IDEAS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
Over the course of the past year's work on the Driving Sustainable Consumption project, business leaders, sustainability experts and academics were asked to give their concrete, actionable ideas on how to address the sustainability challenge and unlock its opportunities. Specifically, they were asked the following questions:
- What are the most important enabling actions that private sector collaboration should start on now?
- What are the existing initiatives, platforms or processes that can be leveraged?
- Who else might be needed to catalyse international and cross-industry action?
- What is the role of national and international governments in enabling change?
A selection of these ideas is collected below. These ideas are intended to stimulate debate at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010; broaden participation from other industry groups; set in motion the process of cross-industry, cross value chain, multi-stakeholder action necessary to achieve the ambitions of the CEO Foreword; and bring the new normal of sustainable consumption closer to realization.
Having identified the nature of the journey ahead, and looked at how businesses and other stakeholders can rethink what they do, this section of the report aims to provide concrete steps that could be taken now – examples of potential collaborations that could begin to make a difference, immediately.
Of the 10 ideas listed below, a selection will be taken forward by the World Economic Forum in 2010 with support from the Driving Sustainable Consumption Project Board companies and the Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption. These ideas are explored in more details on the following pages.
- Catalyse opportunities for business towards creating a consumer movement for sustainable consumption
- Connect corporate executives and university leaders, with a view to creating a pipeline of future talent for sustainable businesses
- Index, compare and contrast the existing metrics and tools for measurement of sustainable consumption
- Bridge perspectives between investors and companies on the role of sustainability in driving long-term value creation
- Create an innovation platform for sustainability which connects open-sourced intellectual property to developers and markets
- Collaborating while competing: explore business models, tensions and solutions, and regulatory implications
- Launch a pilot to measure and manage waste in the food value chain, and share key learnings
- Launch a consumer industry pilot on reverse logistics, and identify key barriers and opportunities for scalable solutions
- Develop a track to bring the business voice into the United Nations Process for Sustainable Consumption and Production
- Look at the implications for business in moving beyond gross
domestic product (GDP) as the main measure of social progress
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1. Catalyse Opportunities For Business Towards Creating A Consumer Movement For Sustainable Consumption Proposal: Create a project to
systematically explore the role of social capital in creating
collective action and to work with appropriate stakeholders roll
out pilot projects to create a movement with consistent messaging
around sustainable consumption. |
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Measure Of Success: Creation of an action plan and dialogue leading to establishment of a few key pilot projects. Time Frame: 4-5 months strategy work, followed by establishment of key pilot campaigns to report progress at the Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: Sustainable consumption is not only about the top billion consumers, it is about the right of all global citizens to consume efficiently and sufficiently, within the limits of natural systems. Policy and business can only push the societal issue of sustainable consumption so far without a strong pull from individuals as consumers and citizens. Choices made as voters and citizens provide enormous legitimacy for deeper corporate and government action. Unlocking this, however, requires a fundamental global shift in consciousness to inspire and mobilize participants in a movement around the world. Questions To Be Considered
Stakeholders
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2. Connect Corporate Executives And University Leaders, With A View To Creating A Pipeline Of Future Talent For Sustainable Businesses Proposal: Create a holistic education and engagement programme, engaging governments and educators from primary schools through to universities, to provide a more literate talent pool for companies and |
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countries to better compete, taking sustainability to the next level. Such an effort might include increased collaboration between business and universities, and between civil society and primary educators, to help equip the talent pool with the knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of sustainable development. Measure Of Success: The key measures of success on the way to the objective would be, initially, the establishment of a dialogue between talent executives and university leaders, and subsequently the commissioning and delivery of a policy study into how sustainability can be integrated into curricula and job training programmes and a broad dialogue geared to achieving that in practice. Time Frame: Initially until Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: Education and training at all levels can equip individuals and societies with the skills, perspectives, knowledge and values to live and work in a sustainable manner. Conversely, lack of a workforce skilled or literate in sustainable development is a major barrier to sustainable development. Increased awareness of this has focused attention on identifying which skills most need to be developed in society, and what knowledge is most important in terms of promoting the understanding and practice of sustainable development. The United Nations has declared 2005 to 2014 the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), which "envisions a world where every person has the chance to benefit from educational opportunities and to learn the lifestyles, behaviours and values necessary to create a sustainable future". Questions To Be Considered
Stakeholders
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3. Index, Compare And Contrast The Existing Metrics And Tools For Measurement Of Sustainable Consumption Proposal: Create an index of existing tools and metrics for measurement of sustainable production and consumption along the value chain (from the supply chain, production and manufacturing to consumers use). This should include an exploration of what integrated value chain |
