Issue 05: Autumn / Fall 2014

The Rise of Advocacy and Campaigning in

Sustainability Strategies

UnusualActivists

A corporate client once commented on how she welcomed the pressure that NGO

campaigns put on her company. She observed how activism made it easier for her

to demonstrate the need to embed sustainability into every aspect of the business.

Campaigners do a great job of putting the spotlight on environmental and societal imperatives

and traditional activist organisations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and

Amnesty have been at the heart of this. But we are now seeing the emergence of some very

different types of activism and in this autumn/fall issue of Radar we take a look at the rise of the

‘unconventional campaigner’ and how they are inspiring and creating change.

Stepping out of the shadows are companies themselves with

business starting to become increasingly outspoken on issues

(Business Finding its Voice: The Rise of Campaigning &

Advocacy in Sustainability Strategies). The most progressive are

using their clout and influence to help shape more sustainable

behaviour and choices across the economy (In Focus: Aaron

Frank, The Walt Disney Company / From Base Camp to Summit:

Mike Barry, M&S). However, such activity is still relatively rare

and some sectors need to step up and take a stronger position on

issues that are critical to the future of society (Focus on Pharma:

Creating a Market for Disease Prevention).

We also take a look at the rise of ‘people-powered’ movements as citizens step out from

behind membership organisations to target companies and other institutions more directly

(Meet the Activists: 38 Degrees). The media sector’s ability to challenge, investigate and inspire

(all the hallmarks of a good campaign) have long held promise for the sustainability agenda

and we examine the important and still evolving role the sector plays in calling out corporate

malpractice as well as showcasing more sustainable solutions (The Journalist’s View:

Sarah Murray).

We also feature an interview with our co-founder John Elkington on his new book, our regular

Quarterly Trends and the latest survey with GlobeScan on how transparency drives performance.

We hope you enjoy this latest edition of Radar and as always look forward to hearing your

comments and feedback.

Letter from The Editor

Frances Buckingham@FBuckingham

Frances is the Editor of Radar and works on the company’s research and thought leadership.

People powered movements such as 38

Degrees are getting all the headlines but

increasingly it’s businesses leading the way in

sustainable advocacy campaigns.

From Base Camp to Summit:Mike Barry, Marks & Spencer

Focus on Pharma:Creating a Market for Disease Prevention

Featured This Month:

The Journalist’s View:Sarah Murray

A GlobeScan / SustainAbility Survey:See Change: How Transparency Drives Performance Survey

On Our Radar:Quarterly Trends Autumn 2014

Meet the Activists:38 Degrees

Business Finding its Voice:The Rise of Campaigning & Advocacy in Sustainability Strategies

In Focus:Aaron Frank The Walt Disney Company

Online Campaigns:Social Media Beyond Facebook & Twitter

From the Archives:Through the Looking Glass

The Breakthrough Challenge:Q&A With the Author John Elkington

Contents:Autumn / Fall 2014

Zoë Arden@zoearden

A director in the London office, Zoë specialises in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement and storytelling. She has recently completed a Masters in Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge University.

38 Degrees is one of the UK’s biggest campaigning communities, with over

2.5 million members. Members link up both in communities or online and discuss and

vote to decide which issues the organisation campaigns on together.

Zoë Arden talks to Maddy Carroll, Director of Campaigns at 38 Degrees,

about the rise of ‘people-powered’ movements.

Meet the Activists:38 Degrees

“The thing that ties every 38 Degrees member together is a set of values and beliefs that things can be better and the belief that politicians and those in power…should be held accountable for their actions.”

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Meet our Network: Craig Bennett, Friends of the Earth

Zoë Arden speaks with Craig Bennett about bees, business as campaigners &

how companies should be more engaged in policy.

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“The public weren’t losing interest in politics, they were losing faith in politicians, they still cared very much about the issues.”

“We want businesses to engage with 38 Degrees members. They should respond quickly. They should be open. They should listen.”

Zoë Arden: Can you tell me about how the organisation started?

Maddy Carroll: 38 Degrees started in 2009 when the political establishment kept talking about

widespread apathy amongst the British public. But the public weren’t losing interest in politics,

they were losing faith in politicians, they still cared very much about the issues. 38 Degrees came

out of a model of campaigning that started in America with an organisation called MoveOn -

bringing large numbers of people together to campaign on issues they care about.

The ‘Stop Forest Sell-Off Campaign’ that started in 2010 was a very big moment for 38 Degrees.

It was a campaign that really went to the heart of so many people in the country - preventing the

sale of national forests to private companies.

It was an interesting alliance wasn’t it, how was campaigning alongside established organisations like the

National Trust?

It brought together so many people from across

the country who wouldn’t usually see themselves

as ‘campaigners’ but they knew that the public

forest was something that they really cared about

and wanted to protect. It broke down this image

that to campaign you have to be a student, you

have to dedicate your whole life to something,

you have to be in London and go out and chain

yourselves to railings.

The thing that ties every 38 Degrees member together is a set of values and beliefs that things

can be better and the belief that politicians and those in power – be they elected officials or big

businesses or corporations – should be held accountable for their actions.

What would you say your most successful campaigns have been related to business?

Going back a few years 38 Degrees members campaigned against tax breaks for Olympic

sponsors. Tax avoidance is one of the key issues that 38 Degrees members really care about.

These organisations had sponsored the Olympics for good PR and all of a sudden that was being

tarnished with this idea of them receiving tax breaks. I think it was twelve companies altogether

that we targeted and one after the other they all announced that they wouldn’t take the tax

break. So that was a great one.

We also recently targeted eBay who were stocking neonicotinoids – the pesticides banned in the

EU that are responsible for decline of bee populations. 38 Degrees members have campaigned to

protect our bees for a long time.

eBay’s own policy was not to stock

these products but its processes weren’t

working. So we launched a campaign

which involved our members getting in

touch via email and Twitter. Within a few

hours eBay had taken the listings down.

It worked very quickly. I think brands can

be very quick to respond when they feel

public pressure.

More recently we targeted Matalan as it was the only big UK clothing manufacturer to have

used the Rana Plaza building that collapsed and that hadn’t paid into the official compensation

fund. Fair labour campaigners who had been working on this issue had tried to get Matalan to

pay up. The steering committee that worked with the fund had tried to get the company to pay.

Even the government had tried to get Matalan to pay.

Did Matalan say why it was not going to contribute to the compensation plan?

It said it had its own charity initiative, which I’m

sure is making a difference on the ground, but

charity isn’t the same as official compensation. 38

Degrees members emailed, tweeted, Facebooked,

phoned and petitioned Matalan. We got a meeting

at the headquarters with a large panel of their

directors which a large number of 38 Degrees

members attended.

At the meeting the directors announced that they had decided to donate to the fund, but

wouldn’t tell us how much. A week later we found out that Matalan had only donated £60,000,

simply not enough. 38 Degrees members found out and over 50,000 of us emailed company

bosses to say how disappointing the donation was. 70% of 38 Degrees members who took part

in the campaign were Matalan customers, so the business was in no doubt that it had not done

what the public, and more importantly its customers, expected.

How do you want business to engage with you?

We want businesses to engage with 38

Degrees members. They should respond

quickly. They should be open. They

should listen. They should offer meetings

face to face. Don’t just shut down. There

are some companies we’ve campaigned

against who just go into shutdown mode.

They don’t answer their phones and they

just shut up shop and just sit there quietly

and wait for it all to go away. That’s what

Sports Direct did on zero hours. Others, such as Matalan, openly engage. My advice to business

would be to do some planning about what you would do if you had a people-powered, very

public campaign against you.

