Realized Worth | Employee Volunteering & Workplace Giving: Sustainability and Your Employees: Part I

Want to help your business forge a path toward sustainable practices? Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt has an excellent framework to help you. Listen below to part 1 of a 2-part interview series with Dr. Robèrt and Realized Worth’s very own Chris Jarvis.

Sustainability Made Simple with Dr Karl-Henrik Robèrt of the Natural Step | Part 1 from chris jarvis on Vimeo.

A Sustainable Society?

Karl-Henrik Robèrt founded The Natural Step in 1989 with a desire to create a common language to engage issues of sustainability. In his view, the scientific community had not yet produced a definition that could help ‘decision makers’ in various sectors (e.g., business, government, education, etc.) redraft their practices in accord with the values of sustainability. Intuitively, he felt that if you can define sustainability at the level of key principles, and if you give these principles to intelligent decision makers in any sector of society, they should be able to come up with new and creative ways to make money that are part of the solution rather than the problem. That spark of intuition set off a wave of research involving input from an international network of scientists, and, eventually, a unanimously agreed upon set of principles crystalized.

In their view, there are four fundamental ways that human society is systematically undermining the capacity of nature to function and the capacity of human beings to meet their needs. To become sustainable as a society, we must:

eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels)
eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society (for example, dioxins, PCBs, and DDT )
eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests and paving over critical wildlife habitat); and
eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on).

(Read more here: http://www.naturalstep.org/the-system-conditions)

Making it Practical

At first reading, you may wonder – are these super-smart scientists really suggesting we must stop all mining, shut down our factories, close paper mills, and stop producing chemicals? Can we never disturb a natural landscape? How does this framework get practical in today’s world?

The Natural Step assures us that the problem is not that human beings consume natural resources, per se. It is, rather, that our society is systematically increasing our consumption year after year, and, in so doing, systematically decreasing the ability of natural systems to provide the resources and services we need to survive. Even though we know that we are running out of oil, fish, and trees, we continue to spend money and energy finding, processing, and consuming them. And, we typically don’t stop until the system breaks.

The challenge for businesses is to appreciate our present situation and find creative ways to reduce the growing pressures caused by increases in consumption and decreases in what the earth can naturally provide. None of this, they argue, should dampen entrepreneurial drive. Included in their framework is an understanding of sustainability as a business opportunity, not a liability.

The Natural Step

To learn more about the four principles and how to develop a framework for leading your organization through a process toward sustainable practices, we recommend perusing their very helpful website. Beyond hiring their services, they offer many excellent resources for free that can help you lead your organization toward sustainability on your own. A great place to get started is their very helpful ‘Sustainability Primer’.

Watch for Part 2 of this video series where Chris and Dr. Robèrt talk about practical steps employees can take to start grassroots sustainability initiatives.

Confused about the difference between Sustainability and Social Responsbility? Learn a little more about their respective definitions here.

Meet Brent Croxton, the author of this article and latest addition to the Realized Worth team. With a background in sales, psychology and philosophy, Brent has a lifelong interest in what motivates human beings. He writes and speaks on issues related to personal growth and corporate change. Recent topics have included managing generational diversity, emotionally intelligent leadership, transformational community, and conflict resolution. You can connect with Brent on LinkedIn, Twitter, and via email.

Realized Worth works with companies to engage employees in volunteering and sustainability programs. Give us a call or send an email to discuss the possibilities for your company. 317.371.4435 angela@realizedworth.com, chrisjarvis@realizedworth.com