Australian Paper

Soon after the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, Greenpeace UK encouraged designers to submit posters rebranding BP’s flower logo. From around the world, over one thousand submitted designs ranged in tone from darkly humorous to bitter, venomous, frustrated and outraged.

While drawing attention to the Gulf catastrophe, Greenpeace also aimed to discredit BP’s green credentials and its claim that it is ‘beyond petroleum’. Its green logo, Greenpeace contends, is another example of corporate greenwashing.

Adding its own fuel to already inflamed popular opinion, Greenpeace’s campaign nevertheless confirmed one thing: bad reputations escalate fast in the information age.

But alongside all the spin and bad news, there’s a wealth of useful information available to those genuinely wanting to practice sustainability. In areas such as the sharing of ideas, the sourcing of information on sustainable design and improved accountability, there are many independent organisations set up to help businesses.

The intention of sustainable design is, of course, to avoid any detrimental impact on the environment. But there are also social and economic considerations. Together, these concerns comprise the triple-bottom-line approach: a holistic philosophy also known as ‘The Three Ps’ – plant, people and profit.

Achieving sustainable design relies upon sourcing sustainable materials. Like any system, a business supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Many corporate websites declare the sustainable credentials of their companies; often it’s in their annual reports. For those wary of exaggerated claims, the easiest way to verify accuracy is to see if that company has been independently audited. Companies who have been audited will proudly wear that appellation. After all, reputations are at stake and misleading claims can come back to hurt.

But as respected website Ecospecifier warns, “all labels are not recreated equal”. So, as a consumer, it helps to research the standards by which companies judge their own products. Always look for products, companies and certifications/labels that have been independently audited. The Australian Government’s ‘Greenhouse Friendly’

logo administered by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (and scrutinised by the ACCC) is a goldstar example of an independently audited certification/label, as is the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) logo that certifies that fibre inputs only come from sustainable forests.

For those who commission work or buy products from Third World countries, the ‘Fair Trade’ logo ensures workers are fairly paid and maintain a decent standard of living. Fair Trade has a social consequence and an economic benefit to workers and their communities: by paying a fair price for goods and services you ensure money is available for infrastructure, like schools and healthcare, in the product’s country of origin.

‘Good Environmental Choice’ is another respected label. This Australian program indicates the environmental performance of a consumer product from a whole-of-product-life perspective. The internationally recognised program awards its label to “products that meet voluntary environmental performance standards, which have been created and assessed in conformance to international environmental labelling standards”.

ISO (International Standards Organisation) certification is designed to “make the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner. They make trade between countries easier and fairer. ISO standards also serve to safeguard consumers and users of products and services in general – as well as making their lives simpler”.

Smaller companies, however, don’t always have the money required for auditing. But it costs nothing to ask questions. For designers, it’s often a matter of asking printers or merchants for advice. If your printer can’t help, find another. There’s a lot of information out there already and organisations like AGDA, Designers Accord and AIGA provide basic information for anyone wanting to keep an independent eye on the claims made by others.

The benefits of sustainable design and sourcing are not just about future proofing the planet, they’re also about the survival of businesses.

‘Wear no evil’ is how Etiko brands its fair-trade street wear. Underneath the angelic wings and wise monkey riff are T-shirts woven in India from Fair-trade organic cotton, shoes certified as child labour free and soccer balls (under the Jinta brand) that contribute to the social wellbeing of aboriginal communities. Indeed, it was while working as a teacher in the Northern Territory that Etiko founder Nick Savaidis became interested in social enterprise – creating business by doing good. ‘Jinta’ means ‘winner’ in the Warlpiri language and 5% of retail sales on the soccer balls goes back to the Mt Theo community from where his idea germinated. It’s a triple bottom line approach that won Savaidis the Banksia Award and the Premier’s Sustainability Award in 2008. The Etiko sneaker is based on the classic Converse high top. “The reality is, you have to give people something they want to wear. Earlier forms of ecofashion didn’t have that in mind,” says Savaidis.

While the shoes are in the premium price range, it’s not about exploiting the hipsters either, he says. “People should pay the true price for a product.”

“From my point of view,” designer Stefan Sagmeister has said, “living a full life includes doing no harm, and being aware of the world that you live in on various levels.”

The occasion for the reflection was the launch of Worldchanging: a user’s guide to the 21st century, that he had designed.