Lots of your members got involved in the Climate March but climate doesn’t seem to be such a

high priority for your members, why do you think that is?

I think climate campaigning is difficult because

it’s about an invisible gas, and unfathomable

targets to be hit far off in the future. It’s

intangible and difficult to understand the urgency.

The march was aimed at showing world leaders

that people cared. But then those leaders and their

negotiators are going to disappear into the COP

process, which is impenetrable to most people.

Members campaigning to stop big businesses, corporate greed, or investment in a big

coal project that’s going to trash a world heritage site, works much more for our kind of

organisation. Big climate negotiations are tough to engage with if you’re not a policy wonk!

How do you join your online and real world campaigning together? It sounds like it’s becoming a

really interesting blend.

Yes, people often see 38 Degrees as an online campaigning organisation. But we’re not. We use

technology as a tool to win campaigns. There is not a dichotomy between offline and online -

they are meshed together.

What keeps you awake at night?

Maybe not what keeps me awake at night but what gets me up in the morning is our members.

Our members are so wonderful and there is this real weight of responsibility. Often members

will tell me how being part of 38 Degrees makes them feel like they can have an impact. They

can still do stuff even though they work full time, they’re a full time carer, they are disabled, they

can’t leave the house. Being a member of 38 Degrees makes them feel plugged in to something

and part of a movement. That’s a big responsibility that we all feel in the office.

Maddy was talking to...

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Frances Buckingham@FBuckingham

Frances is the Editor of Radar and works on the company’s research and thought leadership.

We have long known that multinationals are powerful agents of global change.

Their potential to motivate, persuade and mobilise is enormous. Whilst it is

unlikely that we will see activists from big business scaling the glass walls of Europe’s

tallest building any time soon, we are beginning to see companies becoming increasingly

outspoken and using their influence to more actively shape the debate to engage and

mobilise other actors towards a more sustainable economy.

One of the earliest examples of a company

taking a public position on an issue was in

2005 when Starbucks began taking out full-

page advertisements in The New York Times

to explain the effects of climate change. Most

recently it launched the ‘Come Together’

petition to mobilise citizen action to end the

2013 US government shutdown.

Patagonia, Intel and Chipotle are also in different ways finding their voice and taking a stance on

critical societal issues. Should businesses really be trying to adopt the tactics of their traditional

adversaries, the campaigning organisations? Does such ‘business activism’ differ from the

messaging that comes through branded sustainability platforms and traditional green marketing

and social advertising campaigns? I think it does and here are three reasons why.

1. Link to Values, Not Products

Product brands have for some time offered powerful platforms through which to engage citizens

and reshape norms and behaviours to ultimately drive greater demand for sustainable products

and services. But what we are now seeing is companies stepping away from using their influence

to effect more sustainable product or service choice and thinking about the wider political and

economic change that needs to happen.

Patagonia has a long history of

‘environmental activism’ and whilst its

2011 Black Friday ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’

advertising campaign did increase sales, the

follow-on Responsible Economy initiative is

focused on decreasing them. The campaign

addresses the ‘elephant in the room’ of

growth-based capitalism and involves

determining new measures of success that do not depend on selling ever-increasing numbers of

goods and services. Underpinning the campaign may be the fact that Patagonia is a company

selling high-quality products that last a long time, can be repaired and eventually returned to the

store, but this is not the core focus or driver of the communication.

2. Seek to Influence Business

For many, the next wave of sustainability is the need for business to ‘lobby for good’. Most

of the attention has been focused on advocacy – that is, working to secure the public policy

needed to support the transition to a more sustainable economy. Even more leading-edge is for

businesses to lobby and put pressure on their peers. Whilst companies are not yet so bold as to

name and shame specific companies not moving fast enough on sustainability, some are starting

to point out what they consider to be unsustainable practices.

Chipotle has recently tapped into the

creativity of its media agencies to produce

an animated short film and an online video

game that takes on industrial farming and

‘big food’. It has also produced a four-part

online comedy series in the US that takes

a satirical look at industrial-scale farming.

Whilst these communications may be

targeted to its customers and the public, educating them about where their food comes from,

they also work to point the finger at much of the fast-food and agricultural sector and the

need to rethink how food is grown and produced. And it has certainly stirred things up, with

agricultural producers reacting angrily. Critics also observe that it doesn’t address the issue of

meat consumption – the food sector’s own ‘elephant in the room’ – and there is little doubt that

preaching about the wrongs of industrial agriculture is ultimately also about increasing market

share for Chipotle.

3. Address Causes, Not Symptoms

The final and possibly the most critical element of some of these corporate ‘campaigns’ is that

they are seeking to address not just the symptoms but also the root cause or the very core of a

problem. There is an important distinction to make between approaches that are mainly about

integrating sustainability into brands and marketing to encourage behaviour change and those

that really seek to address the fundamental political, economic and cultural barriers that stand in

the way of a more sustainable economy.

Intel, in its efforts to ‘evangelise’ on the need for more action to secure conflict-free minerals,

is clear that while manufacturing a conflict-free microprocessor is a good first step, it is also

important to make sure that the causes of conflict are addressed. For this, a ‘systemic’ approach

is needed, with strong messages needing to be sent by business to governments and UN

organisations to get “the peace process organised”.

But what of the potential downsides or risks of companies engaging in activities and tactics that

have historically been used against them by NGOs and campaigning organisations?

The most obvious problem is the authenticity

and credibility of such campaigns. When

an NGO engages the public on an issue it

is starting from a position of trust; business

does not have the luxury of this foundation.

The Edelman Trust Barometer consistently

finds NGOs to be the most trusted

institutions in the world. In 2012, NGOs

were more trusted than business in 16 of the 25 countries surveyed. For a company to put

its head above the parapet and take a strong stance on an issue, they have to be prepared for

critics to exploit every potential weakness or inconsistency in the campaign, or the company’s

sustainability strategy. It is therefore absolutely critical that a company continually works to

ensure its actions match its words.

Chris Rose, longtime campaigner and author of ‘How to Win Campaigns’, also talks of

campaigning as a “high-risk venture”. Effective campaigns need to be fairly black and white in

how they deal with issues, whereas businesses tend to be risk averse and deal in shades of grey.

Approaches to date have been focused on exploring critical questions about the future economic

and political landscape without knowing many of the answers. Yet some of the most effective

campaigns are based on proposing a problem that is compelling and a solution that is feasible. It

is not enough to just be concerned, or to try and spread that concern to others, which is what it

seems business is currently trying to do.

However, there is a lot to be said for companies using their clout and influence to shape debate

and stimulate action. And if anyone is well positioned to challenge our flawed capitalist system

it is those organisations that sit at the very heart of it. Whilst their tactics and approaches are

unlikely to match those of the NGO activists any time soon, the values of business activism lies

in how it demonstrates a company’s conviction and lifts its approach to sustainability far above

just a box-ticking exercise.

This article was originally published in Corporate Citizenship Briefing.

Why Sustainability Leadership Requires Advocacy

The next phase of sustainability leadership will be claimed by those who better

engage with governments to fix policy roadblocks.

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Business Finding itsVoice:The Rise of Campaigning & Advocacy in Sustainability Strategies

“We have long known that multinationals are powerful agents of global change. Their potential to motivate, persuade and mobilise is enormous.”

“Patagonia, Intel and Chipotle are also in different ways finding their voice and taking a stance on critical societal issues.”

“When an NGO engages the public on an issue it is starting from a position of trust; business does not have the luxury of this foundation.”

