Welcome to Sustainability 3.0

Sitting in a very productive sustainability strategy session just before Christmas, I was struck that we are entering a new era. An era where sustainability will come of age, be at the heart of fundamental business decisions and start to drive mainstream adaptation. I have termed it Sustainability 3.0*, an homage to Web 2.0 coined in 1999 to define the interactive, social web we have today rather than the static content presentation of the 20th Century.

It is now nearly 52 years since Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring was first published; 22 years since the Rio Earth summit and 8 years since Al Gore emerged from not being the next US President to launch An Inconvenient Truth. All these notable events produced significant change, that have led us to now.

Companies and businesses at the forefront of the movement are now deploying their second (or third or even fourth) iterations of their initial sustainability plans. Many of these are taking very different shapes to that imagined back then i.e. post being 'Gored' and pre financial crisis, recession, the global power shift to the East and the complete pervasion of the internet. Many more companies and organisations still take no account of sustainability in their plans strategies and actions and the majority of consumers/customers/citizens are focused on getting through their days successfully.

I believe that Sustainability 3.0 could be just as significant as Web 2.0. It will be about getting real, taking the discussion outside the sustainability bubble into a general recognition of how best to drive change within our flawed global systems. It will be about the muddy centre, complex considerations and shades of grey, not a strident expression of the black and white options.

Most businesses are setting their sights on 2020. This will be the focus for the incoming government in the UK in 2015, where the campaigning is beginning in earnest. I wonder what will become of the 'Greenest Ever Government'? By the end of the new government’s term it will need to have achieved some major milestones. For example the legally binding contribution of 15% of national energy from renewable sources and the UK carbon budget states that it should have been reduced by over a third, down 34% on the 1990 baseline. As well as this, greenhouse gas emissions need to be on course for the 80% reduction by 2050.

These are big numbers and require real action. 2014 is already upon us and I believe that the political and economic reality will create the climate for Sustainability 3.0. A huge wave is coming so better get ready to surf. (Sorry, just an excuse to include the picture)

How will it be so different to Sustainability 1.0, or 2.0?

Here are 11 areas that will characterise Sustainability 3.0. It will:

•   Be integrated in to business practice not peripheral
•   Demand balanced not merely green approaches
•   Focus on the mainstream not specific isolated segments
•   Be about story-doing, not story-telling
•   Have value not premium price at its heart
•   Be driven by responsibility not necessarily morals
•   Inspire not lecture
•   Be collaborative not confrontational
•   Be about vision, stories and brands not systems and data
•   Be about getting into people’s minds not drilling the ice-caps
•   Be about practical actions not intellectual theory

We are at a watershed as most economies emerge blinking into the light. How will we collectively act and take opportunity from the new imperatives? How quickly will we see Sustainability 3.0 blossom. Those that grab it will take the advantage and accelerate; while those stuck in 1.0 or 2.0 will soon reach a dead end.

* I initially wanted use the term Sustainability 2.0 but discovered a number of references including a very interesting online book of the same name. Have a look here. It is a really informative piece but was written before the financial crisis, when the world was a very, very different, more optimistic place. The term has also been used by Deloitte, Asda and been discussed on CSR Wire so I thought I’d move it on.

Indeed Sustainability 3.0 has been coined in Harvard Business Review and by someone as notable as Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. All of these are I believe speaking from the inside of the existing sustainability movement, discussing rather esoteric, yet important issues such as quantifying the value of ecosystem services. This is very interesting, if in my view misguided, as to put a value of dollars, Yen or Euros on everything is to devalue its true worth. I believe that true Sustainability 3.0 must exist outside this bubble and be about core human emotions, beliefs and behaviours.

Read more from Dan in our Clubhouse and find out more about the Vivian Partnership on their website.