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measurement software and tools (e.g. information sharing platform) might look like to measure key metrics (e.g. resource use, emissions and waste), enabling greater transparency across the value chain promoting greater stewardship and responsibility beyond single company boundaries. Measure Of Success: Completed index/map of global tools and metrics. Time Frame: Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: In order to quantify the sustainability of processes and products, it is necessary to think along the whole value chain and to draw up information together with customers and suppliers on the effects of products on the environment throughout their entire life cycle. Different tools and metrics for measurement have been developed by different stakeholder groups (e.g. non-governmental organizations such as the Global Reporting Initiative, business/trade associations and business themselves), but there is not currently any uniform approach to carbon labelling or reporting of products, let alone the environmental life cycle impact. Only a comprehensive, uniform definition and measurement of the complete life cycle, taking into account production, use and disposal, can allow the relative sustainability of different products to be adequately compared, guiding consumer behaviour, fostering collaborative business innovation and providing a basis for appropriate government regulation. Questions To Be Considered
Stakeholders
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4. Bridge Perspectives Between Investors And Companies On The Role Of Sustainability In Driving Long-Term Value Creation Proposal: Create a dialogue series
between corporations and investors on the role of sustainability in
driving long-term value creation and how to make sure that
sustainability criteria are mainstreamed into investment
strategies. |
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Measure Of Success: Dialogue series with Ceres at Forum regional events. Time Frame: Forum events throughout 2010 Background And Rationale: Broad empirical evidence indicates that sustainable investing leads to higher investment returns. Booz & Company (2009) estimates that the market for sustainable and socially responsible investing combined will grow from 7% of global assets under management in 2007 to 15-20%, or around US$ 26.5 trillion, in 2015. With investors getting more and more focused on sustainability issues, this will further drive the trend towards sustainability in corporations. Questions To Be Considered
Stakeholders
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5. Create An Innovation Platform For Sustainability Which Connects Open-Sourced Intellectual Property To Developers And Markets Proposal: Create a regional platform (e.g. Europe, Americas) for a "safe space to fail", built upon the development of shared spaces for open collaboration, e.g. Green Exchange. This can have specific focus areas, |
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e.g. closed-loop issues, to propose and prototype solutions to specific closed-loop system challenges, potentially built around prototyping shared solutions to spur cross-company collaboration. One output might be a platform for sharing anonymized information, to close any information gaps and set the foundation for a "commodity exchange" or "clearing house". Measure Of Success: Innovation brainstorming session meeting, taking information sharing to the next level by bringing together key stakeholders to create an innovation marketplace. Time Frame: Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions, Tianjin, People's Republic of China, 13-15 September 2010 Background And Rationale: Business models can go beyond merely selling products and services to understanding their real impact in terms of advancing well-being or meeting needs. A number of large corporations and small enterprises have already proven that business models can be developed which support sustainable consumption by individuals and institutional consumers. These cases demonstrate the financial viability of sustainable business models, but they also show that longer periods of experimentation may be needed to achieve multiple, scaleable, sustainable business models. Exploring what has worked in the past, and providing an open space for innovation in the future, can reveal where and how businesses have set up successful models, and provide inspiration for the development of future strategies. Questions To Be Considered
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6. Collaborating While Competing: Explore Business Models, Tensions And Solutions, And Regulatory Implications Proposal: Explore how far the limits
of multistakeholder cooperation and collaboration can be pushed
while businesses remain competitive and focused on delivering
shareholder value. Such a dialogue would necessarily engage with
experts in strategy and intellectual property, as well as key
stakeholders from regulatory bodies. |
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Measure Of Success: Creation of a dialogue series, stakeholder-mapping exercise (including regulatory constraints) with report. Time Frame: Report produced for Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: Many businesses are blocked from collaborating in certain strategic areas by a diversity of barriers including mindsets, lack of strategic collaboration experience, and even regulation. Businesses might take a cue from natural systems, in which symbiosis thrives within highly competitive environments, allowing collaborators to better compete. The concept of business ecosystems could be modelled on natural ecosystems, ones that are characterized by having closed loops, energy and resource efficiency, and limited or no waste. Questions To Be Considered
Stakeholders
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7. Launch A Pilot To Measure And Manage Waste In The Food Value Chain, And Share Key Learnings Proposal: Create a real-life case study to showcase the possibilities of reducing waste along entire value chains through a business ecosystem approach. Cross value chain pilot to explore the role of cross-industry collaboration that will map the data and standards currently available and |