“If anyone is well positioned to challenge our flawed capitalist system it is those organisations that sit at the very heart of it.”

Changing Tack: Extending Corporate Leadership on

Sustainable Development

Assesses progress on sustainable development during the last 25 years and

considers how to more thoroughly accelerate and scale such progress in response

to the growing urgency of economic, social and environmental challenges today.

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Aaron FrankThe Walt Disney Company

In Focus

Mark Lee@markpeterlee

Mark Lee is SustainAbility’s Executive Director in the US. His work helps companies make more and faster progress on sustainable development.

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What’s the Big Idea

As we enter the age of the Big (Sustainable) Idea, Chris Guenther and Mark Lee

explore the degree to which such a vision enables sustainability performance and

leadership and vice versa.

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Changing Tack: Extending Corporate Leadership on

Sustainable Development

Assesses progress on sustainable development during the last 25 years and

considers how to more thoroughly accelerate and scale such progress in response

to the growing urgency of economic, social and environmental challenges today.

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In the spirit of this issue’s theme of different types of campaigning, Mark Lee and Chris

Guenther interviewed Aaron Frank of Disney about the recent launch of its corporate

citizenship platform Be Inspired.

Having worked alongside GlobeScan to help Disney develop the platform last year, they were

interested to learn how the company is communicating the meaning and purpose of Be Inspired

to internal and external stakeholders, and to hear what role Aaron thinks companies have in

campaigning for sustainability.

Mark Lee / Chris Guenther: Aaron, before we plunge into this interview, can you explain your role

and how you came to Disney?

Aaron Frank: I am Director of Corporate Citizenship, Insights and Integration at The Walt

Disney Company (Disney). Our team develops and monitors overall citizenship strategy at

Disney, including spearheading the recent development of Be Inspired. We also deliver cross-

cutting citizenship work like stakeholder engagement, impact measurement and reporting.

I have been at Disney six years. I was consulting previously, but I had a background in

environmental science. When a chance emerged to join Disney’s Environment Team, I leapt – it

squared with my education and interests, and I was excited about the potential of the brand to

reach kids and families and inspire change. I ran Environmental Strategy for a while, which was

then combined with Corporate Responsibility Strategy and that’s the team I lead today.

How would you describe where Disney is on its sustainability or citizenship journey, especially

considering the company’s position in global culture, and the influence and impact it has on children

and families?

It’s true that kids and families are core to what we do. Whether

it’s Pixar movies, our theme parks, or Disney Channel programs,

what we do is designed to be enjoyed together by families. This

is central to what Walt tried to create, so Disney has been doing

this – thinking about how to engage and inspire kids and families

– for a long time. Be Inspired has helped, by bringing together

a set of ideas and initiatives under a single purpose and vision,

to inspire kids and families to join us in creating a brighter

tomorrow. This includes everything from creating opportunities

and experiences to enjoy together now, to providing kids

and families with opportunities to get involved in helping

communities and the planet. And, while we kind of knew we had

license to do this intrinsically, the consumer and stakeholder research behind Be Inspired made it

clear that people believe Disney has a unique opportunity and ability to engage kids and families

in ways that help shape a better future. In some ways, they even expect it.

So Walt’s legacy and your recent research gave license to Be Inspired as an umbrella and public

platform under which Disney coalesced its historic focus on children and families as well as existing

citizenship programs. Does that describe its purpose?

Be Inspired makes the full suite of our citizenship activity – from what we call Act Responsibly

efforts like our environment and supply chain work through the newer Be Inspired focus areas

addressing conservation, communities, creativity and healthy living – seamless. It also makes the

work we are doing stronger by connecting previously disparate elements, even across diverse

brands such as Disney, ABC and ESPN, and sharpening our focus on how we can best inspire

children and families to create a brighter tomorrow. We understand that our actions have to live

up to the examples that exist in the stories we tell. Our commitment to kids and families has to

extend beyond entertainment to the real world they live in. We have a role to play in creating the

better tomorrow we’ve helped people imagine.

What has been the response from employees, customers and other stakeholders to

Be Inspired’s launch?

The reaction has been positive and also helpful in terms of getting us to think about how we

can improve. Employees and stakeholders always ask what Disney is focused on and where the

greatest opportunity for impact lies. Be Inspired delivers what people expect of us in terms of

ethical business, and lets us do more in terms of motivating kids and families to make a positive

difference in their lives and the world.

All told, Be Inspired represents not so much a change as a maturing and rounding of our

corporate citizenship approach. We’ve worked hard to innovate and find new ways to conduct

our business and create our products in as responsible a manner as possible, and there is still

much work to be done. But people expect us to do more than just do no harm; they want us to

inspire. We’ve consistently seen this reflected in stakeholder dialogue and consumer research.

Moms, Dads, caregivers and even kids themselves constantly express a desire for Disney to

deliver on those calls in ways that align with the Disney brand, and to do so with imagination

and creativity. Parents see us as a partner in helping make things like healthy living fun and

kids want to engage with our characters and talent to take action on the issues they care about.

For example, the significant funding we give to conservation causes via the Disney Worldwide

Conservation Fund is reinforced and magnified by efforts like Friends for Change and our

support for non-profit organizations who connect kids to nature and help build lifelong

conservation values. Be Inspired puts a foundation underneath our citizenship efforts, which

helps people to recognize and support all we are doing.

What do you see as the main challenge for Disney’s broader corporate citizenship efforts going

forward? How will you measure success?

The big challenge – and opportunity – is figuring out how to seize Disney’s interest in a big

signature initiative to inspire action that might leverage all our corporate resources, from the

parks, to our movie studios, through ABC and ESPN and all our other assets. The things Disney

does best have synergy and scale across all our platforms. We believe that our future requires

creativity, and as a company that sparks the imagination of kids and families all over the world

through storytelling, we’re focused on finding ways to unleash the creative potential that exists

within all of us. We think, through a signature initiative, we have the opportunity to nurture

critical thinking and problem solving at a time when these abilities have never been more critical.

In terms of measuring success, we think the return is most vested in reputation and brand, which

are inherently hard to quantify, but we work at this constantly and believe we are getting better

and better at ascribing appropriate value to citizenship. Our CFO, Jay Rasulo, has stated that

citizenship attributes factor highly in consumers’ opinions of Disney. And consumer opinion

drives brand value, which in turn has a direct impact on our revenue. It helps when our CFO

is willing to publicly state that investing in citizenship is important to our business and our

bottom line.

Finally, is there a growing role for companies to campaign for sustainability, under banners like Be

Inspired or otherwise?

Yes, corporations, like other institutions, need to have a strong voice on sustainability. At Disney

we work hard to make sure that voice is consistent, fun, impactful and aligned with the brand,

and that’s where I think other companies need to start too.

Chris Guenther@reallychrisg

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris leads SustainAbility’s research programme and contributes to thinking about corporate strategy and innovation, branding and urbanisation.

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Elvira Thissen

Elvira leads SustainAbility’s work with the healthcare sector from the London office. Past and current clients include Novo Nordisk, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Starbucks and the Global Dairy Platform.

Should pharmaceutical companies be in the business of producing pills, or of making

people well? The answer is both. Elvira Thissen argues that with diminishing

returns in medicines it is time for pharma companies to move away from philosophical

discussions on prevention and adapt to new realities instead.

