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Global EquitySustainable development — Business perspective

First published on Tapp Commerce Blog 2016–06–10.

The world experiences an era of unsustainable patterns of global

consumption. Globalization brings us an abundance of masses,

with the aim to rise to the middle class — air conditioned homes,

polluting cars and electronics of all kinds in their sights.

The Big PictureThe economic integration that happens globally convey us challenges

that span across national boundaries. At the same time, we aspire our-

selves with new traits of consumerism. Partly due to this phenomenon,

social settings that were rather stagnant for decades now change

rapidly particularly in countries around the South China Sea.

Definition of sustainability has been refined on various occasions across

decades. In our time, we can define sustainable development as a need

to meet the demand for goods and services without compromising the

future generations, and offering them such resources to meet their chil-

Photo: JimsFlicker from Flicrk.com 2014. Some rights reservered.

dren’s and grand children’s needs. Equality, empowerment, water sup-

ply, deforestation and food itself — the needs of sustainable

development are essential for life on our planet. These necessities vary

based on location, from isolated tribes in the rain forests of Amazon to

Sahel African failed states. Global challenges; massive water shortages,

lack of proper food, lost harvests and volatile social structures induce

poverty. Developed countries have globally spanned challenges. Climate

change, energy production, uncontrolled immigration and recently also

security has topped the agenda that regional and global media has

echoed. On a global level, one can define the challenge as “global equi-

ty” (1).

Where are we?How did our planet end up in a situation that truly endangers existence

for future generations? The culture of consumerism, surely propels the

trend further, while global affluence acts as the main driver for masses.

This amplifies the trend intensifying consumer driven lower middle

class, that is expected to reach purchasing power of $5 trillion by 2030

(2). Simultaneously world GDP is expected to jump over three-fold by

2050. In the future the growing inequality widens the gap of diversity,

urbanized conflicts continue between the needy and the one’s better-

off. For governments, the response will get worse in terms of security,

capacity and investment into infrastructure. The inequality is increasing

with developed countries rushing further into exponential technologies.

Luckily, technology creates reflections towards developed countries,

such as cheap smartphones to cover over 80% of world population by

2020. These little windows of see-for-yourself, provide a framework to

think for yourself, for your empowerment. The truth does not need to

come out from a corrupted head of state in sub-Saharan Africa or a

bribe-seeking the regional head of school district on the outskirts of the

countryside of Cambodia. Independent thinking offers freedom by al-

lowing the participant to join education but also takes the curious kind

to become part of the global race for competence.

Challenges vs. OpportunitiesWhile the challenges are enormous, so are related opportunities for

businesses. Economic benefits reflect opportunity, and rising wealth

play a crucial role in the development of solutions for sustainable de-

velopment. Government guidance is needed to protect the environ-

ment, as economic growth and financial benefits are main incentives

for businesses to dedicate resources for research and development of

new products and services. As we can see, these concepts are inextrica-

bly linked. New forms of cooperation between governmental institu-

tions, business and society itself are essential to reach goals. Creation of

clean energy is crucial to stop global warming. Fossil fuel based energy

creation is coming to an end, with countries such as Norway are likely

to ban the operation of combustion engines from 2025 onwards. Ger-

many and Sweden intend to reduce fossil fuel based energy creation

and shut down nuclear production in 2022–2025, whereas China and

India rely heavily on coal as the primary energy source for years to

come (4). Free movement of labor, democratized education and global

access to information foster innovation for the ecosystem as a whole.

Products and services, packaging and brands need to reflect the mind-

set of the environment and relate further to production, visually and

structurally. Businesses need to relay a message from the origin on the

package and marketing messages to consumer, with recycling and pro-

duction. Freely bred chickens provide better-tasting eggs, but they also

live longer than the industrial standard of 12-months of their cage-bred

counterparts.

Government adaptation to changes should allow reasonable time for

business planning and implementation of investments, provided by cap-

ital markets. Capital markets are essential in the delivery of capital for

businesses to enact the required research, product development and the

implementation of marketing and sales efforts. Information delivery

channeled through professional web services and government guided

forums provide a framework for efficient communication between par-

ties. As long as trade policies are open, they offer most efficient use of

resources towards developed countries. However, at the same time con-

sumers need to support participating actors; businesses, government

and civil societies for efforts to make sense commercially.

The age of exponential finance takes over the cash societies. In part,

this means that people in the outskirts of a global metropolis, with no

access to banking services in the traditional sense, become empowered

by locally distributed westerly goods and services. The rapid develop-

ment of identification lagging citizenry provides every resident with an

increased level of living. The former lag of product distribution, even

for large goods, such as solar panels and household goods can be mini-

mized to some days. The mother, at the end of the road of equality, is

now able to sit atop a pedal operated an electric free washing machine,

while overseeing plays and games of the next generation of a village.

ConclusionsSustainable business is sound practice as it provides a competitive ad-

vantage with long-haul building and rapid life-cycles of business plan-

ning, development and eventually product delivery and sales. Without

strong leadership, the opportunity fades for easier and geographically

closer opportunities. Sustainable business models scale the efficiency,

technology transfer and new modernized way of thinking throughout

the organization for everyone’s benefit (3). Therefore, business leaders

are required to have sustained commitment translating challenges into

business incentives, opportunities and execution. Consumers and busi-

nesses need to maintain a constant dialogue with policy makers and

NGOs to welcome defined sustainable models of cooperation, as the cit-

izens at the end of the road to equality are awaiting.

References:

1. UN World Chronicle — The Magazine of The United Nations, Human in-

duced Disasters, 2016 and 2007.

2. World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2015, 2005

3. Schmidheiny, Stephan, Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective

of Development and The Environment 1998

4. World Energy Index 2013 (http://www.worldenergy.org/).