A bestselling book of 2006, Worldchanging includes a foreword by such heavy hitters as Al Gore and Bruce Sterling, while its editor, Alex Steffen, runs the influential non-profit web magazine of the same name. If Sagmeister comes across as idealistic, Steffen is very much aware of the bottom line.

“Money spent making greener profits is not a cost, it’s an investment,” says Steffen.

If you want facts and figures, ask Fuji Xerox. Since initiating its Sydney recycling facility, the company has recovered 99% of end-of-life equipment and parts, saving $13 million in new part costs, generated export revenue of $5 million, and created over 100 new jobs. For its efforts, Fuji Xerox is a finalist in the large business category of the 2010 Premier’s Sustainability Awards.

While awards might be confirmation of their corporate social responsibility, surely it’s the million-dollar profits that matter most. Doesn’t a business succeed by focusing on one thing: the bottom line?

Increasingly, businesses – like those on the Dow Jones sustainability index or the FTSE 4 Good, to which the Xerox parent company has been nominated – are realising that profit is only part of the equation. For them, contributing something back to society and being environmentally sustainable is also part of the economic business model – the triple bottom line.

Indeed, the very fact that big companies have chief financial officers or even chief sustainability officers scrutinising the triple bottom line is a transformation in corporate governance.

As the very existence of those stock market indices suggest, corporate social responsibility is not only increasingly prevalent, it’s the basis for a burgeoning shareholders revolution.

Taming the fickle and demanding shareholder is a major enterprise. It’s about having them recognise ‘patient capital’ – acknowledging that greening a company and corporate social responsibility takes time – and that stakeholders, not just shareholders, are affected by businesses. Exponential growth is appealing, but difficult to sustain.

But the sustainability revolution doesn’t need to happen only at the big end of town. As the directors of Etiko and Sustainable Living Fabrics, Nick Savaidis and Bill Jones, testify smaller companies can make a positive contribution as well.

While research by the Mobium group, Living LOHAS, suggests people are prepared to pay price premiums of around 5–10% for sustainable products, Savaidis and Jones believe it’s simply about a fair price for a fair-trade product.

Both directors agree that good products can be profitable with everyone along the supply chain paid fairly, the environment left undamaged, the wider community aided by company charities and the loop completed by educating the next generation.

Under the triple bottom line model, profit is not just the economic value created by the organisation after deducting the cost of all inputs. Value is measured by how society also profits.

As humble stakeholders, we can still create change. As Joel Makower, author of Strategies for the Green Economy, declares: “Every time you open your wallet, you cast a vote – for or against the environment!”

Or, as Stefan Sagmeister is wont to say, “Everything I do always comes back to me”.

Like so many advertising agencies, Droga5 received its highest accolades (so far) for doing community work. But even by award-winning standards, the ideas behind the Million and Tap projects are ambitious. Interactive, fun, and delivering a powerful social message, they help the disadvantaged while inspiring others. Both won Cannes Titanium Awards.

The Tap project for UNICEF originally encouraged New York restaurant-goers to donate one dollar for every glass of tap water they ordered, with the money raised going to providing clean water to the impoverished. The project has since gone global and raised $1 million to date.

Meanwhile, the Million project, developed in partnership with Roland Fryer from Harvard University’s Education Innovation Lab, rewards under-achieving New York students with mobile phone credits – call minutes, texts and music downloads – if they perform well. During school hours, the mobiles operate as mini computers, while after school they revert to their usual function.

“Social entrepreneurship is core to what we do,” says CEO Andrew Essex. Clearly, there are financial rewards in the wake of accolades, but Essex says it’s not the motivating factor. “We don’t want the entirety of our creative and strategic firepower used in the service of selling commodities,” he says. As founder David Droga declared on a recent visit, “the backbone of Droga5 is still the capital side, but it can still do good at the same time.”

The senior team from Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) published a thought provoking piece in The Age today. Exploring the issues behind the population debate they raise the need for Australians to consider the economic, social and environmental impact of population growth versus decline.

They offered that the “aim of a population debate should be to work out what kind of society we want to have and the quality of life we want to enjoy.”

Would we be happy to accept a population increase if our council rates; health care premiums and city link tolls were all reduced? Would we be happy to accept population decline (or stabilization) if it meant our countries GDP growth stalled and our quality of life began to erode? I wouldn’t.

