Addressing the Confusion About Sustainability: The Typical Executive View

• Author: William R. Blackburn
• Pages: 1-15

CHAPTER 1

Addressing the Confusion About

Sustainability: The Typical Executive View

“If you cry ‘Forward!’you must without fail make plain in what di-

rection to go. Don’t you see that if, without doing so, you call out the

word to a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in directions pre-

cisely opposite?”1

—Anton Chekhov

Consider these typical responses you might hear from business execu-

tives about sustainability:

“The business of business is business, not sustainability.”

“Sustainability is nice to do if you can afford it, but we are running a

lean organization here and don’t have the time or money for such

things.”

“Sustainability is about good citizenship and good public relations.We

have always tried to be a good corporate citizen. There’s really nothing

more we need to do.”

“Sustainability seems to encompass everything under the sun. It’s just

more tree-hugger mumbo jumbo.”

“We’re in a U.S. service business. Sustainability is not for us. It’s for

those big international manufacturers.”

“What is sustainability?”

For sustainability advocates, this isn’t encouraging. The picture was

rosier for them in the 1990s when President William J. Clinton appointed

a council to study and publicize sustainability. But in recent years, the

U.S. government’s focus on it has subsided as terrorism and war have

dominated the agenda.

So is sustainability just a fad?

No. Quite the contrary. There is plenty of evidence the concept is here

to stay. In government circles in Australia, Canada, Europe, and several

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