When I reflect on the exceptional challenges we face globally — population growth, climate change, rising unemployment just to name a few — it strikes me just how much uncertainty there is in the world.
The biggest challenge of all, at the heart of many of these issues, is the continuing threat to "planetary boundaries". According to the World Wildlife Fund, we are already consuming natural resources at a faster rate than the planet's capacity to replenish them. It calculates that if we all consumed at the rate of the West we would need three planets — yet we only have one. While this global volatility and uncertainty will remain the "new normal", it demands that we are neither apathetic nor panicked about it. It's the great challenge to our generation of business, community and political leaders.
I believe business has a unique and important role to play in solving this challenge. Business growth, after all, is absolutely critical to economic development and social progress. Ultimately, business needs a strong society and society needs strong business. The two are inextricably linked.
What is clear, however, is that we all need to think differently about growth. As a business, we do not have the luxury of choice. We cannot choose between growth and sustainability. We have to have both. We need to grow if we are to have the money, people and technology to invest in better communities, more skilled people, alternative energies to replace carbon, greater biodiversity and product innovation. On the flipside, we also need to find a way to grow within the limited resources of our planet. To achieve this we need to get smarter on sustainability. Where many businesses, communities or governments have focused on one aspect such as the environment they are failing to see how the economic, social and environmental agendas are intertwined.
