Some businesses that have successfully positioned themselves as world leaders in business sustainability, contribute to unbridled consumerism by heavily marketing products that people don’t need, or are harmful. Meanwhile, some otherwise non-material endeavours, that on the surface seem to foster a peaceful coexistence between people and nature, such as yoga and fitness, are over-commercialised and merchandised. Some businesses embrace eco-efficiency but remain disinterested in their social, cultural or community impacts. For a movement that grew out of a fear that humans were irreversibly degrading their only home, does contemporary sustainability practice in business honour the movement’s original aspirations? Or has an economic growth and profit-orientation drawn sustainability notions into mainstream business activity without fundamentally changing? This paper offers an unapologetic critique of practices by selected businesses with strong sustainability reputations juxtaposed against requirements for sustainability and an array of possible business activities to contribute to sustainability. The key businesses considered are Unilever, Coca-Cola and Lululemon Athletica. In doing so, it highlights some more transformative opportunities available to business to ensure that the ‘best of business’ (innovation, efficiency, coordination, responsiveness, value creation and sharing) can be brought to bear on humanity’s existential challenges.

1. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
Sustainability Lite –
Has Business Lost Touch
with the ‘True Meaning’
of Sustainability?
Scott Losee

2. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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 This audience understands –
1. Tremendous value
some businesses have
contributed through
sustainability
2. That it is not enough
 Presentation will consider –
 Artificial separation of firms and brands
enabling inconsistent ethics
 Inherent unsustainability of products and
services
 The relative depth/superficiality of
redirection… potential for disguising
perpetuation of the status quo
Introduction

3. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Weak sustainability
 Modified continuation of
status quo
 Dematerialising
 Decoupling economic
development from
environmental impacts
 Eco-efficiency
Strong sustainability
 Radical economic
change
 We cannot solve
problems by using the
same kind of thinking
we used when we
created them.
True meaning
One sustainability
 Lasting betterment
and the possible
means to it

4. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Requirements for Sustainability
 See detail in written paper
 Requirements from Bob Gibson’s
Sustainability Assessment
 National Strategy for Ecologically
Sustainable Development (NSESD), 1992
 Evolution of ideas from Brundtland and
before

5. Build human-ecological relations to establish and maintain
the long-term integrity of socio-biophysical systems and
protect the irreplaceable life support functions upon which
human as well as ecological wellbeing depends
Socio-ecological system integrity
Protect biological diversity and maintain essential ecological
processes and life-support systems
PRINCIPLE
REQUIREMENT
NSESD
UNPACK…

6. Build human-ecological relations to establish and maintain
the long-term integrity of socio-biophysical systems and
protect the irreplaceable life support functions upon which
human as well as ecological wellbeing depends
Socio-ecological system integrity
Protect biological diversity and maintain essential ecological
processes and life-support systems
PRINCIPLE
REQUIREMENTS
NSESD
Questions for each one
Does this business decision
help…?
Does this business model
help…?
Does this investment help…?
Does this product, service or
brand help…?

7. Ensure that everyone and every community has enough for a
decent life and that everyone has opportunities to seek
improvements in ways that do not compromise future
generations’ possibilities for sufficiency and opportunity
Livelihood sufficiency and opportunity
Enhance individual and community wellbeing and welfare by
following a path of economic development that safeguards
the welfare of future generations
PRINCIPLE
REQUIREMENT
NSESD

8. The challenge for
willing thinkers in business
is to investigate, explore and
experiment with new
strategies and business
models that will allow
business to continue to
energise sustainability

9. Discord

10. Brand dissonance
Unilever’s simple purpose is to make
sustainable living commonplace
Dove ‘Real Beauty’ now followed by self-esteem
project
Lynx marketed (in parallel) using soft porn
Logically, social responsibility needs to be
consistent and universal across a firm’s activities
To marketers, brands are a convenient
abstraction. To consumers, they have to be
‘real things’
Does artificial separation of firms and brands
impede sustainability or business ethics?

11. Inherent
sustainability

12. Product/service
unsustainability
Replenish 100% of water; partnering with cane
farmers in GBR catchment, ‘Best Corp. Citizen’
award…
Performs well against many of the ‘requirements’
Uncharitable description –
Coca-Cola sells an addictive, sugar-ridden
beverage to a youthful market by associating with
happiness, positivity and the good life
Not cigarettes, arms, brothels or gambling
At best, no worse than numerous like products
As a species, how should humans eat and move?

14. False prophet?

15. Disguised
perpetuation of the
status quo?
As athletes and yogis, we understand that
environmental health is the foundation of personal
health; we’re as passionate about reducing our
environmental impact as we are about staying fit.
Uncharitable description –
Sells over-priced active wear by associating itself
with the practice of yoga, loved by millions
worldwide
Through yoga, one can achieve greater
contentment in part by refraining from
consumerism
Possible to practice yoga perfectly well without
Lululemon gearScott’s rather sad yoga mat.

16. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Aparigraha (non-possessiveness)
According to Lululemon—
Aparigraha (non-possessiveness, absence of greed):
You know that adage about ‘Keeping up with the Joneses?’
Aparigraha is the opposite of that. Aparigraha teaches
contentment with what we have, instead of grasping after what
we don't have.
— http://static.lululemon.com.au/education/yoga/yamas

17. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Sufficiency – how much is enough?
$1,300
$31,781
$522,000
$0
$100,000
$200,000
$300,000
$400,000
$500,000
$600,000
Nigerians Chinese Australians
$0
$1,000
$2,000
$3,000
$4,000
$5,000
$6,000
$7,000
$8,000
Australians Celebrities
(Kardashian,
Turnbull)
Billionaires
(Branson)
Millions
Average wealth per adult (A$) Estimated net worth of individuals (A$)

18. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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One common issue…
Company Selling Sold as
Unilever Deodorant Empowerment or sex appeal
Coca-Cola Cola beverage Happiness, positivity and the good life
Lululemon Active apparel
Transformational experiences for
people to live happy, healthy, fun lives
Separation of tangible and intangible

19. Sustainable business model archetypes
Source: Adapted from Bocken, Short, Rana, & Evans, 2014

20. Sustainable business model archetypes
Source: Adapted from Bocken, Short, Rana, & Evans, 2014

21. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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VAUDE – repair, don’t replace
We at VAUDE say: repair it – and do it yourself!
VAUDE & iFixit will show you how it’s done
They believe in their equipment
They believe in promoting sustainability in line
with customers’ enjoyment of outdoors
Brand loyalty
Scott’s rather sad bike bag.

22. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Conclusions
 If socio-ecological crisis persists, then only long-term business
value is in activities aligned with sustainable living
 Reviewing business against core sustainability principles reveals
gaps and opportunities
 Sustainability of a business and its ethics, truthfulness and
transparency inter-related
 Conventional marketing dishonest—can’t hide behind brands
 Sustainability requirements far broader than eco-efficiency
 Opportunities in the sustainable business model archetypes

23. loseeconsulting.com.au Presentation to National Sustainability in Business Conference 2017 | 21/3/2017
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Thank you
 In 1995, Gladwin, Krause & Kennelly concluded:
…The worry is that it is all too easy to… reduce psychic pain by
denying the reality of unsustainability… to silently acquiesce in
continuing patterns of destructive behaviour, to despair that the
social and ecological problems of the earth are too
insurmountable to cope with and, as a result, to more deeply
cocoon corporations in the service of luxury over-consumption in
contented pockets of the planet while the larger global community
and biosphere atrophies. However, to do so erodes our humanity,
our spirituality and the chances of survival for both our own
descendants and our own.
Scott Losee
scott@loseeconsulting.com.au
0404 467 228