Life on our planet is changing, and it is changing at an exponential rate. Previous changes in fashion, music and technology helped define the decades of the 20th century, from the roaring twenties to the swinging sixties. Today’s fashion, music and technology passes in a matter of weeks. Pop bands form and break up whilst the members are still teenagers, toy crazes last a single holiday season and your mobile phone is out of date about the same time that you take it out of the box.
And so it is with the way that global chemical companies operate. Previous manufacturing giants moved with great solemnity to action, developing long term plans and policies for sustained growth. Nowadays, it is more important than ever for chemical bosses to stay ahead of the curve and react to a smaller, faster moving world. Those who failed to profit from the Tiger economies of 20 years ago, face an uphill battle to compete today. Those who do not modernise their practices to comply with EU’s REACH policy will suffer at the hands of shareholders and it is only the swift footed businessman who will negotiate the mergers and acquisitions storm raging across China this month.
With an expanding population and increasing standards of living, the pressure on the chemicals industry to provide and to be sustainable and low impact is immense. As margins become smaller, the pressure on the environment is growing.
For now it seems as if chasing profits leaves little time to look after the planet, but maybe all that is about to change.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) was founded in 1992, and describes itself as “a CEO-led organization of forward-thinking companies that galvanizes the global business community to create a sustainable future for business, society and the environment.”
It certainly is well led, supported, as it is, by a number of major industrial players, including Unilever, construction giant Lafarge, Royal Dutch Shell, Solvay and China Petrochemical Corp. to name but a few.
WBCSD’s latest initiative for saving the world is a snappy, little project called Vision 2050. This plan has not only a ‘roadmap’ to success, as well as the obligatory ‘mission statement’, but also “a new agenda for business laying out a pathway to a world in which … people can live well”.
One cannot argue with the sentiment of such actions, our planet will struggle to feed, clothe and keep warm the predicted 9.6 billion people that will be around in the year 2050. However, you don’t have to be too big a cynic to question the desire to succeed by “providing a springboard for dialogue and debate” or by instructing others to “achieve more with less”.
The plans further mandates include a shopping list of ideals that reads as follows:
- Incorporating the costs of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water, into the structure of the marketplace;
- Doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used;
- Halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests;
- Halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems;
- Improved demand-side energy efficiency, and providing universal access to low-carbon mobility.
Little is mentioned of how to meet these noble goals, but we are informed that an ‘Information mural’ is in place, which together with the ‘Information poster’ can be purchased for $595 plus shipping (sustainably it is hoped) from Canada.
How far these sentiments will carry in the board room of Unilever or Royal Dutch Shell’s next shareholder meeting remains to be seen, but there are many who fear it is just window-dressing publicity.
Has there ever been a business venture that has philanthropically impacted our planet?
Certainly we have seen charities have an impact on world want (Oxfam, Save the Children) and the global environment (Greenpeace, Save the Whale). Similarly government has played a part in efforts such as enforcing clean air acts and banning non-energy efficient light bulbs, but what evidence do we have of an impact from big chem?
There have been numerous philanthropic individuals from business, from steel manufacturer, Andrew Carnegie to British sugar magnate Henry Tate, to today’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but where is the impact for sustainability from firms themselves? Are Unilever and China Chemical Corp. doing their bit to help the planet?
There are many people who will think that they don’t do enough, and that their focus is too centred on profit. But in that belief lies the key to the problem, for ultimately you cannot remove profitability from sustainability. The chemicals industry, like any other, is based on economics.
Certainly the rhetoric of Vision 2050 and similar projects are worthy, but in the end it’s all dollars and cents. And that makes sense. Because the simple message of reduce, reuse, recycle is both sustainable and profitable, and you don’t need a ‘roadmap’ to find it.