The Cost of Medicines

Society will always need medicines, and medicines will always require heavy investment in

research and development. But the signs are that the pharma sector’s customers - governments,

insurers, foundations, or patients - are increasingly not willing or able to pay so much for its

products. The $84,000 price tag for Gilead’s new Hepatitis C drug and the soaring price of

vaccines in the US has left many asking, “how much is enough?” Despite pricing in Europe being

more tightly controlled, pressure for drug price reductions is also mounting.

The existing margin-based pharmaceutical

model will neither continue to yield

traditional profits, nor will it meet the

rapidly growing and changing demand for

healthcare, particularly in relation to non

communicable diseases (NCDs). Some new

approaches are emerging, particularly in

developing countries, such as GSK’s low-

margin, high-volume model applied in the 49

poorest nations. Yet overall profits still

rely heavily on established markets where the reimbursement system for cutting-edge products

exists. Pharma companies remain focused on making the existing business model continue to

yield expected profit levels and are failing to see opportunities for business growth elsewhere.

The Business Case for Prevention

A recent report by The Vitality Institute – founded by South Africa’s largest health insurance

company – estimates potential annual savings in the US of $217–303 billion on healthcare costs

by 2023 if evidence-based approaches to

NCD prevention are rolled out.

At an estimated global cost of illness

of nearly US$1.4 trillion in 2010 for

cardiovascular disease and diabetes alone,

there is a market for prevention. In the UK,

the NHS spends 10% of its budget on

treating diabetes, 80% of which goes to managing (partly preventable) complications. Reducing

disease incidence represents a considerable value to governments, insurance companies and

employers.

Some sectors are already eyeing the value of this market. Food companies such as Nestlé and

PepsiCo are refocusing their brands around health and wellness. Mobile health has the potential

to move us as a society from treating disease to preventing disease. Companies such as GE,

Google, Samsung and Apple are investing in wearable technology and devices that can monitor

health - from heart rate and blood pressure to blood sugar

and cholesterol. Google is partnering with pharma company

Novartis to develop and market ‘smart contact lenses’ that can

help measure glucose levels. The launch of the Apple Watch, with

a big focus on health monitoring, is a significant step towards

mainstream technologies that could enhance healthcare. Whilst the

growth of this market may be slowed by issues around data and

privacy and maintaining use of the device, some estimate that the

industry could be worth $3 trillion a year in the US alone.

Some pharma companies are starting to focus on prevention,

such as Novo Nordisk’s Changing Cities Diabetes, that looks at

effective ways of addressing the diabetes burden at city level. The

International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers &

Associations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have

announced a partnership on NCD prevention to design a behavioural change-based toolkit.

But the general view in the sector is that prevention lacks a strong business case and is not a

revenue generator. There is a general reluctance from companies to raise their voice on, or to

own, the issue; prevention continues to be seen as government’s responsibility.

Creating the Prevention Market

Innovative financing mechanisms like Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) may offer a mechanism by

which the market can start to be created by shifting incentives in the system. Since the launch of

the first SIB aimed at reducing recidivism in Peterborough prison in 2010, sixteen SIBs have been

commissioned in the UK attracting a (still modest) total capital of £26 million to date.

SIBs secure investment for the

implementation of interventions that aim to

deliver improved social outcomes. Applied

to primary or secondary preventative

efforts, a specific intervention – e.g. to avoid

complications that are costly to treat –

would, if achieved, result in a pay-out lower

than the cost of treatment would have been

to the state, but high enough for the investor

to want to take on the risk. It holds the potential to be a win for everyone involved: government,

taxpayer, investors (which could include corporates like insurance companies or healthcare

companies) and individuals.

Some examples of SIBs modelled around preventative healthcare are starting to emerge,

particularly in the United States at a small scale, such as an initiative in Fresno, California,

focused on prevention of asthma-related complications. There are challenges, including around

scaling SIBs by making them attractive to mainstream investors, proving and attributing health

outcomes, and the timeline of the return on the investment. Nonetheless, bright and willing

minds will be able to overcome these obstacles or innovate to devise a different financing

mechanism.

Intervention Needs Collective Action

Delivering successful interventions will

require a whole host of stakeholders to come

together, especially when it comes to primary

prevention to achieve behaviour changes

such as quitting smoking or changing diets.

A model based on collective action is the

only proposition that would be robust enough to deliver desired outcomes and stand a chance of

warranting monetisation of prevention efforts. To encourage lifestyle changes, potential partners

in the private sector may include food companies, retailers, insurance providers, education

services and tech companies to name a few.

Mike Barry of Marks & Spencer predicts that “the economy we have today in vertical silos – a

banking industry, pharmaceutical industry, food industry – will collapse. If we think what the

‘food sector’ will look like in 10 years’ time, I can see pharmaceutical, well-being and food

colliding together to create personalised products for the marketplace.”

Who will lead the effort to develop

the market for prevention? Healthcare

companies are a logical leader, but like

businesses in other sectors who are having

to rethink their models, it requires taking

a different lens to core competencies,

relationships and business partners.

Healthcare companies need to consider what part of disease prevention can be addressed with

the core competencies held by their business. These companies hold a wealth of data that could

be used to deliver and prove more effective health outcomes in society. They also have very

strong relationships with healthcare professionals and current sales & marketing practices

and incentives are not making the most of these by any stretch of the imagination. Finally,

governments are pharma companies’ primary customers in many markets; there is an existing

relationship that many other sectors lack and this could be the basis for more meaningful

collective action in the area of preventative healthcare.

Disease prevention is an enormous societal need and a potentially lucrative market, if the

pharmaceutical companies don’t step up to explore it, companies elsewhere will.

Model Behavior

20 Business Model Innovations for Sustainability. Model Behavior explores the

role and practice of business model innovation in the context of sustainability.

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Focus on Pharma:Creating a Market for Disease Prevention

“Pharma companies remain focused on making the existing business model continue to yield expected profit levels and are failing to see opportunities for business growth elsewhere.”

“Mobile health has the potential to move us as a society from treating disease to preventing disease.”

“Healthcare companies need to consider what part of disease prevention can be addressed with the core competencies held by their business.”

“Delivering successful interventions will require a whole host of stakeholders to come together, especially when it comes to primary prevention.”

Pharma Futures 3

Pharma Futures 3: Emerging Opportunities is a solutions-focused initiative that

explores the link between sustainable pharmaceutical business models and global

health outcomes in emerging markets.

READ MORE

Health watch: From heart rate, to blood

pressure to blood sugar and cholestrerol,

companies are increasingly investing in

health monitoring apps for their wearable

tech products.

“There is a general reluctance from companies to raise their voice on, or to own, the issue; prevention continues to be seen as government’s responsibility.”

These days, it can be a challenge to rise above the digital buzz and hum of the crowd.

With social networks enabling anyone and everyone to become BrandMe and

multinational brands spending herculean budgets on social marketing efforts, the din

can be intense and getting your voice heard above it, a challenge.

Marketing 101 will tell you the trick is to stand out. You need clearly defined core values and a

‘Big Idea’. This bodes well for businesses that put sustainability at the heart of their corporate

strategy. Strong admirable core values…check. Big idea…check. But unfortunately, these values

and ideas can get lost within the sea of words and ads on the typical social networking spaces of

Twitter or Facebook. And one of the most common mistakes from mission-driven, sustainability-

focused businesses is an inability to see beyond these platforms as vehicles for their digital

campaigns. Despite there being hundreds of social networks that campaigners can leverage,

many still operate in a limited social landscape.

