Have you ever seen a cat really arch its back, stick out its claws and start spitting? It’s a nasty thing to behold and not one I’d normally wish on anyone. Yet a blog on the Network for Business Sustainability got my back up so badly that I was hissing and spitting like any cat seeing its deadliest rival in close proximity.
Why?
The blog in question was Why Companies – Not Governments – Will Solve the World’s Biggest Problems by Stuart L Hart, Professor of Management at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management and “one of the world’s top authorities on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy”.
Yet within the first two paragraphs of this blog he’d blundered into the biggest mantrap when it comes to CSR and sustainable business, namely equating it with philanthropy. This is utter rubbish and has been debunked as a wild conspiracy theory several years ago.
CSR and sustainable business is about fundamentally changing how business, investment and commerce work, not just enforcing charitable donations out of profits. I could go on … but thankfully (for you!) I’ve already vented my spleen in another place.
Suffice to say that Professor Hart’s opinion now seems very old school : that businesses should be allowed to make as much profit as they can and that this will, inevitably, be a social good while government and civil society is reduced to a watchdog role.
In the meantime, I was drawn back to a blog entitled 10 Ways to nurture a green tech revolution…from PR agency Futerra in September 2011. This was written during the Labour Party Conference that year as a direct result of a fringe event organised by Demos.
In it Ed Gillespie, co-founder of Futerra, looks at how a green technology revolution could happen with input from both government and business. It’s a wonderful bit of future thinking which pushes the boundaries for both sectors.
For example, think about reskilling. There are plenty of people who are very highly skilled but who have lost their jobs in recent weeks and months. Should they be left to the vagaries of the market, or should the government try to get these valuable assets back into use as soon as possible? More to the point, why aren’t businesses trying to hire these people… surely not because the incumbent managers are afraid of such highly skilled personnel?
Professor Hart and Ed Gillespie have radically different ideas of business’ role in the future. For Professor Hart government are a bastion of conservative thinking against which the waves of progressive business batter for the good of grassroots society. Ed Gillespie sees it slightly differently, with big business as the conservative influence holding back innovation for its own interests while government has the opportunity to leap ahead and stimulate green growth through its own actions.
This is a typical left-right debate and really nothing more needs to be said … except that both points of view are right.
To show this, a third recent article springs to mind: Upper Class Tends to be Unethical…It’s a Learned Behavior, as published by the Business Ethics magazine.
This article focuses upon scientific research showing that the more wealthy you are the more likely you are to behave unethically. I think this is a drop in the ocean and that wealth just today’s expression of power. So rather, I’d say that the closer to the core of an institution you are and the greater the power you wield, the less likely you are to give up that power even in the face of moral arguments.
ie. we’re all selfish.
The business vs government argument should be a sideshow … former institutions used to ruling the roost slugging it out as though this was the 19th century all over again. Instead they should be working in genuine partnership, the one to define the framework and the other to deliver products and services.
Its this collaboration which will steer mankind onto a sustainable path for the 21st century, not a rehash of petty grievances. The sooner business and government wake up to this, the better it will be for all.
Courtesy of The Environment Site
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