Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Reflections on Sustainability at the DuPont Executive Forum Manager's Choice

Monica Morrow Global Digital Marketing Leader at DuPont Sustainable Solutions

In late September, we hosted the DuPont Executive Forum in Dubai, along with over 150 CEOs and senior executives.

This event proved rather enlightening, so we wanted to share some of the reflections on how sustainability was considered by this prestigious group.

For full details, you can read the Executive Summary from the Safety and Sustainability Forum here:

The focus of the discussion, as opposed to other conferences, was not WHY companies must embrace sustainability and the perceived benefits of sustainability, but HOW you achieve it, and how to balance sustainability with other business objectives. Discussions revolved around operationalizing sustainability, and creating value - financial, social and environmental - through concrete initiatives. Mobilization of resources was identified as particularly difficult, especially as it relates to people. We saw that many leaders have been moving beyond a focus on short-term profits (and they need to bring their board and their organization along with them).

One of the key solutions highlighted was strong leadership and culture. Another was that intra- and inter-industry collaboration is vital to success, and is a particularly effective driver of innovation.

We will share some video coverage of the conference in the coming days, but in the meantime, please do share any thoughts you may have on this topic.

Like (11) Comment (3) Share Unfollow Reply Privately2 months ago

I want to give DuPont credit for being interested in sustainability, something they started doing way before it became 'fashionable'.

I wish, however, that the experts would look at sustainability with the same rigor that the corporation looks at profit performance. There are strong metrics throughout every business organization to keep track of profit performance, and everything to do with this is monitored with considerable rigor.

When it comes to sustainability, the metrics are somewhere between very weak and non-existent. The one thing I am be certain of is that whenever there is a conference about sustainability that serious discussion of metrics will be missing.

To some extent I understand why the corporate world is not embracing strong meaningful metrics about sustainability. Most of what has been proposed in the area of metrics is very costly and not very effective. It is reasonable not to embrace something that is costly and won't work. In my view, this is because the approaches to metrics that are being pursued are merely fiddling at the margin of the existing system of money profit accounting and economics.

Something different is needed, and I think I am getting close to something that will work really well. I call it Multi Dimension Impact Accounting (MDIA) and I hope in due course it will be a game changer.

When you change the way the game is scored, you change the way the game is played.

Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics Delete 2 months ago Hans W., Deepak Bhaskar like this

Peter, thank you for your comment and your recognition of DuPont's early sustainability focus.

From my experience, cost of tracking has been a consideration, but it has been more the lack of useful valuations and/or consistent, well accepted valuations that have kept corporations from aggressively broadening or hardening their sustinability metrics.

Early on, energy efficiency offered the best opportunity to clearly and consistently set and track metrics that delivered on a company's triple bottom line and many companies have made great progress in this area, including DuPont. If we could get to this same level of clarity and agreement on other sustainability input, we could move the needle. Peter, It's certainly good to hear that you are putting your experience and efforts to work on the task.

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Peter makes an excellent point- 'When you change the way the game is scored, you change the way the game is played.'

And from Monica's original post- '...One of the key solutions highlighted was strong leadership and culture. Another was that intra- and inter-industry collaboration is vital to success, and is a particularly effective driver of innovation.'

Cultural transformation and game changing progress are wishes, not goals without inspired, consistent and effective leadership.

Back to Peter's point, how can we encourage leaders who benefit from the way the game is currently played to change the rules for a better overall outcome?

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