm specializing in marketing on the Internet, a few months back published a study in which it claimed that 44.1% of all bloggers in Spain had shown themselves to be

willing to change one of their habitual brand preferences if they were to read a negative comment about it on the Internet, adding that 41% of those surveyed had already done so . As power brokers, the new electronic media are currently growing by leaps and bounds. According to recent statements by geopolitical expert Ignacio Ramonet, Chairman and Editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, the Internet and bloggers are bent on becoming the fth power: the citizens counterweight against the dominion of major media groups over the news. Internet is also a channel for the campaigns of NGOs like ATTAC, Clean Clothes Campaign, Free Burma, Friends of the Earth and No Sweat!, which exercise the kind of supervision at which governments have shown themselves to still be inefcient. Through this and other media, they demand that the private sector be held accountable for the social, economic and environmental impact of its activities. Many times the results of these campaigns are highly successful and achieve changes in the behavior of the productive sector. Proof of this is the business organization called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which managed to get the worlds two leading soft-drink makers, PepsiCo and The Coca Cola Company (TCCC), to sign a written commitment

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not to use animals in the testing of their products. And then there is the alliance between Coca Cola and WWF International (World Wildlife Fund International), by which the company pledged investment of 20 million dollars in a program aimed at three freshwater conservation objectives: 1) reduction of the amount of water used to make their beverages; 2) recycling of the water used in their manufacturing processes, and 3) replenishing of water in the communities and in Nature in the vicinity of its bottling plants.

In a survey, 44.1% of Spains bloggers said they were willing to change their product preferences based on negative comments on the Internet.

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Greenwashing or Real Change?The term greenwash stems from the word whitewash (which means to gloss over or cover up something) and is used pejoratively to describe certain marketing actions that some companies make use of in seeking to somehow compensate for other actions that have soiled their brand image, due to the negative impact of these actions on the environment. A number of environmentalist organizations have concentrated their efforts on exposing and denouncing greenwashers, to the point of actually creating rankings, such as Americas Ten Worst Greenwashers, which, in 2002, was led by the makers of Krafts Post Selects cereals for promoting their product as natural when they were, in fact, packaging laboratory cereals. Actions like those of the companies included in this ranking are easily qualied as greenwashing. Others are not so easy. Wal-Mart, the worlds largest corporation, with revenues of 315 billion dollars and more than 11 billion in prots for 2006, is frequently accused of non-sustainable conduct. In reaction to this, the chain recently launched a line of organic clothing and, in the process, became the worlds largest buyer of organic cotton. Simultaneously, Wal-Mart kicked off its Sustainability 360 plan, which projects annual investments of 500 million dollars with the aim of achieving a level of sustainable products equal to 20% of all products offered by its stores in just three years time. Whether this is a real change of values or another case of greenwashing, the fact that 100 million people a week are being invited to consume responsible products, and more than 60,000 suppliers to manufacture them, makes the impact of doing business in this way clearly predictable on a worldwide scale.

New Playing RulesWithin this context, characterized by a market with consumers that not only have voice and vote, but also their own communications media which they use to demand that companies change to more sustainable policies the 100 New Global Challengers have ourished. This is a group of a hundred companies from developing countries, identied in a study by a Boston consulting group, which, besides providing jobs to more than 4.6 million people and generating prots of more than 715 billion dollars a year, have managed to stand out as leaders of the sustainable business movement. Major rms among them include: Cemex (Mexico), renowned for its work with neglected markets and its rm commitment to the communities where its plants operate; Natura (Brazil), a cosmetics company whose trademark is strongly linked to

sustainable development; and Petrobras, now rated on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the most highly used parameter today in the classication of responsible companies, from an economic, social and environmental standpoint. Running counter to this, the conversion or re-conversion of companies born and raised according to the old paradigm is not always easy. The change implies much more than adopting a new set of values that substantially alter a companys culture and its way of doing business. It starts with assuming the fact that the world has changed radically and that, as the consulting group SustainAbility recently stated, there are new playing rules that companies have to apply in order to achieve sustainability without losing their competitive edge in the new global scenarios.

