Are we a sustainable company?

The thing is, that every business owner, especially those who have their heart set on building an environmentally friendly company, want to answer with a big YES to this question. We want to be sustainable, but we are not sure why. Sometimes we think that sustainability is the same as being environmentally friendly or even that we can´t be a green company without being sustainable. In each case the discussion is complex and sometimes difficult to grasp.

The question is great, but I am afraid there is no great answer. I have thought a great deal about sustainability and tried to get my hands on literature on the topic, but to this day I having trouble defining the word. To me a sustainable company is basically a company that does not spend more energy than it can give back though it´s recycle/environmental activities. What that essentially means that all your products has not only to be recyclable, but it has to hold the characteristics that enables it to be reformed into the same product. As an example we can imagine a company that makes pens. In their production process they use rubber to make the pen easier to hold, a value to their custiomers. To be sustainable or a green company the company has to make the rubber recyclable in such a way that it can be used again in another pen or similar product. If the recycled rubber is inferior after the recycling phase and ends up in the end as a traffic cone there is no sustainability and the cycle runs out in the same way as non-recycled rubber. It only takes more time, but end result is the same.

Even the great company Patagonia, which I agree is one of the best environmental companies in the world, comes close to being 100% sustainable. This they point that out themselves so elegantly in their footprint chronicles, where they show exactly how much energy is used to manufacture featured products and what is wasted. Most of the energy used in the production cycle cannot be recycled.

So, what then?

I believe we should nevertheless strive every single day to achieve better result today that we did tomorrow. Every day we need to find a way to use transportation more efficiently, press for a solution for sustainable transport, more renewable energy, truly recyclable processes that does not end up a the traffic cone and the list goes on.

Being an environmentally friendly company or a ‘green company’ does not, in my opinion, imply being a sustainable company. Being ‘green’ means that you trying and making a serious effort in getting to the end result of being sustainable!

Someday we will arrive at complete sustainability both as a business and as individuals. We will get there someday, because if we don´t the cycle will run out and in the end there will be... I actually don´t know what will happen in the end, but I do know that I don´t want to find out.