Sustainability
collaboration called Shwopping, now rebranded Another Life. If customers brought a bag of clothes containing at least one M&S item to either an Oxfam or M&S store, they received a £5 voucher off their next M&S purchase. M&S reduced their environmental footprint, Oxfam got sellable clothes to fund their development work, and both gained revenue-generating footfall through their stores. This triple-bottom-line solution was only possible once both firms began brainstorming together. 2 Unite through values For a publicly traded corporation to gain the expertise required for a sustainability initiative, it may need to team up with an NGO or government agency motivated by relevant social issues, and another that is passionate about the environment. A key challenge is how these organisations can work together despite having different priorities and values. At the very least, partners need to develop ‘value framing’ skills, learning to see the partnership through each other’s eyes to ensure innovations create value for each of them. To aid with that, M&S and Oxfam staff immersed themselves in each other’s worlds. For example, M&S representatives volunteered in Oxfam’s sorting facilities. At their best, these collaborations synthesise their values into a common worldview that shapes what matters to project participants from all partners and how they behave. Academically, we call this common worldview an ‘engagement logic’. In Refrigerants, Naturally! this logic meant that, for everyone involved, both the environmental goals and the firms’ commercial goals mattered.
Unilever and the WWF were more successful at scaling their collaboration on the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which was set up after calamitous declines in fish populations in the 1990s threatened the viability of major Unilever brands such as Birds Eye. MSC set out to convene scientists, NGOs, retailers, manufacturers, and policymakers to define and implement more sustainable fishing standards. Not only does MSC certification now cover 17 per cent of all wild marine catches, it also provides a vehicle for regulators to discuss standards and how to square the circle between commercial and environmental goals. 4 Embed system change As these cases illustrate, the journey may start with firms putting their own house in order. But that is not where it ends. Ultimately, progress towards a sustainable future depends on whole systems – such as fishing, clothing, and refrigeration – transforming to more sustainable configurations. It’s best to view business collaborations as a bridge towards that transformed system, not just as a way of helping individual firms in the present. Sustainability collaborations can help the participants to imagine what that future system might look like. As that vision is realised those firms that do participate can position themselves to succeed in that sustainable future.
The collaboration became so intense that, in one meeting, a Coca-Cola representative told his Pepsi counterpart that he would share everything he knew except the formula for Coke! “The politicians only signed it because the likes of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, and McDonalds 3 Scale up Collaborations have several crucial roles in sustainable innovation. The first is to co-create solutions that deliver one pillar of the triple bottom line – social, environmental, or financial value – without damaging the other two. The second is to prove that these innovations can be scaled for mass adoption. The collaboration between M&S and Oxfam achieved the first aim, but only partly achieved the second. In the view of one of the managing directors involved, the partnership missed an opportunity to involve more NGOs and more retailers using online channels. That opportunity is now being filled by others such as Vinted and Vestiaire. Only in the last year has M&S extended the scope of Another Life to include repairs (with repair service SOJO) and online sales (with eBay and resale partner Reskinned). told them it would do no economic harm”
received a billion dollars. The firms developed and
scaled that technology until they were satisfied that, if they moved together, none of them would suffer. Then they lobbied the regulators to ban HFCs, as they were in a position to move faster than other firms who had not been involved, and to reap the benefits. The story of Refrigerants, Naturally! is just one of eight that we studied in depth with Professor Emma Macdonald from the University of Strathclyde. Archive documents and 54 interviews with those involved revealed some common lessons for business leaders seeking to drive the sustainability agenda. 1 Collaborate to innovate No single actor has the power to save their planet on their own, just as no one organisation had all the answers to the challenges posed by the ozone layer. The business leaders we spoke to commonly reported that their most successful ventures – for their firms as well as for social and environmental sustainability – resulted from collaborations with NGOs and other organisations. These collaborations allow us to solve thorny problems by pooling skillsets and resources. For example, UK retailer M&S wanted to reduce their environmental impact in terms of clothes being thrown away at the end of their life. However, they had no expertise in end-of-life clothes, so they turned to Oxfam. The international development agency did possess that competence through their sorting facilities, their shops to resell high-quality clothes, and their network to recycle or safely dispose of the rest. Together, they formed a
The world’s single greatest climate mitigation project came from solving that problem. Politicians signed off on the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol in 2016, agreeing to reduce the production and consumption of HFCs. This will save an estimated 0.4 degree increase in global warming by the end of the century. That’s similar to the saving that would be made if, overnight, the world stopped all flying, switched all heating to heat pumps, and switched all cars to electric vehicles (EVs). But the politicians only
decided that if change was inevitable, it was better to get ahead of the curve because, as the biggest polluters, they would be hardest hit by regulation. So, in 2004, they formed a coalition called Refrigerants, Naturally! They even roped in the UN Environment Programme and Greenpeace, an organisation they were used to fighting rather than co-operating with. And it was Greenpeace that sourced a technical solution called Greenfreeze. The non-governmental organisation’s (NGO’s) Ozone Project Director, János Maté, told us that if Greenpeace had patented the technology and earned just one dollar per unit as a royalty fee, it would have
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signed it because the likes of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, and McDonalds told them it would do no economic harm. These unlikely bedfellows
Sustainable Development Goals
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