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This month, world leaders will gather at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, also referred to as Rio+20, to define a sustainable development pathway. How can the global population enjoy a decent standard of living whilst we also preserve the environment and natural resources? Twenty years since the first Rio Earth Summit, we have achieved a lot but, as our success snowball rolls down the hill, the challenge snowball also rolls down, getting bigger.
Business in the Community (BitC) set up the Prince’s Mayday Network in 2007, calling on UK companies to embark on the journey to a more sustainable future. The network now has more than 3,800 members and what started as a journey, encouraging and supporting companies to measure and reduce environmental impacts, has begun to look at the transformational change required of companies to secure a truly sustainable future.
I believe Rio is the time to upgrade the narrative. For many, low carbon, one planet living implies a need to compromise quality of life; about sacrifice and less fun. This is a great opportunity to reposition the narrative as sustainable development is no more than the ultimate supply chain challenge. We all want a great quality of life and we do not want to see anyone in poverty. Sustainable development is about re-engineering how we supply quality lifestyles to make them available to the nine billion who will live on this planet in 2050 – ‘the nine billion challenge’. In other words, this is not about sacrificing modern lifestyles, but making them available for more people and for ever. This turns the negative narrative into positive.
For the next stage of the journey, we want to compel UK business to transform itself to meet the UK contribution to the ‘nine billion challenge’. The UK government’s sustainable development framework aims to deliver a ‘strong, healthy and just society within global limits’, but only about three billion of us enjoy a modern poverty-free lifestyle today. The nine billion challenge requires answers to fundamental questions around our relationship with nature, how our weather works, how business works and how we inspire citizens to make their contribution. We need to shape companies, products and citizens’ lifestyles to ensure we can deliver a sustainable future for our planet and its people.
At BitC, we are combining all our environment teams and initiatives into one. Our goal is to help our members understand this challenge and, then, help them find their unique contribution. Such a challenge is overwhelming but each company has a core product and a core skill which can make a unique and proportional contribution.
A combination of thousands of incremental steps inspired by our Mayday Network, transformational change inspired by our vision work and conversations with citizens inspired by Start could be very powerful. So watch this space.
Alan Knight is sustainability director at Business in the Community
www.maydaynetwork.com email: alan.knight@bitc.org.uk
Business in the Community (BitC) set up the Prince’s Mayday Network in 2007, calling on UK companies to embark on the journey to a more sustainable future. The network now has more than 3,800 members and what started as a journey, encouraging and supporting companies to measure and reduce environmental impacts, has begun to look at the transformational change required of companies to secure a truly sustainable future.
I believe Rio is the time to upgrade the narrative. For many, low carbon, one planet living implies a need to compromise quality of life; about sacrifice and less fun. This is a great opportunity to reposition the narrative as sustainable development is no more than the ultimate supply chain challenge. We all want a great quality of life and we do not want to see anyone in poverty. Sustainable development is about re-engineering how we supply quality lifestyles to make them available to the nine billion who will live on this planet in 2050 – ‘the nine billion challenge’. In other words, this is not about sacrificing modern lifestyles, but making them available for more people and for ever. This turns the negative narrative into positive.
For the next stage of the journey, we want to compel UK business to transform itself to meet the UK contribution to the ‘nine billion challenge’. The UK government’s sustainable development framework aims to deliver a ‘strong, healthy and just society within global limits’, but only about three billion of us enjoy a modern poverty-free lifestyle today. The nine billion challenge requires answers to fundamental questions around our relationship with nature, how our weather works, how business works and how we inspire citizens to make their contribution. We need to shape companies, products and citizens’ lifestyles to ensure we can deliver a sustainable future for our planet and its people.
At BitC, we are combining all our environment teams and initiatives into one. Our goal is to help our members understand this challenge and, then, help them find their unique contribution. Such a challenge is overwhelming but each company has a core product and a core skill which can make a unique and proportional contribution.
A combination of thousands of incremental steps inspired by our Mayday Network, transformational change inspired by our vision work and conversations with citizens inspired by Start could be very powerful. So watch this space.
Alan Knight is sustainability director at Business in the Community
www.maydaynetwork.com email: alan.knight@bitc.org.uk
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