This topic is ultimately about sustainability. The definition being that we strive to meet the needs of today without compromising needs of future generations. The reality being that in order for our society to prosper and our quality of life to increase, we need sustainable growth across our industries, communities and natural resources

Australian manufacturers are trying to do just that, and they need the support of all Australians.

Paul Allen

General Manager – Sustainable Development

By Evonne Miller

With the 21st century frequently described as the era of sustainability, organisations are expected to produce Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reports outlining their impact on ‘profits, planet and people’.

But what are the social or ethical equivalents of ‘revenue and ‘expenses’ for your organisation?

Unlike indicators for profits and the planet, social impacts aren’t easy to identify and measure. In fact, there is little agreement about how organisations should define or assess their social impact, and no single tool or methodology for social TBL reporting.

Typically, social TBL has been narrowly interpreted as the dollar value of sponsorships and other philanthropic community activities, but this doesn’t take into account broader issues. Factors such as employee health and satisfaction, the safety of products and impact on local communities and consumers should all be  easured to assess an organisation’s social sustainability.

Fortunately, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – the most well known sustainability TBL framework – identifies four core social performance indicators:

• Labour Practices – Employment,Labour/Management Relations,Health & Safety, Training & Education,Diversity & Opportunity

• Human Rights – Strategy & Management, Non-Discrimination,Freedom of Association, Collective Bargaining, Child/Forced Labour

• Safety – Community, Bribery & Corruption, Political Contributions

• Product Responsibility – Customer Health & Safety, Products & Services, Respect for Privacy

The GRI has been criticised, as some indicators aren’t relevant for Australian organisations. It’s also purposely vague about measurement, the idea being that organisations can focus on social issues relevant to their own industry and develop their own measures. Unfortunately, this means benchmarks and  comparisons can’t be made overtime or between industries.

Businesses and researchers are currently working to develop a systematic way to calculate overall social performance. I have advocated for the establishment of a quantifiable measure, and with my colleagues have developed a social impact survey utilising pre-existing measures to provide a comparison standard for judgments. For this, we focused on measures of employee andcommunity wellbeing, arguing that there is a minimum of two social impact levels: internal (i.e., employees and suppliers)and external (i.e., customers and community).

It’s a challenge for any organisation,but consumers increasingly expect businesses to be socially accountable. The global Millennium Development Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility found 45% of 25,000 respondents believed companies ‘should set higher ethical standards and help build a better society’. Added to that, 40% had‘thought about punishing a specific company perceived as not socially responsible’. I recommend thinking about how you would measure the social impact – and value – of your organisation and shape the debate over whether, how, why and what social impacts should be measured.

Evonne Miller, PhD, is a social psychologist and senior lecturer in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology. Her main research interests are social sustainability, social gerontology, community engagement and behaviour change. She can be reached at e.miller@qut.edu.au

Australian Made & People Matter!

Ken Henry (Federal Treasury Secretary) wrote a compelling essay for AFR Boss recently, explaining how Treasury’s core purpose is to use “Economic policy to improve wellbeing in a sustainable manner”.

Forget about economics being dry. This article demonstrates how at the core of economic strategy, our Treasury is seeking to improve the social wellbeing of  Australians. Henry refers to a “Wellbeing Framework” containing five dimensions that are used as “filters” for determining appropriate policy.

They 5 are:

1.       Freedom & opportunity

2.       Consumption possibilities

3.       Risk

4.       Distribution

5.       Complexity

Within these dimensions sit what many would term as “soft” metrics. Questions about how safe and secure we feel in things like our jobs and welfare.  Considerations about how “complex” life may become when overloaded with too many choices and other societal pressures.

Evonne Miller also brings this concept to life via her research on the Australian Dairy Industry. She found that “despite the clear economic value of the industry … and research into mitigating its environmental effects … little is understood about its social value or impact”

For Australian Paper, we see such articles as bringing to life the tangible meaning of Sustainability and the “Triple Bottom Line”. If we truly seek to meet the needs of today, whilst catering for the needs of tomorrow, then assessment of our Social, Environmental and Economic footprint should be made holistically. Profit at the expense of natural resources isn’t sustainable. Job loss and community collapse at the expense of total conservation isn’t justifiable. Finding the correct balance is a challenge and involves multiple stakeholders.

Wonderful to see our Public Service considering and explaining the same.

What does “Triple Bottom Line” mean to you? What should business do to ensure the ongoing social, environmental and economic prosperity of all Australians?

Paul Allen