Inform Opinion


Peter McManners F


or those of us engaged with making society more sus- tainable, as policymakers, business leaders, and consultants the task is complex and difficult There is a learning process to navigate. This starts with fairly simple concepts such as the need to reduce carbon dioxide emis- sions in order to tackle climate change. The Government brings in a raft of legislation including regulations such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). An army of consultants are then rebadged as


carbon reduction


experts and the solution seems to be in hand. This is only a small beginning. There is a deep learn- ing process we must go through to understand the full breadth of the interaction between issues such as biofuels and food, wind power and public acceptance, nuclear energy, and the legacy of nuclear waste. My book Adapt and Thrive: Sustainable


The Revolution


covered many of these dilem- mas and put forward methods to address them. The head of sustainability for a local author- ity, on reading the book, was in support of everything I wrote about the full spectrum of the transition to sustainable society, but taken aback by the content of my chapter titled ‘The Sustainable Revolution’. It is hard to accept that sustainability requires change that reaches deep into the core of the way we manage society. This is the lynchpin in policy to build a sustainable society and takes the discussion to a deeper level again. Anyone who spends long enough working with the sustain- ability agenda comes up against the barrier that the way we manage society and many aspects of cur- rent economic models are hold- ing back progress. Overcoming this barrier requires that we con- sider fundamental change. We


Sustainable Revolution: wholesale change is needed across society


can be confident that society will become much greener and more sustainable. Our unsustainable society will strip Earth bare if allowed to continue unabated. As the problems of overconsumption hit society, action will be forced upon us. Human civilization will find a way to change direction. Only the timing is uncertain. A consensus is emerging that society must be greener. This consensus does not extend to how the transition is to be achieved. Every person and every country are defending self interest as the issues are debated. Governments introduce green regulations to the extent that the public will accept; business publish sustainability


reports and bring green themes into marketing campaigns; and consumers look for green or eco labels to parade their concern. Those of us fully engaged in sustainability can get frustrated at the slow pace of progress. Society will not get greener because people make changes to lifestyle through deliberate choice. Society will get greener because society changes. The transition from the environ- mental and social problems of the Industrial Revolution was a series of changes. Society made the tran- sition beyond the manifest prob- lems of the Industrial Revolution because society changed. The cur- rent era is similar; the Sustainable Revolution is about wholesale change across society.


Sustainability is often regarded as an add-on to what we do now. We do not change what we do, but we do it with a greener tech- nology. We retain current manu- facturing processes, but add in procedures to recycle waste. This willingness to rethink the funda- mentals also applies to how we run society and the economy. Over the past three decades the world economy has grown on the back of globalization supported by the policies of free-trade, open markets and privatisation. Over a similar period support has been


growing for sustainability defined in terms of meeting the needs of the present without compromis- ing the ability of future genera- tions to meet their own needs. Now that the engine of the world economy has back fired there is a willingness to discuss how to fix the engine. Connect this with the persistent failure to address the environmental chal- lenges and the circumstances exist to discuss real change.


In the first decade of the 21st century the inherent conflict between sustainability and glo- balization has been exposed. We all need to understand the nature of the Sustainable Revolution so that policymakers can orchestrate the changes and business has the insight required to exploit the opportunities.


Peter McManners is a consultant, teaches global business environ- ment at Henley Business School and is author of the book Green Outcomes in the Real World: Global Forces, Local Circum- stances, and Sustainable Solu- tions. SB readers can order copies at a 30% discount using code G1DRP30 (valid until 28 Janu- ary 2011)


gowerpublishing.com/ isbn/9780566091797


Sustainable Business | October 2010 | 9


Human civilization will find a way to change direction. Only the timing is uncertain


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