Often, alternative networks offer better

opportunities for creating more meaningful

content than the big two. Photo and video

content can be more emotive and have greater

success at conveying your story. Smaller, more

niche networks can boast communities that

are more engaged with, and therefore more

likely to generate momentum behind, the

themes and issues that are material to your business. Local networks can also connect you to

communities on the ground, which pull digital campaigns into the real world.

With this in mind, I’ve listed a few alternative networks to consider and campaigns to learn

from when targeting sustainable marketing efforts. The list is in no way exhaustive; rather, it’s

intended as food for thought to broaden your social media efforts for future campaigns.

It is surprising how few companies are harnessing the true power of this increasingly vital

network. YouTube is transforming the way we discover information on the web and is now the

second largest search engine in the world (that’s right, bigger than Bing, Yahoo, and Ask) behind

only Google. Nearly one out of every two Internet users are on YouTube at any given moment

and the website reaches the youngest adult demographic (18-34) better than any other network.

Forward-thinking companies of all sizes

are achieving unprecedented exposure

through YouTube by understanding

the need to create content that compels

viewers to share it with their network.

Whether the angle is shock, heartbreak

or hilarity, the most successful YouTube

campaigns all contain triggers that get

people talking.

Learn from: Chipotle - Food With Integrity CampaignChipotle raised the bar for viral campaigns with a sustainability focus with its ‘Back to the Start’

YouTube video in 2011. The video, by Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly

turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and

opting for a more sustainable future. | See Campaign

With more than 150 million users, Instagram is a network that shouldn’t be ignored. A mobile

photo-sharing and video-sharing app, it connects directly to some of the major social networking

platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr) making it a superb gateway to a wide network

of users.

Instagram enjoys a highly engaged community – with 15 times more engagement than Facebook

or Twitter. With more than 75 million daily users (35% of which log in multiple times per day),

there are plenty of opportunities for businesses to connect with their target audiences. Brands are

harnessing this community through a number of techniques including, connecting with popular

Instagrammers or employing hashtags to initiate sustainability-related threads.

Learn from: Patagonia - WornWearThis offshoot Instagram feed of Patagonia

showcases vintage garments that have stood

the test of time. Patagonia’s mission to

reduce waste by creating durable and lasting

clothing shot to the forefront of public

consciousness in 2011 with its ‘Don’t Buy

This Jacket’ campaign. A key part of this

larger campaign, Patagonia’s Instagram feed

enables the company to reinforce

its core values by connecting with its customers. By using the hashtag #wornwear, both

Patagonia and its customers are able to share images of themselves and their storied Patagonia

pieces. | See Campaign

Marketed as the ‘front page of the Internet’ Reddit is an entertainment, news and social

networking website where registered members can submit content to the community.

Submissions are voted ‘up’ or ‘down’ by readers so the position of content on the site is purely

determined by popularity.

The website is known for its open nature and highly engaged user community, and while it

lacks the mainstream recognition of some of its peers, Reddit is very popular with almost 20

million unique visitors per month. While the community is actively against blatant promotional

attempts, there are still ways that campaigns looking to achieve positive sustainability outcomes

can leverage the vibrant and dynamic Reddit community.

One of these is the Ask Me Anything (AMA)

format. In an AMA, an assortment of

politicians, CEOs, journalists, musicians, and

beyond will offer Redditors the opportunity

to ask them anything about their job,

company, and industry. Anyone can set one

up but they can be risky if done wrong so

the key here is to be transparent. The most

successful Reddit users are those who use the

platform to engage with the community

in an inclusive and collaborative way. Think more along the lines of seeking community opinion

and feedback on plans and strategy rather than cheap marketing tactics. This approach can have

benefits for transparency, stakeholder engagement and trust as well as early buzz generation for

campaign ideas and direction.

Learn from: Barack Obama - Reddit AMA 2012In 2012 US President Barack Obama got it right answering nine questions from community users

during a highly engaging hour that crashed the site’s servers. Obama fielded questions on topics

including the influence of money in politics, military intervention in the Middle East and rising

unemployment levels. | See Campaign

For a list of additional social networking sites to leverage, click here.

Chris Wash @chRsRd

A self confessed tech geek Chris is SustainAbility’s Web & Digital Media Manager and is a specialist in digital communications strategies and software product development.

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Less Shouting and More Talking: 5 Ways to Engage an Online Audience

As the online space gets increasingly cluttered we look at the innovative ways

organisations are engaging their audience.

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Online Campaigns:Social Media Beyond Facebook & Twitter

“Often, alternative networks can offer better opportunities for meaningful community engagement than Facebook and Twitter.”

From Base Camp to Summit:Mike Barry, Marks & Spencer

Zoë Arden@zoearden

A director in the London office, Zoë specialises in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement and storytelling. She has recently completed a Masters in Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge University.

Mike was talking to...

Marks & Spencer’s director of Plan A, Mike Barry, spoke to Zoë Arden recently

about the big challenges of getting both consumer traction and employee

engagement to take Plan A, the company’s sustainability strategy, to the next level.

It is always energising and inspiring to spend time with Mike Barry, a well-respected leader in the

sustainability field. The current question that gets him out of bed in the morning and running up

and down foothills and mountains (and he does clock up the miles) is, how can he get more of

his 80,000 M&S colleagues and 34 million customers ‘activated’?

His view is, “You don’t want to wag a finger at consumers for

‘being bad’. We need to inspire people to eat well”. He takes

the example of red meat where, at the moment, there is no

compelling mainstream campaign. “We are encouraging people

to try new, exciting, innovative vegetarian options. We invented

ready meals in the 70s and we continue to innovate them and

offer really delicious choices that give shoppers compelling

reasons to eat less red meat. At M&S, we are lucky to have a

direct channel to the consumer as 99% of what we sell is own

label so the more we can innovate and embed Plan A into the

brand, the more impact we will have as a responsible retailer.”

In the past, Mike has described their journey as akin to trekking through the foothills of CSR

and that after 7 years of Plan A they are now at the Base Camp of Mount Sustainability in terms

of the challenge that lies ahead with regard to embedding sustainability into the M&S business

model. There is increasing recognition within the Plan A team that you can’t commence up the

mountain until you’ve conquered the foothills, where employees and consumers live and work.

“In a way, we’re dialling back to basics to help build solid local foundations at store level. If you

work in a store in Wigan, you probably care most about what we’re doing in your town. What

are the local charity partnerships? How can colleagues get involved? That’s how we’ll really start

to build a stronger connection with our bigger Plan A ambitions.”

With consumers as well, he believes there is a continued preoccupation with ‘hyper local’: “In

the current economic climate, people care most about ‘my job, my future, my mortgage, my

kids. What are you doing M&S to help this specific community? I am really pleased that you are

tackling breast cancer with your charity partnerships and trying to save the planet with Plan A

but what are you doing for me here?’”

He sees the need to work on an international level, national level and increasingly on a hyper

local level. “We need an emotional connection with the communities where we trade and a deep-

seated emotional connection between the brand, the product and the customer and this starts in

each local store with our staff.”

If anyone has got the energy to climb Mt Sustainability, it’s Mike Barry. The question on our

mind is, can we help carry your salmon and cucumber sarnies?

Inspiration not condemnation: M&S is

encouraging customers to eat better by

providing enticing healthy options.

Sarah Murraysarahmurray.info @seremony

Sarah Murray is a specialist writer on business, society and the environment and is a long-time Financial Times and Economist contributor.

Sarah Murray, a regular contributor to the Financial Times and The Economist

Group, has been writing about sustainability since the late 1990s when few reporters

were covering environmental and social issues in the business press.

