23.04.08

We have a corporate responsibility to act on CO2 reduction and to find a sustainable long-term alternative to fossil fuels, given that oil and gas in its present form is believed to last for only another 40 years, with tar-sand and shale oil also for another 40 years
Our industry is using our technology leadership to address these environmental challenges, through cost-effective CO2 saving technologies. More specifically, in terms of Research and Development we are continuing to innovate new ways of responding to these challenges in:

• Light-weighting...

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Erika Mink

14.04.08

Businesses have a key role to play in supporting moves towards a sustainable and low carbon economy, as do European policy-makers in creating the right framework for effective business and consumer action. In a slow moving and complex policy environment, economic operators - particularly leading global players - have an important role to play in adjusting behaviour in their supply chains and shifting to sustainable renewable materials and energy. The signs are already there. In recent years stakeholder initiatives have begun to develop.

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Hans De Keulenaer

10.04.08

Business can play a key role in achieving sustainable development at multiple levels.

First of all, through its buildings and operations, business has a major impact on environment and a major improvement potential. Cleaning up operation by reducing waste and increasing energy efficiency usually has a large effect. Such reduction of waste and energy consumption is simply good business practice. It reduces costs, improves quality of operations and creates a better workplace.

Business should not stop at in-house improvements. Companies can use their...

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Rupert Baumgartner - University of Leoben/Austria

4.04.08

What role can businesses play in achieving sustainable development?

Business is one part of the problem of our unsustainable societies, but business can be the part of the solution.

Even before Sustainable Development became a popular concept, Freeman pointed out the important role of stakeholders for strategic management and Carrol showed business responsibilities against the society. Though the Brundtland-Report showed the ecological impacts are of crucial importance, too. This determines acknowledgement for business leaders that corporations...

are embedded in society and society is embedded in nature.

The role of business can be responsibility or opportunity. Business responsibility should be minimization of negative social and ecological impacts, but sustainability can be an opportunity for business, a source of differentiation, innovation and competitive advantage, too. This requires the translation of Brundtland´s sustainability definition into achievable and desirable principles as basis for strategic planning and management. These principles should eliminate contribution to systematic increases in concentrations of substances from Earth’s crust, eliminate contribution to systematic increases in concentrations of substances produced by society, eliminate contribution to the systematic physical degradation of nature through over-harvesting, introductions and other forms of modification and contribute as much as possible to the meeting of human needs in our society and worldwide. These principles can be used by individual corporations to develop corporate sustainability strategies; the basic question might be: How can the company contribute to these principles? According to this the focus is on the efficiency and the effectiveness of all business activities, it is not enough to optimize the ratio of output and inputs, it is also to regard the impacts on stakeholders, society and nature, too.
Certainly different sectors will have different sustainability problems; the greenhouse effect and the climate change problem is a huge challenge for companies in sectors like basic materials, automotive, chemicals or oil and gas. Companies engaged in countries with less social and health standards have to deal with human rights, working conditions, health and social aspects.

Sustainable orientation of corporations requires more than just the of change of rhetoric and communication, publish sustainability reports and integrate the responsibility for sustainability affairs into the communications department of a company - it requires to affect and to change the core business, sustainability issues have to influence all business activities. Business has to be supported by its customers, stakeholders and society on its transition towards sustainability, more sustainable companies are only possible if they are profitable and competitive, too. Whether all of this is achieved, companies and business can contribute to Sustainable Development.

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Boaz Moselle - The Brattle Group

4.04.08

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money" (an apocryphal US Senator discussing draft legislation)

The full cost of sustainable development - transforming the ways in which we produce and consume energy, and transport, cool and heat ourselves - runs into trillions of euros over the coming decades. It is certainly "real money", and it is simply not realistic to expect business to fund that kind of transformation out of goodwill: CEOs are well aware that their businesses do not belong to them, and that they have clear...