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1. Plan for the unexpected. Flexibility in the value chain, in technological platforms and in labor policies constitutes the new efciency factor. 2. Find the True South. Dont underestimate the importance of the emerging economies. There are regions where development is raging today at a dizzying pace. 3. Dont wait for the Big Guys to take the initiative. Today even the most powerful companies are exposed to scandal and crisis. What is decisive is the capacity to create sustainable value. 4. Contribute to strengthening the Earths immune system. Bring intelligence and creativity to the search for solutions to environmental and social crises. 5.Think in terms of opportunities and innovation. Change the focus of environmental and social issues: Consider them major opportunities instead of risks. 6. Surpass yourself day after day. The challenges are huge and demand a radical change of attitude. Leaders must go out in search of new allies, models and solutions. 7. Be political. You have to get involved and take positions in conicts.

The 7 Rules of the Sustainability Game, according to John Elkington

Sustainability StandardsEconomic IndicatorsThe sustainable company is now a fact of life and it looks like it is here to stay. But how do you go about rating a companys level of sustainability? Consultants and managers today apply economic, social and environmental indicators that respond to the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) concept. These are specic, usually quantitative indices that evaluate the impact of each business move, for the purpose of establishing its level of sustainability. Although the list and number of the indicators are variable, many are included in the majority of business platforms. Usually, these companies will adopt a platform of indicators and then gradually improve it in accordance with the circumstances they must deal with. A good example of this kind of exibility is provided by the multinational, Hewlett-Packard (HP), which, after being investigated in 2006 for secretly spying on its executives to try and discover whether any of them had leaked information to the press, adopted privacy policies as one of the ratios in its Annual Sustainability Report .

Productivity Ratio. Wage and Benet Level. Product Value/Environmental Impact Ratio (eco-efciency). Investment in Research, Development and Innovation. Total taxes or contributions to the Public Administration.40

Social Indicators

Environmental Indicators

Safety and Hygiene in the Workplace. No Gender, Ethnic or Age Discrimination. Level of Training among Human Capital. Satisfaction and Turnover Ratio. Impact on Social Development in the Local Community. Capacity to Inuence Stakeholders in the Adoption of Like Values.

Use of Renewable Energy Resources. Use of Recyclable Materials. No Water, Air or Soil Pollution. Auditing of Processes Applied by Suppliers and Transporters. Respect for Biodiversity. Obedience of Environmental Laws.

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Sustainability Report and Social Balance SheetThe sustainability report is a tool through which companies disclose and measure the economic, social and environmental impact of processes implemented over the course of a particular year or other period of time. Promoted by the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), it reports prots, investment and other information on the companys economic and nancial situation. Its aim is to detail the brand value or soundness of the company, by explaining the level of risk minimization achieved thanks to social, political or legal actions, and it may include although this is not a priority aspects linked to social responsibility. The social balance sheet, on the other hand, is a goodwill communication tool that focuses more on social issues and contains data which are certied by only a handful of organizations in the entire world.

Business Associations Based on ValuesThe communications revolution and new technologies, coupled with constant public complaints being voiced by citizens and NGOs alike, alerted companies to the urgent need to get organized and to form associations, in order to face a variety of problems of the new millennium. Below are examples of three successful efforts to create business associations based on sustainability values.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a coalition of 180 international companies that are united in their commitment to sustainable development, based on the three pillars of economic growth, ecological balance and social progress. Founded at the Rio de Janeiro worldwide Earth Summit in 1992, today its members represent 35 countries and 20 strategic areas of business. The mission of the WBCSD is to provide business leadership as a catalyst for change toward sustainable development.

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Business Case StudiesAppendices 1, 2 and 3 of this book include case studies of companies that have begun the change toward sustainability, with detailed information about each of them. Appendix 1: Pioneer companies Starbucks The Whole Foods Market Patagonia Natura Ben & Jerrys Appendix 2: Companies that Changed Toyota General Electric DuPont Home Depot Interface Nike Wal-Mart Appendix 3: Sustainable companies Nau Grameen Telecom Guayak American Apparel Seventh Generation Sambazon

The Ethos Institute of Companies and Social Responsibility is a Non-Government Organization created in Brazil in 1998, whose mission is to mobilize, sensitize and help companies manage their businesses in a more socially responsible way, with the ultimate goal being to contribute to the building of a more sustainable and just society. The Institutes more than 1,000 members have combined annual billings equal to 33% of the Brazilian GDP and they provide about one million jobs.

Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) is an international not for prot business organization with headquarters in San Francisco and ofces in Europe and China. It offers consulting services to 250 partner companies and to another 1,000 businesses around the world. Its mission is to contribute to the creation of a fairer and more sustainable world, by working together with companies to promote more responsible practices, as well as innovation and cooperation.

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The Ones that Made HistoryBenchmarks, Inspirers and Pioneers

Chapter 3

ELKINGTON, The FatherAs we move into the third millennium, we are embarking on a global cultural revolution. Business, much more than governments or NGOs, will be in the driving seat. John Elkington The Father of Sustainable Development: such is the role that the specialized media attribute to John Elkington, the British sociologist and social psychologist born in 1949, who co-founded the rst independent consulting rm devoted to sustainability. Its name: SustainAbility. This rm which Elkington himself presided over from 1995 to 2005 has ofces in London, Zurich, Washington D.C. and San Francisco, and counts such big names as Ford, Microsoft, Nike, Shell and Unilever (as well as other major multinationals worldwide) among its clients. But Elkingtons link to sustainability dates back to his childhood. He was only 11 years old when he collected contributions

among his classmates to donate to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). And in 1978 he had already joined two colleagues one of them Max Nicholson, co-founder of the WWF in creating a rm called Environmental Data Services. Dubbed by BusinessWeek magazine as the dean of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) for three decades, John Elkington is the author and co-author of 40 papers and 17 books that have sold millions of copies around the world. Most noteworthy among them, due to their status as required reading, are The Green Consumer Guide (1988) and Cannibals with Forks (1997). The Green Consumer Guide is a catalog of sustainable products that includes information for consumers regarding the manufacturers and stores that offer them. In this book, Elkington states that: Every day, whether we are shopping for simple necessities or for luxury items, for sh ngers or fur coats, we are making choices that affect the environmental quality of the world we live in.

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It was in Cannibals with Forks that the author introduced the revolutionary concept of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). This refers to minimum levels of conduct surrounding three key concerns protability, planet and people and to the possibility of introducing sustainable capitalism. Elkington says that in a world where the natural order of things is for corporations to devour competing corporations...one emerging form of cannibalism with a fork sustainable capitalism would certainly constitute real progress. He further explains that the fork represents the TBL of sustainability and its three prongs, economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice. Despite the fact that he orients his arguments more toward the environmental issue than toward economic and social concerns, the author makes it clear that uniting these three dimensions in a political agenda constitutes the main challenge to business in the 21st century. On his website at www.johnelkington.com, he states that we are at the beginning of a new era, in which entrepreneurs are at the head of sustainable development and that this makes them true agents of social transformation. He adds: So I think, not just young people, but the youthful way of thinking about these

issues, imaginative, innovative and entrepreneurial, thats what weve got to ignite or re-ignite where weve lost it. John Elkington published his latest book, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets and Change the World, in 2008, this time with co-author Pamela Hartigan.

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SCHMIDHEINY, The VisionaryToday there are 2.8 billion people nearly half of Mankind that live on less than 2 dollars a day. It is these people that we must include in a true and radical development process. Stephan Schmidheiny The creation of social value is one of the goals most hardsought by Stephan Schmidheiny, the Swiss philanthropist and former industrialist who is as well known for his commitment to sustainable development as for his business successes. Born in St. Gallen in 1947, he holds a law degree and is a member of a veritable industrial dynasty in the construction materials industry. Shortly after assuming management of his familys holding company, he had to face a conict directly involving Eternit, the manufacturer of ber-cement blocks enriched with asbestos, and one of the most important companies in the Group. The conict stemmed from claims by former employees of the companys plants to the effect that after inhaling the asbestos bers, they had developed a wide variety of respiratory illnesses

some of them mortal. This was toward the end of the 1970s. Schmidheiny was sure that his father and predecessor at the head of the Group had been unaware of the noxious effects of asbestos when he decided to make use of it in the manufacturing of ber-cement. Far from hiding his head in the sand, however, Schmidheiny ordered an investigation to establish whether or not the claims were valid and once it was established that they indeed were, he accepted responsibility in the damage suits against the company and pushed the rm to develop new technology that did not make use of asbestos in its processes. Meanwhile, his success as a businessman was on the rise. The young Schmidheiny showed avid interest in environmental issues and attended conferences on the subject. First he went to Stockholm, where he audited a major conference as an unregistered participant. But at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, he established himself as a natural leader by convening other business people who actively participated in the event for the rst time in history: Within the framework of the Summit, he founded the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which produced a groundbreaking report called Changing Course, in which the term eco-efciency

