9 Issues Standing Between Us And A Sustainable Future

In the light of all the strikes and protests for a sustainable future across the globe, it is more important than ever to become aware of all the corporate and societal barriers that surface when facing the challenge of sustainability. Some of the key issues that serve as barriers to sustainability include lack of deeper understanding of the concept of sustainability, uncertainty, difficulty in advocating for the business case of sustainability and inability to execute a consistent, long-term sustainability plan. Let's take a detailed look at the 9 issues we will have to overcome in the near future.

Challenges for businesses

Each group faces unique challenges to adopting sustainability, but with businesses the fundamental concern will always be the bottom line. Ultimately, the decisions we make in business need to prioritize growth and profit - not doing so can mean that we won’t have an operation to run in the first place.

Initial investment 

Transitioning to sustainable practices represents an upfront cost. The cost will be highly dependent on industry, but a firm that wants to use more sustainable materials for construction or manufacturing would have to spend money phasing out the old materials while also acquiring new ones. In the case of energy, the installation of sustainable power sources such as solar panels can be substantial. Companies that are logistics and transport focused such as trucking may also need to design the technology needed for electric vehicles, license it or purchase a new fleet which all represent significant costs. 

Many businesses may not be in a financial position to make these initial investments. In some cases, the return on investment may take many years to accrue and other tangibles such as goodwill and brand equity may not hold enough weight when it comes to how money is spent. 

Profits vs sustainability

Although there is certainly a market for fair and organic goods, the adoption of this product type hasn’t reached the majority yet. In this sense, companies can be compromising their ability to compete as they are forced to raise their prices in the name of sustainability. Similarly, unsustainable practices in the forms of methods and materials are typically cheaper as the industries around them are more established, competitive, and the technologies have already been developed. Consider how the cost of lab grown meat has reduced so drastically - with a lab grown burger costing $280,000 in 2013 and expected to drop to $10 in 2021. 

Change within the organization

Sustainable business isn’t simply an investment of money - it is also an investment of time, personal commitment to change, and a shift in focus. That means rethinking the workings and offerings of your organization from the bottom up. Some of the changes you could do: 

Products - If your business is primarily concerned with manufacturing products, consider recyclable materials, having ethical and fair supplier terms and eco-friendly design. Other factors could include resource efficiency in the case of cars, for instance, and the use of green electronics that can be used in the long term. 

Processes - The processes of your company may also have to be redesigned. In the manufacturing and industrial space for instance you will have to think about ways that you can reduce waste - both in material terms and the power needed to produce your products. 

Convincing stakeholders 

The push for sustainability will also require you to convince the key stakeholders in your business. Apathy, denialism and disassociation can be prevalent among your board and employees, with more traditional industries more at risk.

Entrenched power structures

In every industry, the dominant companies seek to preserve the status quo. They have no real need for change as they are maximizing profits in their current form. Why fix what’s not broken and demand-and-control are the prevailing philosophy for established companies. This of course gets challenged by new companies who are seeking to disrupt the market with better solutions. But perhaps unethically, some established companies don’t seek to out compete and innovate more than their new competitors. Instead, they look for political solutions to keep them at bay. 

This type of political lobbying occurs across the board and usually are given names like big pharma and big oil; or in some cases called media-industrial complex or the military-industrial complex. 

In the case of oil, some entrenched companies are doing their best to delay the adoption of renewable energy. According to a report by InfluenceMap, the largest five stock market listed oil and gas companies spend nearly $200m a year lobbying governments. This can come in the form of delaying, controlling or blocking policies and spending money on social media to prop up the benefits of fossil fuels. Where they could use their resources to become market leaders, they seek to preserve the status quo and continue their unsustainable practices.

Collective challenges for society

As businesses are inseparable from the society they operate in, the challenges that affect us as a whole also affect how businesses implement sustainability. If the people you hire haven’t been informed on the issue or are apathetic towards it, this will impede your corporate efforts. It is necessary then to understand the broader challenges that prevent sustainability in society.

Awareness and education 

To solve an issue, there needs to be awareness around it. Once awareness is built, the stakeholders need to be informed and educated so that they can have the right information to take action. With sustainability, we are at the stage where practically everybody - among the educated classes at least - has heard of climate change, environmental protection and the harmful effects of our system. However, in an age of overwhelming amount of disinformation, not everyone has access to rational, fact-based discourse or knows how to practice critical thinking. 

On a surface level, people know that they should be recycling because it’s good for the environment. But it’s questionable how many people are informed about the extent of these issues such as how plastics are damaging oceans. Similarly, many people are aware of the fact that the climate is changing but aren’t educated about the severity of the effects of inaction. This lack of a deeper education about sustainability means that it becomes more difficult for the necessary actions to take place. 

Apathy 

Ineffective strategies for educating stakeholders can lead to apathy - people may stop caring about the issue if it has been presented to them in the wrong way. For instance apathy may prevail because of factors like complexity of the issue, incomplete information and the idea that much of the adverse man-made effects on the environment are due to industrial and corporate activities.

The ugly other side to this apathy is the attitude that sustainability simply isn’t their problem to solve. Instead, they may feel that it is up to the government or the UN to deal with it and defer their agency to these groups.In the worst case, people may think that they won’t be alive when the planet starts becoming uninhabitable so they don’t have to be concerned with it. They are kicking the can down the road so to speak, and pushing the problem onto the next generation. 

There is also the belief among some, particularly within technology circles, that we will somehow find technological solutions to all these challenges. The belief is that climate, environmental and human concerns are all technical problems and given the right time we’ll find the solution. Although there likely are solutions on the horizon, this represents another form of apathy as it disregards the actions we need to be taking now and relies on an uncertain technological future which may not even occur. 

Denialism 

Closely related to lack of education and apathy is the more sinister challenge of denialism, particularly when it comes to climate change. Climate change deniers believe that the climate is going through natural cycles and humans aren’t playing a significant role in it, with the obvious conclusion being that there is nothing that can be done - at least without significant scientific and technological power. This could be true, but that doesn’t mean that we should not be concerned and not seek ways at individual and collective level to rectify this change. 

In the case of the human, environmental and animal cost of unsustainability, there are also people who make justifications for the status quo in the form of Darwinian theory. They believe in survival of the fittest and that humans have the right to exploit and dominate our environment as we are the most ‘successful’ species. This has been a prevalent historic belief which has been used as a central rationalization for colonization and the industrial scale slaughter of animals.

Disassociation 

The drive towards sustainable living fundamentally calls into question our place in the world. It demands that we recognize that we are not individual entities operating in a silo - and that our actions will have reactions. The actions we take as individuals, groups and collectives affect everything around us. Helping people to realize this shift in thinking can be difficult for a few reasons:

Disconnect from nature - Although spirituality may not be a concern for many people, there is no denying the fact that civilization creates a barrier between us and the world around us. Not only through the physical structures such as cities and roads, but there is also a mental disconnect in that we have created sort of a bubble around ourselves. This can lead us to easily forget, neglect and abuse nature for our own gain without thought of the consequences. 

Negative stigma - Sustainable and green movements are often associated with hippies or ‘bleeding hearts’ which often carry a negative stigma among many groups - particularly older conservatives. This can make it hard for people to adopt sustainable practices as they may associate it with a negative identity leading to them dismissing the idea.

Lack of empathy - When it comes to the human cost of unsustainable practices, many people aren’t concerned with the suffering of others. The numbing effect and "out of sight out of mind’" phenomenon also plays a role.

These are the top nine issues that came to my mind. What do you think is the most important factor in the fight for a sustainable future?