Growth not Green
Sustainability has Gone Beyond Green
We stand on the verge of what is surely to be the single largest growth opportunity in history – and it hinges on realigning operations to be less resource intensive and more efficient. Sustainability strategies have rapidly evolved from an exercise in corporate responsibility and environmentally friendly branding to a core operations practice. It is no longer about appearing to be green, but to meeting the needs of a projected population growth of an additional 3 billion people over the next 40 years. That is a lot of new mouths to feed, people to clothe and products of all types to provide for a quality of life. From a manufacturer’s point of view, the net effect is a huge growth in demand for goods and food, estimated to double and triple, respectively by 2050.
Yet current practices are consuming natural resources approximately 30 percent faster than Earth’s capacity to renew them. The current production model is not sustainable at today’s demand levels, let alone when the world population reaches 10 billion people. Global urbanization and expansion on the middle class in fast-growing nations like China and India will further compound over-consumption and demands on increasingly limited natural resources.
Coupled with the population growth, market volatility is on the rise – with concerns about interest rates, commodity pricing and availability, changing consumer needs and demand uncertainty. So how will companies scale to meet new demand? How will we assure a reliable supply chain?
Our view of creating sustainable production is to realign core operations in such a way that industry can profitably scale to double or triple current revenues by meeting the needs of a global population of 10 billion people by 2050… and to do so in a way that mitigates the growing business risks that come in a world of increasing volatility.