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was mentioned for the rst time as an essential element in the successful development of companies in a world limited by dwindling resources. Since then, through the management of his businesses, Schmidheiny has gradually evolved into what he himself has dened as a committed stakeholder, while developing new forms of philanthropy. It was with this philosophy in mind that he established the AVINA Foundation in 1994. The organization originally provided support to Latin American social entrepreneurs so that they could move forward with their sustainable development-related projects. Currently, AVINA is devoted to creating networks and alliances among social and business leaders. It was based on these same premises that he created the VIVA Trust in 2003, an organization to which he donated all of his shares in his business conglomerate, GrupoNueva, with the aim of guaranteeing economic support to AVINA and other foundations committed to sustainable development in Latin America. Schmidheiny denes sustainable development as not living beyond our means; not burning down our house to keep warm or sawing off the limb were sitting on; living on the interest and not on the capital.

Furthermore, he gures that his role, like that of other business people, is decisive in the development process that Mankind requires, and explains: When I entered the business world, my intention was to create economic wealth. But at the same time, I managed to create value for society, especially for those who were neediest, and to safeguard the options of future generations in the best way possible. I dont see these objectives as incompatible or exclusive.

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DRAYTON, The ProphetThis is the most radical structural change Ive ever seen. Once millions of people enjoy the freedom to generate a change every time they see a problem, who is going to stop them? If a person is frustrated, there will be hundreds of others looking at that problem in that community and looking for a solution. One of them is going to nd it. Bill Drayton Bill Drayton is credited with coining the term social entrepreneur to describe individuals who combine the pragmatic methods of the business entrepreneur with the goals of the social reformer. Whether he is the author of the term or not, no one can question the major role in the eld of sustainability of the founder and chairman of Ashoka, a not for prot association devoted to providing nancial support to entrepreneurs around the world. Born in New York in 1943, Drayton was already heading up a series of social initiatives in his youth. While attending secondary school, he founded the Asia Society and turned it into one of the most powerful student associations ever known. At about that same time, he joined the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), an organization for the defense of minority rights in the United States. At Harvard University, where he graduated in 1970, he founded the Ashoka Table, a forum for dialog between students and leaders in government and industry. While studying Law at Yale, he created the Yale Legislative Services, an initiative to allow university students to collaborate with American lawmakers in developing legislation. By the time he graduated, he had managed to involve a third of the students at Yale Law in this project. Drayton worked for ten years as a consultant for McKinsey and Company. Under the Jimmy Carter Administration (1977-1981) he was Assistant Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He also worked for a short time on the White House staff. It was in 1980 that he launched Ashoka, an organization that he started up with initial capital of 50,000 dollars and that now nances thousands of social entrepreneurs worldwide. In 2007, the organization had funds of over 30 million dollars, having nanced more than 1,600 enterprises in 60 countries. Within ve years, says this true fanatic of the transforming power of entrepreneurs on the road to the sustainability paradigm, more than 50 percent of the Ashoka Fellows changed national

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policy in their respective countries. And nearly 90 percent saw independent organizations copying their innovations. Bill Drayton maintains a frugal lifestyle and, for many years, he carried out his work for Ashoka ad honorem. Besides chairing Ashoka, Drayton is also currently active on the Board of Get America Working!, a not for prot organization whose aim is to create new jobs by generating structural changes in US economic policy. He also cooperates with Youth Venture , an association that seeks to create entrepreneurial awareness among youth, while imbuing young people with condence in their capacity to lead social change.