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Eivind Hoff - Bellona Europa

1.04.08

Business is and should be about making money. Whether money is made on doing “good” or doing “bad” depends on the rules of the game - set by politicians. In that sense, philanthropy or woolly CSR strategies may not be the most effective way for businesses to further sustainable development. Instead I see two lines of action that I wish more companies pursued:

Firstly, companies should aim for eternal life - in other words being sustainable in the word’s original meaning. They should ask themselves: what products will be in demand in 20...

or 30 years’ time? How can our company be as profitable as possible on that time horizon? Companies asking themselves these questions are often the most socially and environmentally responsible. Thinking long-term is the essence of sustainability. Unfortunately, the valuation of listed companies is too much based on quarterly financial results. A myopic obsession with these may kill many highly profitable environmental actions. Insulating your building costs money upfront, just like any investment. Yet it is virtually always profitable. If companies communicate well such longer-term efforts at making profits, they may overcome the myopia of financial markets: research has shown that extra-financial reporting, e.g. on environmental matters, influences traders’ buy/sell recommendations. The stocks of socially responsible companies get more “buy” recommendations when extra-financial reporting is taken into account by traders.

Secondly, and more importantly, businesses wanting to promote sustainable development need to acknowledge that they are influential players of the market economy game. They are listened to by those making the rules of the game - politicians. Yet too often, companies voice their opinions only when they feel threatened by new rules. That is legitimate, but if a set of new rules creates some discontent losers, they also create winners in the economy. Too often, these winners remain silent, leaving the defense of new rules to non-governmental organisations like my own. I would like to see progressive businesses teaming up more vocally in favour of new rules along with NGOs. I am glad this is happening more and more - top US companies are for instance running TV ads calling for a US cap on greenhouse gas emissions. So, here in Europe, why don’t we see progressive power utilities lobbying actively alongside green NGOs for stringent EU emission performance standards that would rule out any new fossil fuel power plants without CO2 capture and storage? That’s the sort of rules we need in order to make sure that green outcomes in the real world result in black numbers on companies’ bottom line!

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Marco Sorgetti - (CLECAT)

1.04.08

In my role as director of CLECAT, the EU level organisation which represents the interests of logistics, transport and Customs service providers, I was asked to reflect on the following question:
Sustainable development has been described as the only way we can address global environmental degradation. What role can businesses play in achieving sustainable development?

It is my feeling that business and environment are not antithetical and a widely spread perception to the contrary is wrong. In stating my case I shall quote some of the observations...

and conclusions that CLECAT made public in recent times.

In our reactions to the Commission green paper on urban mobility (http://www.clecat.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=50)
we were making the following observations:

The Green paper mentions the possible creation of an Observatory on Urban Transport. CLECAT believes that it could also serve as a platform for the exchange and promotion of best practices. We believe first and foremost mobility tools will stand a chance to make a difference, if they are perceived as a business working in view of a business target.
One way or another this frame of mind reverses the perspective of mobility tools being developed mainly, if not only, for public use.

We also added:

We may even feel tempted to add an unconventional observation: the price of oil seems steadily set on its way upwards. This is making all forms of alternative energy much more appealing than in the past. This is probably an economic disruptive element that will create new business patterns. It also will create favourable conditions for alternatives especially where alternatives (e.g. based on electricity) are viable. Urban areas seem to be best placed in interjecting these winds of change.

In our submission to the ITF (http://www.clecat.org/dmdocuments/pp002osecr080118entransitf.pdf) on transport and energy issues we concluded our work by saying:

In conclusion, we are of the opinion the issue of transport and energy has now entered a completely new phase, where much opportunity for research, investment and better business is available. The old fashioned scenario of transport and energy depending on fossil fuels which characterised the best part of last century is about to give way to a progressively more innovative way of looking at the energy picture. Energy will have to come more and more from new technology in renewable sources: these are present almost everywhere on earth and can be exploited at reasonable prices (if compared with present-day costs of fossils) even in smaller and more dispersed production sites.

As regards transport we think it is equally important that transport progressively breaks free from a total dependence on fossil fuels and we hope that the very companies who are now exploiting petroleum and other fossils would be interested in seriously investing in the research of alternative and cleaner fuels, for which they would still have to provide distribution services.
In this light everything is still to be done and we believe this could become a very promising business opportunity for those who will be sufficiently daring.

