The announcement was disconcerting: Emma Watson is joining the board of Kering, one of the world's leading luxury brand groups, as chair of the Sustainability Committee. In another context, one would have thought that Watson was going to act as an ambassador for some or all of her brands and walk around the galas clad in biodegradable Gucci dresses or something like that. However, the fact that her name was made known in a statement announcing the addition to the board of two other illustrious strangers gave the indication that the link between the actress and the group to which Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Venetta does not go through the artistic side. For a group like Kering to choose someone in their 30s with no corporate work experience and an arts background to join their board only holds true when we're talking about someone with Watson's fame and reputation. The obligatory question is: how relevant is the area, do we have to deduce that the committee that Watson chairs is a show off?
The first answer that Google gives is no, that for seven years now the French Kering has led its category in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Sustainability, the Dow Jones index and the stock market, everything is together in the answer. For those of us who are ignorant of the practices and customs of the stock market universe, hearing that there is a tool with which companies listed on the stock exchange are evaluated for their practices on sustainability issues is quite a surprise. In 2020, a business that does not consider the economic, environmental and community impact of its activity is an unreliable option in terms of investment. That's how important the area is that Watson leads the pack. At a time when climate change has exceeded the limit of what is tolerable by several degrees and the gap between rich and poor does not seem to be narrowing, the awakening of conscious consumers opens the way to a new paradigm in the way of doing business. Today, successful management needs to consider factors such as the carbon footprint, the promotion of biodiversity, the inclusion of vulnerable populations, fair wages and investments in green funds. Hand in hand with these new demands, work teams are reconfigured and new positions and specializations take shape.
a single boat
Environmental issues today have much more visibility. 10 years ago, the one who washed and separated the waste was an activist; today the one who does not do it is almost inconsiderate. But no matter how many short showers we take, low-consumption light bulbs we install at home and compost we make, our effort seems useless when fifty kilometers away there is a wastebasket that pollutes more liters of water per hour than a whole block uses, or a factory with obsolete machines that generate more emissions than an erupting volcano. The same applies to the social plane; You can make an effort to pay the people you work with as well as possible, but you can also look the other way and continue buying $10 jeans even knowing that it is impossible for those clothes to be that cheap if you don't use almost any labor. slave. The sustainability agenda can be frustrating, the one that has never avoided a good practice justifying itself in the insignificance of the individual contribution that throws the first stone. The incredible thing is that while many of us wondered if it was worth it, that collective effort made such a significant difference that the large economic groups were forced to be sustainable to maintain their value.
Triple impact, CSR and B company are some of the terms in the corporate universe that are heard more and more. With new measurement tools and some non-governmental organizations at the forefront of the cause, today the private sector is required to play a much more active role in the search for solutions to the problems of its community or at least compensation for the impact of its activity. in social and environmental terms. "Beyond the organization or measurement system chosen, today we all talk about companies that generate economic, social and environmental value," explains Virginia Vilariño, the person in charge of the Climate Change and Environmental Management area at CEADS (Argentine Business Council for Sustainable Development)– Companies that, due to their management, can generate economic value, but also contribute at a social level and that take care of the natural environment". The Council of which Vilariño is a member dates back to the early 1990s, when the controversial Michael Jackson released the emblematic "Heal the World" and the UN convened a new United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro . One of the novelties of that "Earth Summit" was the decision to add the business sector to the discussion through a forum, something more than reasonable if one takes into account the impact that economic activity has on the environment. Since then, the environmental and social management of companies has become sophisticated and perfected enough to have rigorous measurement tools and evaluations that range from the community to the environmental, legal and financial.
more than goodwill
A few days ago, L'Oréal, the French brand that leads the world cosmetics, organized a streaming conference and a series of webinars with which it presented the results of the transformation program towards a more sustainable model that it carried out in the last seven years. along with its plan for the next decade. Among the achievements exposed by a group of specialists, there was talk of a reduction in CO2 emissions of 78%, almost 100,000 new jobs in vulnerable populations, a reduction in the use of water of 51%, in addition to the decision to bet for investments in green funds and projects that promote biodiversity, among other measures. The ambitiousness of the plan and the monumental investment it implies are surprising: what motivates a cosmetics giant to make such an aggressive change? Those who have been working on sustainability for some time understand that, far from altruism, we are facing a paradigm shift in business terms.
"The fact that today a company is sustainable and is committed to society has to do with business: with human rights and with looking at society differently. Today we know that millennials and centennials choose more and more companies that are committed to the environment, that work with initiatives that have to do with gender perspectives... Today consumers are much more demanding and consume based on that. This is happening; then, if it is profitable or not, it depends on the other side: to do with an intangible that is more powerful", reflects Lucila Palacios Hardy, head of Sustainability at Farmacity. The context of the international crisis generated by covid-19 did nothing but contribute to this concern or awareness in terms of sustainability. Just as the economic crisis of 2001 pushed local companies to bet on social programs, today the whole world is rethinking how to generate value in a most complex scenario. Companies that have a track record are better off, while those that still dodged the issue need to take initiative to stay current.