RODDICK, The ProvocateurFor me, campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions, not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses. Anita Roddick She once said her favorite quote was the one by Dorothy Sayers: Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force. Be that as it may, at age almost 65, Anita Roddick was still dening herself as the new girl on the block. Born in Littlehampton, England, the founder of The Body Shop rst studied to be a teacher and then decided to see the world, before she met Scotsman Gordon Roddick, who in 1970 was to become her husband and the father of her daughters. In 1976, Gordon began a journey across the Americas on horseback, and in order to keep the wolf from the door, Anita decided to open a little cosmetics boutique. I had no training or experience, she once said, and my only business acumen was Gordons advice to take sales of 300 pounds a week. But it wasnt just economic need that fostered the emergence of The

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Body Shop: It upset me to nd out that a large part of the price of cosmetics went into packaging that was as sophisticated as it was unnecessary. I was also upset by false advertising that promised miracle remedies and had pictures of 16-year-old girls promoting anti-aging products for women in their 50s . Anitas personal experiences served as an inspiration for company values that became brand assets and included the rejection of animal testing, the use of natural ingredients, recycling of containers and protection of the environment. Six months after opening her rst shop, she opened a second one. And when Gordon got back from his travels, he also joined the rm and promoted its worldwide expansion. By 1984, the company had branches throughout Europe and was being quoted on the Stock Exchange, turning the Roddicks into multi-millionaires. The couple used their success to promote sustainable development and initiated a campaign whose slogan was: whats good for the community and the world, is good for business. Within this framework, The Body Shop developed its Green Pharmacy project in cooperation with native communities in the Amazon. Believing that it was necessary to help these tribes preserve their culture, Anita began to market the seeds that the

Amazonian natives gathered in the rain forest. Although the subsequent trade relations turned out not to be as simple as she had expected, they have lasted until the present day and have led to the development of medications based on jungle plant species. The Body Shop similarly promoted campaigns in favor of fair trade with the Third World, like the one developed with the Chepang indigenous people of India for its Ayurvedic line, or in Nicaragua with that countrys sesame seed oil producers. Striking out at costly marketing strategies, Anita Roddick maintained that our growth has always depended on our reputation and word of mouth, not mass advertising. According to analysts, this way of thinking had a real impact, since achieving what she did through reputation alone would have required investment of 96 million dollars a year using traditional marketing strategies. In 2000, Anita published her autobiography entitled Business as Unusual, and in 2001, a collection of essays called Take it Personally, in which she analyzed the myths regarding globalization and the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO). That same year, she launched her personal website

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ANDERSON, The Revolutionaryat www.anitaroddick.com. Later she created her own communications company, Anita Roddick Publications, which in 2003 published its rst two titles: Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits: A Spiritual Activists Handbook and A Revolution in Kindness. In March 2006, LOreal bought The Body Shop for 652.3 million pounds sterling, a fact that stirred a certain amount of controversy, since the acquiring rm had been accused of animal testing for its products. Anita Roddick died in September of 2007, just two years after retiring from business and donating her fortune to just causes. Global warming is coming like a runaway freight train. Time is against us, given Humankinds tendency to deny and cling to the opiate of the status quo. Biodiversity is plummeting. Our human footprint is growing and the planets carrying capacity is shrinking, consumed by our unsustainable appetite for stuff. Ray C. Anderson It wasnt until he was 60 years old that Ray C. Anderson began to see the world in a different light. The West Point, Georgia-born industrial engineer, founder and Chairman of Interface Inc., a leading carpet manufacturer headquartered in Atlanta, places the exact moment of that change in August of 1994. It was as he was preparing a speech regarding his vision on the environment for a group of business people from around the world. For some time, his clients had already been questioning him about what his rm was doing for the planet and the only thing the founder could think to say was: We comply with the law. As he was putting together his presentation, however, he suddenly realized that he didnt really have any vision regarding the environment. And then a book appeared on his desk that was to radically change his way of doing business:

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Paul Hawkens The Ecology of Commerce, a work that Anderson himself has referred to as an epiphany and a spear in my chest that remains to this day, and the catalyst that brought him to the decision to devote his life to sustainability. With this goal in mind, the businessman held a meeting with the directors and executives of his company and announced the rms new mission: to turn Interface into the worlds rst sustainable industrial company. The change implied a constant effort to reduce the impact of the carpet-makers activities on the environment. It also meant being willing not to take anything out of the earth that couldnt be renewed. This was a true challenge for an industry that depended almost entirely on petroleum for its livelihood. The rst step was to start research and development work in order to nd new production methods. The second was to introduce ways of generating green energy such as solar panels and wind and biomass energy. The third was to try different types of recycled materials and experiment with new raw materials for the rms products. The nal step was to reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