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used to quantify spoilage and waste in the food and beverage value chain. This will also help to illustrate the business opportunity and competitive advantages of working beyond company boundaries Measure Of Success: Pilot project for the food and beverage value chain, measuring and mapping waste as well as identifying opportunities. Time Frame: Linking to Tools and Metrics (Idea 4 above) to run over mid-2010 and explore via engaged company operations through to the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2010, with report on learnings at the Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: Food losses occur at all levels of the food system, from farming, processing and wholesaling, through to consumers. This represents a massive set of inefficiencies for all stakeholders along the value chain in terms of water and energy use, wasted calories and a significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. While there is data available for quantifying the losses and waste, it is often limited in scope to particular countries, companies or product categories. There is a clear need to map the different data and standards that have currently been developed for data collection and reporting, in order to quantify the magnitude of the food loss/spoilage and waste across the whole value chain, "from farm to fork". Questions To Be Considered
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8. Launch A Consumer Industry Pilot On Reverse Logistics, And Identify Key Barriers And Opportunities For Scalable Solutions Proposal: Facilitate the creation of a reverse-logistics pilot programme based on the extended producer responsibility (EPR) concept, in which the producer is economically and legally responsible along the whole life cycle of the product. In this model, the producer has to create "green |
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processes" for all life cycle stages, including design, manufacturing (for example, creating products with 100% recyclable materials) and all processes involved until the product is recycled at the end of its life cycle. Measure Of Success: Pilot project(s) established with the World Economic Forum facilitating information-sharing between them and learnings from cross-industry experiences and experts. Time Frame: Ongoing with review/report at the Annual Meeting 2011 Background And Rationale: There are currently cultural barriers in three sectors that this pilot project could potentially help overcome:
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9. Develop A Track To Bring The Business Voice Into The United Nations Process For Sustainable Consumption And Production Proposal: Achieve strong private sector engagement in the design of the next phase of the Marrakech process on Sustainable Consumption and Production by leveraging the collective experience and influence of key business platforms. Crucial among these are the World Business |
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Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Consumer Goods Forum and the World Economic Forum. Collective input would be delivered to the May 2010 Meeting of the Advisory Committee of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York. Measure Of Success: Set of recommendations for the 2010 Meeting of the Advisory Committee of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development; creation of a second phase for greater business influence established from the outcomes of the meeting Time Frame: Recommendations by May 2010; second phase post-May to Annual Meeting 2011 and beyond Background And Rationale: Solutions to promote sustainable consumption are needed more urgently than those that governments can achieve alone. It is in the interest of the private sector to help make existing international processes and agreements work as well as possible. The Marrakech process is a UN-led, global multi-stakeholder process to support the implementation of sustainable consumption. Business engagement has so far been low, principally because businesses do not view the Marrakech process to be of urgent and substantial business relevance (yet). This is in stark contrast to, for example, the policy processes of the European Union on sustainable consumption, and the UN-led processes on climate (UNFCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity, all of which are seen as being both urgent and highly relevant to the business community. Questions To Be Considered
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10. Look At The Implications For Business In Moving Beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP) As The Main Measure Of Social Progress Proposal: Leverage World Economic Forum events throughout 2010 to host a Multi-stakeholder dialogue series on new macroeconomic models of growth, building on efforts made to develop frameworks to measure and foster broader societal well-being (Commission on the Measurement |
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of Economic Performance and Social Progress chaired by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University, USA; the OECD Global Project on Measuring Progress of Societies; and the European Commission's Communication of August 2009 "GDP and beyond", among others). Measure Of Success: Awareness and education of governments and business leaders on different metrics for benchmarking progress. Time Frame: One-year dialogue series Background And Rationale: Today, the success of most economies is considered in terms of growth in GDP, narrowly defined, largely ignoring environmental and social considerations. But in recent years, the long-running debate on the adequacy of GDP as the sole measure of economic success and the principal objective of government policy has become increasingly heated. Various proposals have been made to create new, more comprehensive measures of wellbeing and progress which may, in turn, encourage a refocusing of government and broader societal objectives. Personal consumption and expenditure is currently a key factor in the measurement of GDP, contributing 65-70% of GDP in countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the long term, boosting personal consumption in the OECD is not a panacea for either economic or social problems. Questions To Be Considered
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MOVING AHEAD
The ideas presented in this document are only a first step towards a distant summit. Consumption is a key driver of growth in the economy and also a driver of degradation of many social and environmental factors. It is clear that this needs to change and, as the dust settles from Copenhagen and the world starts questioning what to do and how to do it, the ideas presented in this report will provide some first steps in the right direction.