In the beginning we had made a clear point by saying:
Alternative energy and alternative fuels have not acquired a “business” image yet, despite their intrinsic “big business” nature.

All this concurs to show that sustainable logistics (and probably sustainable development in general) must become a business in its own right. This means sustainability must be recognised as a value and must find a paradigm by which it can be traded as a service. The wide debate that we see all over the world on sustainability issues will contribute to the identification of its marketing area.

In my opinion in less than ten years many activities will change - e.g. energy supplies, building, transport, urban planning and infrastructure planning - and others will emerge. Who can bet that we shall be able to work (or live, perhaps…) in future without a sustainability consultant?

On the one hand this is a thrilling perspective and on the other one may wonder which kind of political constraints would make these new paradigms effective. This could be food for thought for future debates.

This being said, I thank the organisers for the commendable initiatives and for giving me the opportunity to express my views.

Marco L. Sorgetti

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Andrew Warren - Association for the Conservation of Energy

1.04.08

To provide us with most of the services we desire - light, heat, motive power - we consume energy. All these services can be delivered whilst using only a fraction of the fuel we currently burn - but only so long as we always opt for the most efficient buildings, machinery, goods.

Providing these more ecologically friendly services will create many new enterprises and many new jobs, replacing the old gas-guzzling, smokestack dinosaurs. These enterprises can thrive, so long as all the existing barriers prohibiting progress are removed; and a positive...

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Bouchaib Bahli - Danube University

1.04.08

The aim of any business is to increase value to its shareholders that is profit increase. Hence, sustainability comes with cost for businesses. Here comes the role of the government which is to create an environment where there is a balance between sustainable development regulation and business development through incentives for businesses and constraints to assure sustainable development. In addition, the government can encourage through an incentive system create businesses and industries that create, promote products and services related to...

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Jan te Bos - Eurima

1.04.08

Sustainable development has been described as the only way we can address global environmental degradation. What role can businesses play in achieving sustainable development?

Ever since the late 80’s when the sustainable development discussion really took off, large parts of the European business community have fully adopted the sustainability principles and have understood the “people-planet-profit”-value of pro-activeness in this area. In fields like environmental performance and Corporate Social Responsibility advancement has been distinctive.

Not...

weary of the fact that, as every single part of modern-day society, the business sector is both part of the problem and of the solution, I think the answer has to be found in “continuous progress” and “doing more with less”. These principles encompass many facets of sustainable development in fields like employment, innovation, efficient resource management and environmental footprint. They become even more significant seen from a global perspective of regional economic development (China, India), growing global competition for raw materials and the effects of climate change. Businesses and entrepreneurs, with a central role for the manufacturing industry, have a natural incentive to strive for these principles. Both efficiency and excellence will be the key contribution of European businesses to achieving sustainable development while safeguarding EU competitiveness and durable employment.

It goes without saying that maximising this sustainable entrepreneurship is highly dependent on the interaction with a conducive policy and business framework

From this perspective, in the sustainability debate up until now, a lot of focus was put on the impact of industrial production processes and management of end-of-pipe challenges. Not enough on maximising the positive contribution of products, the raison-d’être of the manufacturing industry, A significant part of the answer lies in products and product-performance. The contribution of materials and products to sustainable development in the “use-phase” deserves more visibility. European excellence and efficiency need to come together in competitive, sustainable products.

The best example is the contribution of insulation materials to energy efficiency in buildings. We all are aware of the crucial influence of energy supply and demand on current and future growth, let alone sustainable development! Energy efficiency is at the heart of EU economic and geo-political strategy. Maximising energy efficiency in buildings through insulation alone can deliver our Kyoto commitments with a potential of 460 million tons of CO2 reductions per year, save 3.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day while creating and estimated 530.000 jobs across the EU; these jobs would, at least, remain for the entire period of the buildings renovation cycle, e.g. 30 years.

Existing technology and industrial products that deliver sustainable development, we have it. Let’s use it!

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