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In 1999, Anderson published his book entitled Mid-Course Correction. Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model. The book recounts the process from his discovery of sustainability to his declaration of activism for the cause, and explains his companys framework for doing business. In its pages, the businessman dares to confess: I am a plunderer of the earth and a thief today, a legal thief. The perverse tax laws, by failing to correct the errant market and force it to internalize those externalities such as the costs of global warming and pollution, are my accomplices in crime. I am part of the endemic process that is going on at a frighteningly accelerating rate worldwide to rob our children and their children, and theirs, and theirs, of their futures. Andersons philosophy and actions have turned Interface into one of the companies that is most highly recognized for its commitment to the business movement toward sustainability and its founder is considered one of the worlds leading green businessmen. Today, Anderson travels the world spreading the Interface example far and wide and promoting the benets of sustainability. In 2006 alone, he gave more than 115 conferences.

GRAJEW, The BenchmarkWe are all consumers and, as such, our wishes to support those products or services that come from companies working with the criteria of social responsibility can be made heard. Since the immediate goal of corporations is prot, we must ensure that the companies with the highest prots are those that take into account the future of the new generations. Oded Grajew One of Oded Grajews most recent victories was having got the steelmakers of the states of Maranhao and Par to sign a commitment to abolish slave labor in their production chain. No mean achievement for the world, or for this electronics engineer born in Tel-Aviv, who later became a naturalized Brazilian citizen, a man who began his business career as a toy manufacturer and who didnt rest until he had become a benchmark gure in the world of corporate responsibility. Grajew says that from the very outset of his career, he was always concerned about what was happening to the Earth. In 1987, he founded Pensamento Nacional das Bases Empresariais (National Thought for Business Bases), an organization initiated with

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the aim of changing the mindset of Brazilian business people. In 1990, he created the Abrinq Foundation (originally linked to the Brazilian Association of Abrinq Toy Manufacturers), an NGO that works with UNICEF to improve the living conditions of children in Latin America. The institution has 2,500 member companies and its main ght is for the elimination of child exploitation. But Grajews reputation as a referential gure in the eld of corporate social responsibility came with the creation in 1998 of the Ethos Institute, a not for prot association whose purpose is to promote an awareness of social responsibility in the private sector. This organization, which Oded Grajew has presided over since its founding, today has more than 887 corporate members small, medium-size and large companies from all economic sectors and regions of the country whose joint revenues total more than 110 billion dollars (about 30% of Brazils Gross Domestic Product) and which jointly employ more than 1.5 million workers. Additionally, the Ethos Institute is a founding member of EMPRESA, a network of organizations throughout the Americas that seek to promote CSR . In 2000, after several failed attempts to get the topic of CSR onto the agenda of the World Economic Fund that each year brings together the worlds most prominent business people and bankers

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for a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Grajew decided to organize the World Social Forum (WSF). With the support of such renowned social proponents as Francisco Whitaker (a member of Brazils Conference of Bishops) and Bernard Cassen (Editor-inChief of Le Monde Diplomatique), the WSF burst onto the scene in January 2001 with its rst meeting in Porto Alegre. Since then, it has established itself as a meeting of worldwide importance and is held each year in a different city, with thousands of individuals and social organizations taking part. The people power concept is the basis for Grajews strategy to attain change among business people: If you take adequate measures, you are really going to benet, but if you dont, you could end up in serious trouble. Here, two basic principles come into play: the desire to do the right thing and fear of the companys developing a bad name among consumers. Toward the end of 2006, Oded Grajew acted as an advisor to Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, becoming a driving force behind a series of social programs like the socalled Zero Hunger Plan while promoting dialog between the government and business. He is currently at the head of the Ethos Institute, developing a powerful campaign to eliminate slave labor in companies throughout Latin America.CH-

CHOUINARD, The ExplorerIn many companies, the tail (nance) wags the dog (corporate decisions). We strive to balance the funding of environmental activities with the desire to continue in business for the next hundred years. Yvon Chouinard An enthusiastic mountain-climber, outstanding surfer, sherman and kayaker: thats how Yvon Chouinard, who became a businessman as the sort of natural outcome of these fond interests, denes himself. Born in Maine, USA, in 1938, Yvon was already considered one of the best climbers in the Americas by the time he was in his early twenties. It was in 1957 that he decided to manufacture his own line of climbing equipment, as a means of nancing his trips and saving money. The rst product that he launched on the market was steel climbing stakes. The success of his sales led him to found his own rm called Chouinard Equipment for Alpinists (CEA). At the end of the 1960s, together with his climbing and business partner, Tom Frost, he redesigned the basic tools (crampons and ice axes) for climbing sheer ice. However, in 1970 Chouinard discovered that the stakes his