She talks to Frances Buckingham on how coverage of the issues has changed, the

role of media in calling out corporate malpractice and showcasing solutions, and the

need for companies to tell the whole story.

The Journalist’s View:Sarah Murray

“More recently, my reporting has focused on the business opportunities of sustainability – winning new customers, creating a driver for innovation, helping attract and retain top talent.”

“One frustration as a business reporter on this topic is that companies are often reluctant to tell the whole story.”

“Warts and all stories make a more interesting read, do more to inform others and, in the end, build public trust for those companies prepared to tell them.”

Frances Buckingham: How would you sum up your experience of covering sustainability issues for the

Financial Times and The Economist Group?

Sarah Murray: Over the past decade of writing for the Financial Times (FT), what started as a

niche topic has become much more mainstream. Early on, the paper recognised that social and

environmental challenges present risks and opportunities, and that business readers generally

want to hear about solutions, not problems. The FT now has regular special reports covering

sustainability topics. And while the paper has an environment correspondent, other industry

reporters also cover the social and environmental issues that affect the companies that fall within

their beat. In that sense, sustainability has moved out of a silo to appear in a range of sections

of the newspaper. The number of white papers and research reports I write for the Economist

Intelligence Unit has also increased. And while in these reports, I once covered corporate

sustainability as a single issue, I’ve recently been writing on more focused topics such as energy

efficient buildings or green cities.

How has coverage of environmental and social issues changed since you started writing?

While sustainability was once covered

as a topic closely linked to corporate

philanthropy, this has evolved as

companies recognised it was part of risk

management. First, the rise of social

media and online communications meant

the way multinationals behaved in far-

off parts of the world could no longer

be kept from both campaign groups and

consumers. However, companies also

started to see resource consumption as part of risk management. Then, as the recession set in,

sustainability measures such as energy reduction and waste management became part of cost

cutting. More recently, my reporting has focused on the business opportunities of sustainability –

winning new customers, creating a driver for innovation, helping attract and retain top talent.

What is your current focus and what issues do you think are not getting

enough coverage?

I’m very interested in the ecosystem that enables or prevents action on climate change or

resource consumption – the regulatory environment, corporate lobbying and political spending,

the pressure financial markets put on companies to deliver short-term profits.

I’d like to see more coverage of this, particularly on the regulatory side. I know it’s difficult to

make this interesting for a general audience but policy plays a critical role in creating incentives

for business to invest in the right way.

How effective do you think the media has been at calling out corporate malpractice or

alternatively telling the story of the need for a different kind of social, business and political

leadership?

Actually, I think the media does a reasonable

job of calling out corporate malpractice. What

continues to surprise me is the lack of awareness

among the general public of the progress some

companies have made on sustainability. I still

encounter people who see Nike, Unilever, Nestlé

and others as ‘“bad” organisations. While it is

critical for the media to expose companies

that are misbehaving, we perhaps need to do more to raise awareness of the powerful role big

companies can play in advancing the sustainability agenda.

And how effective are business at telling their stories?

One frustration as a business reporter on this topic is that companies are often reluctant to tell

the whole story. Experimenting with new business models and working with non-traditional

partners such as NGOs involves setbacks and failures as well as successes. But with the PR

machine keeping a tight grip on the corporate message, the mood can be relentlessly upbeat.

Warts and all stories make a more interesting read, do more to inform others and, in the end,

build public trust for those companies prepared to tell them.

The emerging consensus is that the ‘doom and gloom’ news stories switch people off and

sustainability needs a new, more positive narrative that inspires people to action - yet

journalists tend to focus on the negative. Would you agree and what can be done to get the

right balance so that people understand the reality but are not switched off by the issues?

I agree, there is still a strong focus on the

negative in the media – yet experience

tells us that solving our biggest problems

won’t happen through international

treaties on climate change, punitive

environmental regulations or persuading

people to return to a pre-industrial

standard of living. And even if we’re not

climate sceptics, most of us can only take

so many predictions of doom. Eventually, we switch off. If you believe, as I do, that enlightened

self-interest remains one of mankind’s most powerful motivators, then our best hope is for the

media to show how we can tackle poverty and environmental degradation while saving money,

creating new businesses and improving living standards.

Language is also a barrier to wider engagement on the issues, the field is awash with jargon -

net positive, stewardship, circular economy, collaborative consumption, ecosystem services,

shared value - given that you are in the business of words what is your view on this?

I very much agree – the language barriers are enormous. Even the word “sustainability” is vague,

and companies use it to talk about everything from community investment to their achievements

in cutting waste from their supply chains. Acronyms proliferate and are unhelpful to the general

reader – CSR (corporate social responsibility), ESG (environmental, social and governance)

and now SV (shared value). We need better ways of explaining what sustainability means. I try

to avoid jargon and acronyms in my features and instead talk about specifics, such as resource

efficiency or carbon reduction.

And finally, which journalists and commentators do you rate, and what are your best

sources of news?

Pilita Clark at the FT does a great job of covering the big policy developments and this year has

contributed some excellent pieces to the FT’s ‘A World Without Water’ series. I like the Guardian

Sustainable Business section (particularly the work of Marc Gunther) as well as GreenBiz.com.

But I’m also a fan of publications and sites that focus on innovation and solutions, such as Fast

Company’s Co.Exist site and the MIT Technology Review.

Frances Buckingham@FBuckingham

Frances is the Editor of Radar and works on the company’s research and thought leadership.

BUY BOOK

The Breakthrough Challenge:Q&A With the Author John Elkington

Title: The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Connect Today’s Profits With Tomorrow’s Bottom Line

Date Published: July 2014

SustainAbility Research Director Chris Guenther recently caught up with

John Elkington, Co-Founder of SustainAbility and Founding Partner and

Executive Chairman of Volans, about the launch of John’s recently

published book, The Breakthrough Challenge.

John Elkington@volansjohn

John is an internationally-prominent author, speaker and consultant in the field of corporate social responsibility. He is the co-founder of SustainAbility and Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans.

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Volans

Volans drives market-based solutions to the future’s greatest challenges.

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Starter for Ten...

1: Adopt the Right Aspirations

Given the nature and scale of the

challenges we face, it is important

to aim high —and we need to get

a better sense, sector by sector and

issue by issue, of what breakthrough

will involve.

2: Create New Corporate Structures

We need new corporate structures

and ownership formats that

encourage the internalisation of

negative externalities.

3: Apply True Accounting Principles

Tomorrow’s bottom line will

embrace new forms of accounting,

among them environmental profit

& loss (EP&L) and social profit &

loss (SP&L).

4: Calculate True Returns

If enough capital is to be injected

into conscious, regenerative and

sustainable forms of capitalism,

business will need to help

transform the master discipline

of economics itself.

5: Embrace Wellbeing

Business must become a powerful

driver of human, social, and

planetary wellbeing. The wellbeing

approach creates social value

by providing employee welfare,

protecting safety and health, and

promoting citizen engagement and

human rights.

6: Level the Playing Field

Market playing fields need to be

tilted toward more sustainable

outcomes—for all (or at least most)

players. This will involve the removal

of subsidies or incentives

for destructive practices.

7: Pursue Full Transparency

Publicly listed, high profile, big

brand businesses will increasingly

operate in a CAT scan environment,

where the outside world will be

able to look deeply into everything

they do.

8: Redefine Education

We must ensure that the next

generation is taught and inspired

to understand that the purpose of

business is to be a driving force for

social and environmental benefit,

not just for financial gain.

9: Learn from Nature’s Model

A growing number of biomimicry-

inspired designers and engineers

are discovering that the natural

world is a great place to look for

breakthrough ideas about how

business can become more

conscious, responsible, sustainable

and regenerative.