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— YES Virtual Wed Apr 21 10:05:01 +0000 2021
From one-person teams to businesses one hundred percent based on this perspective, the responses to the demand for sustainability are extremely varied, but they all go in the same direction: interact with each area to find the best way of doing things. It is not about throwing bullets to the wind and embracing good isolated causes to mitigate guilt. The heads of the sustainability teams are responsible for identifying the essence of their mission and taking it to goals and initiatives with a clear message.
We grew up surrounded by made in China, with clothes and technology manufactured and brought in shipments from the ends of the Earth. Hearing that now all companies aim to comply with fair wages throughout their value chain or that they are going to reduce their carbon footprint to zero without going bankrupt sounds impossible. However, cases like that of the Brazilian company Natura, which recently added the American Avon and The Body Shop to its portfolio, show that successful and sustainable businesses are possible. "50 years ago, when Natura was created in Brazil, the business was thought of from four dimensions: social, economic, environmental and cultural. The way we conceive the business is that, it is in the DNA of the brand," he says. Paola Nimo, Sustainability Manager of the brand in Argentina. Paola has an obvious difference with most people who hold similar positions in other companies, and that is that her training is not in Communication or in any human career but in Accounting. "Obviously, when you see this, you wonder: is it real and possible or is it something communicational? I, who come from the business universe, had that belief that sustainability was more discursive than anything else," he confesses. Her own experience showed her that, far from altruism, invoicing and principles are not incompatible. According to the company's Sustainability manager, at Natura no project that has a negative impact on the environment or the community is carried out.
There is a reality: the chances that a business contemplates all these aspects from the start and achieve a successful model are higher than those of one that started doing things in one way and now changed the rules on the fly. That is so and there is nothing left but to congratulate those who saw her under the water. It is a bit the same thing that we see in any family, the changes in habits do not cost the same to those over fifty who lived through the disposable boom without garbage cans in the street than to those of us who grew up between climate change alarms and toys battery or the generation that grew up with bike paths and separate waste bags. Nor is it the same to demand changes and technological innovation from a multinational than from an SME. The good thing is that this transition is no longer the solitary or voluntary thing that it was before, the first step that any company that wants to travel a path to a sustainable model must take is to undergo an evaluation that presents a clear diagnosis. How is it in each of the aspects, what are its strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. This exercise of evaluating and accompanying in the search for solutions is promoted by organizations such as Sistema B or CEADS and their role in disseminating successful cases is essential for the first generation of sustainability managers or directors.
Overpopulation, poverty, biodiversity loss and climate change are some of the elephants in the room we have been dealing with for decades. The speed at which the challenges are escalating is enormous and the prospects are daunting. Somewhere between idealism and extreme pragmatism, we find a new paradigm. What if we can do better without giving up anything? Are we heading towards a world where the Forbes wealth rankings are going to do more for sustainability than Greenpeace? Why not? •
Green washing or dark green
Not everything is what it says it is, and when it comes to packaging, much less. It happens with the pre-fried food or the alfajor that is supposedly light, with the imitation wood furniture that one orders moved by the Pinterest photo and infinite other examples, with which the phenomenon of green washing should not surprise us.
What are we talking about when we talk about "eco-whitening" or green washing? Of the products or lines that are presented as ecological or sustainable but in reality they are not. The advantage is never missing, why make the effort to convert the business when you can go for a good design and communication campaign without anything behind and improve the image? Unfortunately, consumers who take the time to find out where and how things are produced are counted on the fingers.
The practices that fall into this category are many and do not only go through the obvious scam of referring to eco or bio and painting green packaging that is not, even companies that were concerned early and led the change had their escraches. Greenpeace is a specialist in escrachar brands that promise changes that never come. McDonald's, for its part, was an example in terms of moving towards a sustainable way of producing the raw material, however, it had never bothered to separate the waste. Apple, a model company in a thousand aspects, was accused of designing and producing without the slightest environmental commitment, but chooses to sell in stores that are a model of sustainable energy. The bar is higher and higher and consumers are more and more awake.
lead the change
Habits change and with them, the demand of the labor market. At the same time that programmers become stars and community managers multiply, new sustainability departments are growing and joining companies around the world.
The great skill required by the position of head of sustainability in a company is to be able to connect and work with all sectors, since the vocation of any good plan that works on the impact of a company should go through all its areas and be transversal to the company and business. That capacity and the interest and information in environmental and social issues are the base, which can later be improved with skills such as flexibility to work with public and private sectors or social sensitivity, just to start.
How to train myself to work in sustainability?
Here are some of the courses and careers that can help you make your way.