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company was making were causing signicant damage to the crevasses of Yosemite. In order to prevent this, he introduced tools made of aluminum and created a style of mountaineering called clean climbing, a concept that revolutionized rock climbing. A year later, he married Malinda Pennoyer, an art student at the University of Fresno, and in 1972 , he founded Patagonia Inc., a company devoted to the designing and manufacturing of outdoor clothing and accessories and considered to be a pioneer in socially responsible policies, defense of the environment and the creation of a sustainable enterprise model. In 2005, Chouinard wrote a book entitled Let My People Go Surng, a sort of autobiography in which, besides recounting his personal life, he also told the story of Patagonia, the companys philosophy and founding principles, and formulated an insightful reection regarding the future of the Earth and the current system for doing business. In the pages of this book, Chouinard also explains that one of the fundamental concepts with which he wished to imbue his company was that work and pleasure go together: There was one thing that I did not want to change, he writes. Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. We all had to come to work on the balls of our feet,

going up the stairs two steps at a time. We needed to be surrounded by friends who could dress whatever way they wanted, even barefoot. We needed to have ex time to surf the waves when they were good, or ski the powder after a big snowstorm, or stay home and take care of a sick child.

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Particularly noteworthy among Patagonia Inc.s values is product quality, which in the rms view means durability, minimal use of natural resources including materials, energy and transport multi-functionality, non-obsolescence and the kind of beauty that comes from a things being fully adapted to its purpose, since bowing to fashion trends does not t into the companys set of values. A prime concept in the company is transparency in dealing with its employees and in its position within its business community, comprising its personnel, the members of society where the rm operates, its suppliers and its clients. So in order to mitigate any of the negative effects the companys activities might have on the environment, its shareholders donate 1% of the rms gross revenues or 10% of its prots whichever is the larger sum to ecological activism. In Let My People Go Surng, Chouinard is extremely critical of business, the US government system and consumer society and concludes that: Now, more than ever, we need to encourage civil democracy by speaking out, joining up, volunteering or supporting these groups nancially, so as to still have a voice in democracy.

SEABRA, The PhilosopherWe are convinced that the spirit of the times, what is looming large on the horizon, are companies with that more human, more integrated side and that more holistic way of seeing their relations and functions in society. Such companies will shine and be admired and, at the same time lets not forget this will be giving their shareholders greater earnings. Luiz Seabra When he was 16 years old, Antonio Luiz Da Cunha Seabra stumbled onto an idea that turned into a revelation: Man is part of everything and everything is part of Man. From the very rst time that he heard this principle, rst expressed by the ancient neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus, that notion of being part of everything never left him. Luiz Seabra is the founder of Natura, the largest cosmeticsmaker in Brazil. Having earned a degree in Economic Sciences, he got his rst job in cosmetics back in the 1960s, when he worked as the administrator of a small laboratory in Sao Paulo. He spent three years learning the secrets of the trade and, in 1969, decided to start his own company, Natura,

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which rst opened as a tiny shop with an initial investment of 9,000 dollars. The store offered beauty advice and product recommendations, a fact that quickly contributed to the creation of direct and personalized relations with the clientele. Based on this experience, Seabra decided in 1974 to adopt a direct sales system, and this became one of the keys to his success. En 1991, Natura started structuring its marketing campaign around the concept of transparency. Its slogan was Truth in Cosmetics. When the rm launched its campaign for its Chronos anti-aging cream in 1992, it didnt make use of models, but brought in real clients over the age of 30. Guillermo Leal, President of Natura, said at the time: We have a commitment to our clients and were not going to lie by telling them that if they buy our products theyll look like Claudia Schiffer. Seabra explains that Naturas mission is to get people to feel better about themselves and, by extension, to make the world a better place to live. For Natura Cosmeticos, he says, sustainable development comes as second nature. Its just like a person thinking of their skin. Cosmetics enable people to become more intimate with the