Creating Sustainable Organizations

By Chuck McVinney
©2001 McVinney & Company

Introduction
1. The Idea
2. Why care?
3. The Challenge Ahead
4. The First Principle: Stewardship
5. The Second Principle: Creativity
6. The Third Principle: Community
7. Some Common Sense Guidelines
8. Summary

2. Why care about sustainability?

There are those who will argue that the notion of sustainability is not relevant to every business organization, process or dynamic. That it makes sense to build longevity into a commercial enterprise, some say, is a debatable point. In light of the primary agenda of business, which is to make money, the short term is as good a motivator as any. But there has to be more to business in this century than fast financial killings from fast growth and dissolution solely for the sake of profit. The business models which have been driving economic growth and presumed prosperity for the last century, are not the ones that will drive prosperity in this century. Simply put, the rules of engagement have changed - or maybe we're becoming aware that the rules are different from the ones we have been following.

It is an ironic result of globalism and advanced technology that we are beginning to see the Achilles heel in our economic formula. Burning fossil fuels for a couple hundred years at an ever-increasing rate has lead to the ever increasing potential of environmental degradation and likely disaster. Constructing a society of rampant consumers creates huge piles of garbage and refuse with no place to go. Exporting the consumer culture around the world and feeding it with more and more stuff, leads to lives encumbered with debt and stress, as is the natural environment of the biosphere itself. >>