10: Keep the Long Run in Mind

We must ensure that business

horizons are considerably extended

from the short, quarterly focus of

today to the significantly longer-term

horizons of tomorrow’s markets.

Chris Guenther@reallychrisg

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris leads SustainAbility’s research programme and contributes to thinking about corporate strategy and innovation, branding and urbanisation.

Chris Guenther: At its heart, The Breakthrough Challenge

articulates a prescription for radical change. Its very language –

breakthrough, transformation, paradigm shift, a new economic

order – shouts ambition and urgency. But in a certain sense,

sustainability advocates have been pitching the same notion

for decades. In your view, just how far along in the process are

we, and what are the one or two most important tipping points

that convince you breakthrough is both possible and perhaps

imminent?

John Elkington: Up to a point, Lord Copper, as a previous

generation would have said. Most of the founding mothers and

fathers of the sustainability movement believed that system

change was essential, if not always inevitable.

But as the agenda mainstreamed, and was picked up by many

people and organisations that had a pretty sketchy grasp on

the nature and scale of the challenge, it often became conflated

with citizenship, CSR and Shared Value formulations. Nothing

wrong with any of those, of course, but they are often about

win-win outcomes—when true system change often means win-

lose outcomes, particularly for those left holding tomorrow’s

stranded assets.

In simple terms, mainstreaming has diluted the sustainability

agenda, often to homeopathic proportions. No offence to those

who believe in homeopathy, but—having tried it—I don’t.

And here’s why I’m persuaded that, even with the best will in the

world, we’re fiddling while Rome—or Earth in this case—burns.

We’re on track to having burned our total carbon allocation for

the 21st century by 2034 and are now on track for 4°C warming

by 2100. This is a slow catastrophe, with marked signs that it

will soon accelerate as we exceed the buffering capacity of the

deep oceans.

My sense is that—and this has nothing to do with the French or

even, to a degree, with the UN—the COP21 climate conference

in Paris will mark a watershed in all of this. Weird weather is

part of the equation, but there are moments when the science

simply becomes overwhelming. We are very close to that point.

The stars of the book, which readers are hopefully enticed to

emulate, are what you term ‘breakthrough leaders’. They are at

once able to navigate the upper reaches of business today while

also actively stretching notions of what business could or should

be tomorrow. But such extraordinary people remain remarkable

exceptions. Meanwhile, most corporate sustainability leaders and

their counterparts in ‘core’ business still speak fundamentally

different languages. What advice do you have for leaders on either

side of this chasm so that they may begin to close the gap?

I’m not sure I agree that these are rare animals today. When I

started working with companies, back in the mid-1970s, you

were really lucky if you got to meet PR people or lawyers.

Basically, these were people whose job it was to keep you out

of the corporate engine room. They played a defensive game.

We have seen a seismic shift since then. These days, if you don’t

get to meet director-level people in the first round, you begin to

wonder what planet the company is on.

Yes, many leaders in what I call the Global C-Suite still see

all of this as a distraction, but that’s changing. Take a look at

the water-energy-food-climate nexus work done by the World

Economic Forum, for example, and it’s clear that the deeper

parts of the sustainability agenda are flashing across into

the security realm, with major implications for business and

governments alike.

The advice to leaders who are still struggling with all of this

has to be either, ‘Get Out More’ or ‘Invite the Future In.’ Like

organisations such as Leaders’ Quest, one of the things Volans

has done in recent years is take leaders on study tours, learning

journeys, to help them see a different world, different futures. As

we concluded in our Future Quotient work, leaders now need to

shift the needle from incremental to systemic change, to widen

their scope, deepen their analysis, raise their ambitions and

extend their time horizons.

In the good old days, to this end, we would have engineered it

such that companies brought in NGOs to discuss all of this. But

now such events are more likely to feature investors, government

actors and even competitors.

And for those trying to close the gap between where they are and

where they will need to be, it also makes sense to look around

for collaboration platforms, many of which are pre-competitive,

such as the American Sustainable Business Council, the

Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, or the

Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals initiative. If such platforms don’t exist in your field,

help set one up.

You echo a familiar refrain in the sustainability field at the moment – essentially, that business

must lead the way and not wait for governments and NGOs to either work out the big solutions or

hold companies to account. But you’re quick to add that we need their leadership, too. How much

further do you think business can go in the absence of these other ingredients, and what strategies

does breakthrough capitalism recommend for beginning to correct the imbalance?

Incumbents will struggle, insurgents will disrupt. An Elon Musk doesn’t much care about

government, as long as it doesn’t get in the way. The future is bubbling up under the incumbents,

both in the private and public sectors, and the implication is that at some stage we are going to

see a wholesale reinvention of government and governance.

In the past, such eras of change have been driven by pandemics, depressions and/or wars. And,

for better or worse, I think we are much closer to such seismic disruptions than most people

currently realise.

On government—I worked with a range of government agencies in the 1970s, and then again

in the 1990s when I spent seven years as an advisor to the European Commission. As a result, I

have fierce antibodies to most aspects of government. But, perhaps paradoxically, I also see the

role of governments and governance institutions as critical and growing in importance. The key

point about initiatives like The B Team is that they now argue the need to level the playing field

up, whereas business long argued the need to level down.

Indeed, I have recently been reading Ed Conway’s The Summit, a fascinating history of the

Bretton Woods summit in 1944. How privileged we are to have grown up in a world framed by

the genius of people like John Maynard Keynes and Dexter White. But the shelf life of the UN

system has expired. It isn’t just that we need companies to fill the gap; we need companies that

help a wide range of other actors to help co-evolve whatever it is that will come next.

And what is true for the institutions of global governance is also true for most national

governments. They are losing their grip. Bright young people are increasingly disinclined to go

into government. And this threatens to become a vicious spiral. Personally, I would like to see

more business people running for political office, and more government people getting at least

some experience of how the private and citizen sectors work.

In terms of what comes next, we are thinking in terms of a Breakthrough Decade, from 2015

to 2025. Our new book, The Breakthrough Challenge, is an attempt to sketch out a more

ambitious, stretch agenda for business and for financial markets. Ultimately, too, this means a

transformed agenda for voters, politicians, governments and the public sector in general. And

the nature of politics means that politicians will continue to be lagging indicators of change for a

while yet.

Still, there’s something I routinely say to younger people who come through our offices, and who

note that they wish they had been around for the golden era, the glory days, of environmentalism

and sustainability: The glory days are still out there, waiting to be had. I hit 65 years old this

year, having now worked in this space for just over 40 years, but I genuinely believe that we are

now on the threshold of the most exciting, fast-paced decade yet.

The full version of this interview can be read on SustainAbility’s website.

The ten breakthrough priority

areas outlined in the book.

On Our Radar:Quarterly Trends Autumn 2014

Human Rights Accountability Remains Elusive

Global human rights violations have risen in the last decade and

unless governments act to introduce stronger binding mechanisms

and companies start viewing human rights compliance as an

essential part of corporate accountability, progress on human

rights will remain slow.

FIND OUT MORE

Food Safety Concerns in China Spotlight Need for Greater Traceability

A series of scandals have shaken food companies sourcing and

selling in China, bringing into the spotlight persistent safety

concerns and forcing corporations to review traceability tools

and consider working more closely with suppliers to address

the problems.

FIND OUT MORE

Women in Tech: Transparency Grows and Solutions Emerge

California’s Silicon Valley, a global epicenter of the high tech

industry, is becoming the central focus of a national debate

around the representation of women and minorities in technology

companies.

