While checking my Twitter feed before leaving to catch my train, I saw the following status from SustAbility:
I find this status interesting because I’ve seen this notion a couple of times in the past few days that regulatory uncertainty is slowing sustainability. Actually, this argument has been advanced often in the past few years. I just haven’t seen anyone measure this risk aversion in a way that’s convinced me. I wish @SustAbility included the link to @guardiansustbiz’s post…
Hopefully I can think more on this later; don’t want to miss my train
UPDATE: Here’s the link to the whole story at The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/private-sector-obstacles-sustainability-rio-2012
Not sure who Paul Hohnen is and have never heard of SustAbility (but clearly I am deficient on both counts). Regulatory uncertainty is most definitely slowing (I would say preventing) any move towards sustainability. However, if the latter is actually qualitative development without quantitative growth (as per Herman Daly), we have one hell of a long way to go before we get there. First of all we must defeat the enemies of reason that do not want their business-as-usual model challenged (also known as climate change sceptics).
I’m not sure either whether qualitative development is meant. Either way, I agree that we have quite a long way to go, because it’s hard for me to see how we might divorce the two.
I’m also still not sure regulatory uncertainty is slowing sustainability. That would seem to say the business reasons are not sufficient to encourage sustainable practices, broadly speaking. It could also suggest that sustainability is too important to be addressed piecemeal, and that social goals should be encoded in regulation, not business practice.
Hopefully I’ll be convinced by Paul Hohnen.
Martin, here is the link to the entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/private-sector-obstacles-sustainability-rio-2012
If you are interested, you should look at Paul Hawken’s “The Ecology of Commerce” many of the same themes are covered at length. “Natural Capitalism” and “World Changing” also deal with some of these themes.
Rafranci (is this just a user name or an actual one?),
Many thanks for all of that.
Martin. 🙂
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I guess I didn’t see this. My real name is Royce. Look forward to reading more of your work…