Let's be critical for a minute.

“Critics are the true optimists because they believe things could be better.”

- Jaron Lanier in The Social Dilemma

I saw the above quote while recently watching the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma (great and scary piece of work). I immediately thought – yes! – and stopped feeling so guilty for often raising a certain criticism in the sustainability space.

What is the critic in me saying? My inner critic is concerned by an approach we see all too often among sustainability professionals. Namely, the assumption that everyone will have an epiphany, realizing the importance of sustainability and start making the right choices out of the goodness of their hearts. Because of the deeply-held purposeful beliefs of these professionals (myself included), we seem to think that, of course, everyone will see the light. It is idealistic and hopeful, but I am afraid that this approach will hold us back if it loses sight of practical application and competing interests.

As recent climate reports have shown us, we do not have time to wait for everyone to have a change of heart toward sustainability, as urgent action is needed now. And it's the short-term game that will be decisive.

Indeed, if we have seen significant progress in the last 3-5 years, I would argue that it has primarily been due to rational business-led responses to market opportunity, risk and regulation. A case in point: we could say that the growth of brand re-commerce / re-sale sites is primarily motivated by financial interests such as tapping into new consumer markets, finding a cost-effective avenue for excess inventory, and avoiding penalization of incoming legislation. Another example that has existed for years: what is the primary driver for making the lyocell process closed loop? Is it the impact piece - reducing waste and keeping chemicals from leaching into the environment? No. It's financially driven. The chemicals used in the process are expensive, so businesses recycle them to reduce costs. There are many other examples demonstrating this, and that's OK. Impactful action does not need to be primarily motivated by sustainability. Though of course, it needs to lead to positive outcomes.

Instead of pulling on the heartstrings of the C-Suite or the consumer, we need to tap into the narrative that most resonates with these audiences. By and large, it is the business case that will most swiftly convince people to act sustainably and create systemic change. If people see that they will make money (or not lose money), or that they are getting a superior product or service, then they will do it. Period. Is there a silver bullet to systemic change?

Is this reductionist? Yes, but in the short-term, it seems like the best bet.

In a recent poll I did on LinkedIn (see image), 40% of respondents cited that the biggest challenge in adopting innovative solutions is that the price is too high. Yet, often there are other financial benefits not taken into account by businesses (e.g., reducing risk and gaining efficiencies) when evaluating sustainability initiatives, due to a siloed or BU-driven approach to budgets. This is where we need to get really good at communicating the larger picture.

And let's face it, the sustainability professional community has been pretty siloed, too (though not always by choice). How many sustainability conferences have you been to where there was not a single finance or legal representative in the room, for example? The good news is that people from various functions are coming to the table now, looking for expertise and solutions. Let's make sure that these conversations take into account all points of view and interests, meeting mindsets as they are now, not where they will be in the future.

Changing minds is critical, don't get me wrong. So many of us are doing incredible work here. This must and is happening in parallel, and minds are being changed, but is it happening quickly enough? What worries me is that we need to act fast within our current system constraints (neoliberalism is not doing us any favors).

I know you know this, and I know that we have been talking about the business case for sustainability for years. I also know that many people feel it is difficult to nail the business case for sustainability. I wholeheartedly agree that, historically, this has been a challenge. But things have changed, and we have the means to level up our narrative on this topic thanks to better data, technology, legislation, innovation and opportunity. We need to level up our narrative and be more rigorous.

Money and sustainability have at least one thing in common - they are often represented by the color green! So let's get a little critical together and continue to make things better.