Sustainable Development – Its four critical paths
This is the first of many guest blogs that I wish to share with my readers. Each guest is an industry expert with the finest pedigree and rich experience.
Today’s guest blog features Bharat Wakhlu. He is a proponent of Total Quality, Sustainability and of Responsible Business. He has held a number of critical positions during his three decades with the Tata Group, and is a sought-after Advisor and Speaker.
I have personally known Bharat since 1989. He is Qimpro Silver Standard 1990.
The terms ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Sustainable Development’ have been in use over the past 40 years, if not more. But these terms are being used with greater stridency since 1987, when the UNO’s World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) released its path-breaking report entitled, “Our Common Future”. It was this report – released by the Chair of the WECD, Ms. Gro Harlem Brundtland – which suggested that sustainable development alone would enable meeting the [resource] needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
What this report also highlighted was that human activity, with its conscious emphasis on improving people’s lot – and the concomitant exploitation of natural resources, hydrocarbons and the growing demand for food grains and fodder – could no longer be viewed as being independent of, or unconnected with its myriad impacts on the environment. In fact, human life and its quality too depended on a wholesome environment. Therefore, anything done by humans within our planet’s diverse eco-systems is intrinsically inter-connected; and whatever humans do, does have an adverse impact on the environment, and hence on humanity as well. It is a vicious cycle that has to be broken.
Improving the way people live can manifest only through a very deep and abiding concern for the environment, the way we use natural resources and energy, and ensuring that we do not lose sight of the non-material things that keep us joyful and satisfied.
Businesses are counted as being among the larger drivers of beneficial economic and social change. At the same time, enterprises are also among the biggest users of natural resources – ranging from fossil fuels to timber, as well as fresh water and minerals. In the process of using our planet’s treasures, businesses have a major impact on the environment. Since all eco-systems are connected, and since humans need the environment to live, businesses have to be in the forefront of working sustainably, and in ways that are life-affirming.
The challenge of business leaders therefore is to run their enterprises in ways that uphold and inter-twine the four fundamental, life-affirming pillars of sustainable development. These are: (1) Environmental sustainability
(2) Social Justice, which prevents discrimination; depriving some people or nations of their rights to use natural resources or the fruits of industry, equitably
(3) Spiritual well-being, or focusing on those important needs of human life that go beyond the material, such as our need for love, compassion, forgiveness and dignity
(4) The Economic well-being of all stakeholders, not just the shareholders of enterprise.
To ensure that there is convergence of the four pillars, even as a business pursues its goals, the organization needs to take into account its overall impact on the environment, on society and communities, and then commit to a system of governance that ensures that the appropriate mitigating steps are proactively taken. This would obviously not be a one-time effort, but something that has to be embedded in the processes of the enterprise. When adverse impacts are mapped, and the firm consciously chooses to create processes that balance the aspirations of its stakeholders, many adverse aspects are eliminated or greatly reduced.
The goal of sustainable development therefore, cannot be equated with mere economic development. Instead, all of its four elements have to be ‘designed into’ the organizational processes; and the most influential leaders within the enterprise have to constantly give sustainability primacy of attention; and lead by action, while consistently ‘walking the sustainability talk’.
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Bharat Wakhlu can be contacted on bwakhlu@tata.com.
