As a procurer practising what it preached If industry and

commercial firms are being asked to cut carbon then public sector buildings and car fleets should be one step ahead, and public sector procurement should give a market to progressive firms by specifying high standards.

The underlying theme is once again: ‘I will if you will’. Businesses want to act, but cannot do so in isolation, without the support of a business case. They need a policy framework to create that business case, and give others reason to follow.

These business leaders called for cross-party consensus on key issues like climate change, to give business more confidence that targets and policies will not be at the mercy of party politics and electoral cycles. Sustainable consumption represents a big innovation opportunity for UK entrepreneurs and manufacturers. But they cannot create the market on their own.

‘Business will tend to lead where they see a business case, but the government has an opportunity to take a major leadership role and establish the frameworks from which all else flows.’

Ian Blythe, Boots Group plc

Certainty about future market frameworks

Above all, the businesses that are prepared to make strategic

investments in low-carbon services, or introduce other aspects of

sustainability into products, need more certainty about future markets. Given clear goals over defined time- frames, business can start planning and also create a competitive edge. Competitors will then be obliged to follow and markets would be transformed. Once again, this reinforces the potential role of a government-sponsored product body. What our studies have shown, however, is the potential value of shaping policies and supporting frameworks around the products that business supplies rather than the business operation itself (as was the case with catalytic converters and energy-efficient white goods). For example, regulation on solvent emissions from a paint factory’s chimney would not be necessary if there were a market incentive to sell only water-based paint.

The new corporate social responsibility

A company with a good corporate social responsibility (CSR)

programme has, we can assume, processes to manage and report on the social and environmental impacts of its operations. Improvements are clearly being made but the gap between ‘good CSR’ and sustainable consumption is intuitively large and, more importantly, unknown. How many CSR reports, for example, look at how the company’s product range supports the principles of a single- planet economy?

What we need to avoid is a

perception that a good track record on CSR matches the requirements of sustainability when there has been no evidence gathered to support such a perception. A company can have a good CSR record, but this does not mean that its operations and products are sustainable, nor that sustainability is embedded into the company’s culture and decision-making. Core to this is moving beyond an internal frame of reference, coupled with an engagement with key stakeholders, to accept responsibility for the impact of the products and services it sells to consumers(62)

.

‘Businesses can make the customer much more aware of environmental issues to do with products. Stores should be seen as a place for discussion, where employees proactively talk to customers about sustainability. Point-of-sale material should have simple, interesting messages so customers feel engaged and encouraged to find out more information.’

Scott Keiller, Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd.

The new corporate responsibility

A corporate responsibility approach that demonstrated a company’s commitment to sustainable consumption would include: • explanation of how the principle of

sustainable consumption is shaping their business strategy;

• a focus on the company’s products, through an environmental and social analysis of their key lifecycle impacts; • proactive engagement with

government and NGOs in developing a public policy framework that creates a business case for more sustainable products;

• a research and development strategy that focused on beating the competition at product

sustainability Óin terms of supply chains and product use Óalongside other consumer priorities; • designing features that help

consumers use their product or service in a more sustainable way Ó

such as economy wash options on washing machines, and zero energy standby function on TVs;

• a serious and intelligent justification for any products offered that have the potential to drive consumption practices in highly unsustainable directions (for example, patio- heaters and domestic air conditioning units);

• marketing strategies that would appeal to people’s values and ethics, and a broader sense of well-being, and avoid creating new unnecessary and unsustainable wants or playing on insecurities;

• partnerships with innovative enterprises developing more sustainable products or service approaches; and

• partnership enterprises with NGOs and policy-makers, where business expertise and skills can be married with the skills of the others to bring benefit to all parties, as in the case of the MSC venture.

Roundtable members with senior business experience were compelled by a hypothetical scenario: they were offered the chance to inspire the board of a FTSE 100 company to embed sustainable consumption into the heart of their business strategy. The individuals recognised that the best place to start would not be a long report but a short, hard-hitting presentation to the main board of that business. It would not talk about the challenges facing the planet, but the risks to, and opportunities for, their business plan.

Such a presentation was produced and tested at the business dialogue described above. While there were considerable challenges in writing a standard ‘off the shelf ’ presentation for all the FTSE 100 companies, there was a consensus that if the rationale for a sustainable consumption case was presented, it would highlight risks and opportunities which can be summarised into six key business objectives:

1. Continuously improving