Supply Excellence — Live Profits

Live Profits

July 9th, 2007 · by Tim Minahan · No Comments · enviro/social sustainability

Unless you spent the Independence Day weekend hiding in a bunker, you heard about Live Earth. In fact, if you were like me, you couldn’t escape it. The airwaves and newspapers were jammed with broadcasts and commentary on this global concert to combat climate change.

The event no doubt raised awareness about global warming. Heck, Madonna, Black Eyed Peas, and Snoop Dogg likely enticed thousands of concert watchers to switch to energy efficient compact flourescent (CF) bulbs. (Or at least to ask their parents to drive them to the mall to buy some.) However, it doesn’t take an environmentalist to recognize that Live Earth misfired in a number of ways:

It focused on the wrong demographic: Consumers — particularly the pop-influenced concert watchers between the ages fo 13 and 30 — have a miniscule carbon footprint compared to big corporations. Encouraging a pimply, angst-ridden teen to pay a few extra bucks to buy the Linkin Park concert-T made with locally grown organic cotton isn’t going to do much to slow melting in the Polar Ice Cap. Real climate improvements require the support of global corporations.
It delivered the wrong message: Admittedly, I wasn’t glued to the tube for every breath of the concert. (That would have consumed too much electricity.) However, the inter-song snippets I did catch rang with the wrong message. Shocking statistics and snide comments villanizing the White House and Big Business are not going to secure support for the cause. And trying to guilt consumers, government, and business into paying more for environmentally responsible goods and services is not a recipe for mass adoption.

Worse yet, hype over the Live Earth event may have overshadowed news earlier in the week that will no doubt do more to inspire businesses to tackle climate change than a Police reunion. (Sorry, Sting.)

A new Goldman Sachs report presented at the U.N.’s Global Compact Leaders Summit in Geneva last week showcased tangible evidence that environmentally and socially responsible business and supply practices can reduce costs, increase competitiveness, boost profits, and generate higher stock prices.

The investment bank’s investigation into the energy, mining, food and beverage, and media industries found that companies implementing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies outperformed the general stock market by 25% over the past two years. The 179-page report also found that 72% of companies embracing ESG policies outperformed their peers over the same period.

Now that’s a song that’s in the right key to convince C-level executives (and supply managers) that enviro- and socially-responsible practices are good business.

Email Forward & Bookmarks