It is acknowledged that the ideas presented here and those which will be actively pursued over the course of 2010 are only steps, and that collectively they will not be enough to put the world on the right track, but they will allow the learning curve to become steeper and will hopefully enable some of the innovation that will be required to make the more transformational changes that will be needed.
Leadership from all stakeholders is required to overcome the challenges, and the business community need not wait to make sustainability a key business imperative and a virtuous source of innovation and value creation. This will require new alliances and partnerships across industry boundaries to engender new competitive advantages.
In order to stimulate the transition towards a low-carbon, closed loop economy, the World Economic Forum is committed to play a leading role. Together with its Partner companies and other constituent groups, the Forum aims to develop specific initiatives in 2010, each focusing on practical ideas to create a more sustainable future.
The journey towards sustainability will not be a smooth path. Still, with prototyping, learning and a collective effort, it can be achieved. Join us to help make it happen.
ANNEX
Project Process Overview
The Driving Sustainable Consumption project was instituted at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in January 2009. Since then, it has involved a global effort, bringing together businesses, academics and policy experts.
The World Economic Forum has held workshops and events at meetings and summits around the world:
- World Economic Forum on Latin America, Industry Partnership Meeting for Consumer Industries – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 14 April 2009
- Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2009, CEO Insight Group – Dalian, People's Republic of China, 12 September 2009
- Cross-Industry Strategy Meeting, Consumer and Mobility Industries – New York, USA, 30 September 2009
- Summit on the Global Agenda – Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 20-22 November 2009
The Project Board has provided guidance for the project through monthly WELCOM calls and at two meetings, held in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption has offered further advice and support via regular WELCOM calls and in the council meeting at the Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai.
Focus on specific sustainability themes was undertaken via three working groups and, for sustainable finance, by conducting background research and interviews, as summarized below.
The process was supported by background research from both Deloitte and the World Economic Forum, and by extensive interviews and discussions with experts globally.
Project Working Groups
A significant element of the work of the Driving Sustainable Consumption project has been a focus on specific sustainability themes identified as "collaboration hotspots" – key challenges or sets of challenges, both along and across value chains, where the involvement of multiple stakeholders is necessary to adequately explore complex solutions.
In consultation with the stakeholders of the project, three such challenges or sets of challenges were identified, and three working groups set up to address them, led by companies that are members of the Project Board:
- The Closed Loops working group, led by Nike
- The Value Chain Waste working group, led by Nestlé
- The Consumer Engagement working group, led by Unilever
Each working group was supported by a series of expert interviews and a briefing paper giving an overview of the challenge and providing examples of current leading practice. These briefing papers will be made available online at: www.weforum.org/DrivingSustainableConsumption
Three roundtable meetings were convened in October 2009, bringing together over 50 experts and cross-industry representatives from along and across the value chain to develop insights and opportunities for transformative collaboration. These sessions enabled participants to develop and prioritize options for achieving genuine sustainability, in the light of stated ambitions for sustainability within and across value chains.
Each workshop produced ideas for collaboration that have since been further developed with Project Board companies and the Global Agenda Council into the ideas presented in section four of this report.
In addition, a background paper has been produced to provide an overview of the role of finance in catalysing the shift towards sustainable consumption and production. This paper describes and explains the pivotal role that finance plays in supporting the transition towards a sustainable economy.
This overview paper will be made available online at: www.weforum.org/DrivingSustainableConsumption
Participants, Authors And Acknowledgements
The World Economic Forum would like to thank the many individuals and organizations involved in the Driving Sustainable Consumption project over the past year, for volunteering much of their time and for their continued support and commitment.
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1. Participants Project Board Companies |
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Working Group Roundtables Closed Loops |
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Value Chain Waste |
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Consumer Engagement |
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2. Authors Deloitte – Project advisers |
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Peter Capozucca |
Lawrence Hutter |
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Stefan Huckemann |
Kate Martin (seconded to the Forum) |
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World Economic Forum |
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Nicholas Davis |
Sarita Nayyar |
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Randall Krantz |
Bernd Jan Sikken |
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Marcello Mastioni |
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3. Acknowledgements The World Economic Forum would like to extend appreciation to the following for their efforts and contribution to this report. |
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To the individual members of the Project Board: |
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To the members of our Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption: |
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Additionally to the wide network of experts from business, the public sector, academia and civil society that have participated in our workshops and events and who have contributed to discussions and interviews: |
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