FIND OUT MORE

Investments in Renewables Surge as Demand in the South Grows

Investments in renewable energy surge worldwide, driven by

the improving cost-effectiveness but also the growing demand

in developing nations. However, as uncertainty around policy

remains, the continued rapid pace is called into question.

FIND OUT MORE

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Trends Analysis ServiceFor over 25 years, companies have valued our ability to serve as their early

warning system - to interpret emerging issues and trends in the sustainable

development agenda and help them anticipate, understand and respond to shifts

in the business landscape.

FIND OUT MORE

Margo Mosher@margomo

Margo supports the Engaging Stakeholders Network, working with member companies to deliver network benefits and customised transparency, reporting and integration projects. Margo also contributes to SustainAbility’s research on accountability and stakeholder engagement.

A GlobeScan / SustainAbility Survey:See Change: How Transparency Drives Performance Survey

Title: See Change: How Transparency Drives Performance Survey - A GlobeScan / SustainAbility Survey

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Six Elements of Effective Transparency

Lorraine Smith details six elements that, if companies get right, may just enable

the kind of decision-making that will create sustainable change.

DOWNLOAD

The GlobeScan / SustainAbility SurveysThe GlobeScan / SustainAbility Surveys offer a unique, collaborative platform

that uses research-driven insights, including targeted surveys of the most

influential thought leaders in the sustainability arena from over sixty countries,

to explore the biggest sustainability challenges.

FIND OUT MORE

Sustainability reporting is stalled. That is, reporting is simply not driving as much

impact as it could.

This is not to say that reporting has not evolved since its early days or led to important and

useful information and action. It certainly has. Companies that have been monitoring and

reporting on an array of social and environmental issues spanning many years have created

numerous baselines, data sets, subject-matter expertise and collaborative relationships upon

which to build.

Impact-wise, reporting has enabled efficiency

gains, informed stakeholders about key

issues, enhanced corporate reputations and

started to inform some investor decisions.

However, at this stage in the global

sustainability reporting journey, when we

have access to a plethora of data, technology

and story-telling expertise, it is time for

reporting to drive even more impact. Our latest GlobeScan / SustainAbility survey explores how

transparency can be better leveraged to drive such changes.

One notable finding from the survey is the importance of valuing externalities. Survey

respondents indicated that valuing and reporting on externalities, above many other

possible transparency efforts, guides decision-making that leads to sustainable change within

companies. This supports growing interest among many companies to better understand their

material impacts, including relevant externalities, to manage their impacts on society and the

environment.

Degree to which different forms of transparency guide decision-making and drive

sustainable change within companies

The survey further highlights that sustainability experts believe transparency and sustainability

reporting can bring more value to companies than it currently does: 79% of survey respondents

indicate that corporate transparency positively impacts a company’s sustainability performance.

Respondents also suggest two top barriers to transparency driving more change—poor data

accuracy and lack of focus on material issues. These experts pointed to mandatory non-financial

reporting requirements and increased investor demand for integrated reporting as potential

solutions to drive greater value from reporting.

Barriers to transparency within organisations

These survey results will inform our research on the role that transparency plays in driving

performance. We look forward to releasing the full report, including greater context about the

value of transparency and practical guidance, later in 2014.

70Poor data accuracy

Lack of focus on material issues

Comparability of data

Lack of mandatory transparency requirements

Complexity of reporting frameworks

20 8

Lack of external interest or uptake

Transparency designed to meet the needs of too many different types of stakeholders

Risks related to transparency

Financial/resource expenditure on transparency efforts

Too much data

65 24 7

64 27 7

55 24 18

53 31 14

52 22 23

46 32 19

41 31 25

63 22 13

57 28 12

4

2

2

2

3

3

2

3

3

3

A great deal (4+5) 3 Not a great deal (1+2) DK / NA

A great deal (4+5)

65Valuation / reporting on externalities

Sustainability reporting

Integrated reporting

Ratings and rankings

Consumer-facing websites / applications

24 7

Live streaming / frequent online updates

Usage of social media to share

4

61 26 10

60 25 11 4

48 34 13 5

41 36 19 4

37 33 25 5

32 35 30

2

3

3 Not a great deal (1+2) DK / NA

Engaging Stakeholders Network

The network helps member companies identify and understand the latest

transparency trends, risks and opportunities and apply transparency in ways that

help each company accelerate solutions to key systemic issues.

READ MORE

From the Archives:Through the Looking Glass

DOWNLOAD REPORT

Title: Through the Looking Glass: Corporate Responsibility in the Media and Entertainment Sector

Date Published: 2004

In the last decade or so documentaries and films from ‘An Inconvenient Truth’,

‘Fed Up’ and ‘Years of Living Dangerously’, to ‘Food Inc.’, ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’

and ‘Erin Brockovitch’ have contributed to popular understanding and discourse on

topics including climate change, health and corporate corruption.

Arguably less explicit examples can also be seen in the role that media - from advertising to news

coverage - plays in shaping public opinion, framing the terms of public debate and influencing

our choices across a range of social and environmental issues through day-to-day coverage.

The critical role that media & entertainment companies play in helping to shape how society

thinks and behaves was highlighted in our 2004 publication Through the Looking Glass:

Corporate Responsibility in the Media and Entertainment Sector. In the report we explored

how the sector was responding to demands for greater corporate responsibility through the

psychological and intellectual impact it has on our understanding, choices and opinions. Ten

years on, it is clear that media companies are still grappling with what this means in practice.

In 2011 the BBC Trust commissioned a report that found that climate change ‘deniers’ continue

to find a prominent place in BBC reporting, despite occupying a marginal position in scientific

debates. More recently, a report by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggests that

audiences around the world still receive limited information about climate science, and most of

this is framed in terms of ‘disaster’ scenarios.

In the coming years the media needs to play a key role in driving the transition to a sustainable

economy and it is critical that it finds its voice on the key issues, driving the narrative in support

of forward-thinking, positive outcomes. Through the Looking Glass provides the basis and tools

to help the sector really understand what it means to be a responsible gatekeeper and interpreter

of critical societal challenges.

Michael Harvey@michaelharveysa

Michael Harvey is a London-based Analyst who focuses on providing research, analysis and advice for consulting and research projects.

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Good News & Bad: The Media, Corporate Social Responsibility and

Sustainable Development (2002)

Looks at the role of media in building the corporate responsibility agenda

for business as well as how corporate responsibility, climate change, ozone

depletion, and a range of other issues were perceived, prioritised and covered

by the media.

READ MORE

RadarIssue 05: Autumn / Fall 2014

Publisher

SustainAbility Ltd.

SustainAbility is a think tank and

strategic advisory firm working

to inspire transformative business

leadership on sustainability.

Established in 1987, SustainAbility

delivers illuminating foresight and

actionable insight on sustainable

development trends and issues.

For more information visit:

www.sustainability.com

Radar TeamZoë Arden

Frances Buckingham

Charlotte Pearson

© 2014 SustainAbility Ltd.

RadarCredits

Image Credits

Cover

iStockphoto

Articlesp4 - 38 Degrees

p5 - iStockphoto

p6 - Disney

p7 - nima; hopographer, Martin uit

Utrecht

p8 - mkhmarketing, Rego - d4u.hu

p9 - iStockphoto, M&S

p10 - Mike Bailey

p12 - nachof, andres musta, d2s,

Walmart Corporate

© All images remain the copyright

of their respective owners.

Design

Lucy Player

Chris Wash