The future of sustainability: beyond doing less bad

I saw Joel Makower speak at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club last week on the eve of the launch of his new book – Strategies for a Green Economy.    I did buy the book and look forward to reading it, but this will not be a review of the book.  During his conversation at the Club with BSR’s Aron Cramer, Makower touched on something that has been bothering me for a while now.   

Take this random smattering of corporate environmental news I found just now in my inbox:

• Sprint sets goal of 15% green house gas emissions reduction by 2017


• New MacBooks eliminate certain harmful chemicals, waste less in their packaging


• GE cuts energy use in warehouse by 29%

These are all good first steps.  But they are lacking something.  I don’t feel good hearing this.  Instead of rejoicing, I begin to wonder how bad it still is if a 15% reduction over the course of 9 years is worth a proud press release?  What are Sprint’s absolute emissions?  What could they do that would be good rather than less bad?  All three of these environmental claims and most that I see imply that companies are doing less bad.  Which begs the question – how much bad are they still doing?  I’ve had a nagging feeling that we are missing something in our environmental reporting and approach to CSR.   

Makower articulated these same concerns last Wednesday.  He said that the future of sustainability may not be sustainability.  Today’s greening efforts center on doing less bad.   And that’s just the first step.  The next step involves actually restoring environments to their original state, and even perhaps giving back and adding value to surroundings.  For example, Coca-Cola has pledged to return as much water as it extracts. 

I want to keep this short and sweet.  But what I would like to see as the future of corporate (and all) sustainability efforts involves carbon negative growth, planting 2 trees for every tree cut down, treating the environment like the home of a valued host – leaving things as good or better than when you first arrived.  Is that too much to ask? 

Amie Vaccaro is an Associate with Social Venture Technology Group and is interested in environmental entrepreneurism and sustainable innovation. You can read her blog, ecofrenzy, which is focused on green business happenings and related commentary.