Keeping it real

Today’s “CEO Day” concluded the conference by bringing participants together with a large panel of experienced leaders from the public and private sectors. It was a chance for participants to test their newly formulated ideas against the decades of experience that these executives brought in from the field. “Keep it real” could have been another motto for the day, as panel members repeatedly emphasized how hard it can be to keep track of supply chains, how resistant CEOs and shareholders can be to short-term sacrifice, how introducing new sustainability controls and KPIs into an already complex system could threaten to make the whole thing unmanageable and, of course, how much time and resources are required to institute change.

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Bottom line financials: the real sustainability incentive?

Is it true that financial costs, time requirements and lack of demand at the customer level are the most significant barriers to integrating sustainability into core business? What motivates companies to adopt sustainability measures? Do they want to improve their image, ensure regulatory compliance or access new markets? Yesterday, participants considered these questions in small group break-out sessions and then had the opportunity to exchange views with two industry representatives, including Markus Frank from BASF. BASF is not usually considered a sustainability good guy, but Frank’s stance on sustainability is a positive one. He says that sustainability makes good business sense, and his clear-cut answers to the morning’s questions seemed to take some of the mystery out of the equation.

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It is all about trust

Being a trustworthy business partner and a company that the civil society trusts – that is what matters if you want to be a successful company today. You have to do much more than make money. Doing responsible business means creating shareholder and stakeholder value! Prof. Klaus Leisinger also explained why this is so much harder today.

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The Green Race is On – Place your bets

Today’s keynote speaker Björn Stigson has served as special advisor on sustainability to both the Chinese and US governments, so it was interesting to hear his assessment on how these two superpowers match up in the “green race” to transform to low carbon economies and to become the leading supplier of resource efficient technologies. Not surprisingly, Stigson is picking China as the odds-on favorite. The EU may still be the world market leader for green technology exports, he says, but China is clearly about to take over. Stigson describes China’s current 5-year plan as a “game plan” for sustainable development and for dominating the world market for green solutions. “There is no doubt in their minds that they will achieve this,” says Stigson.

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The “war for talent” with sustainability expertise is on

Although many companies recognize that the responsibility for a sustainable future rests on their shoulders too, there are still big question marks when it comes to sustainability in daily operations, in product innovation, and in customers´ and employees´ minds. What’s needed are creative responsible business solutions based on a new mode of entrepreneurial thinking. This leaves us with a number of challenges, which will be discussed as part of the Bonn International Summer School on Responsible Business.

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