« Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net ».

Sustainability is finally becoming mainstream. Major Brands feel that selling isn’t enough, they need a purpose.

• Walmart invited the CEOs of Campbell Soup, General Mills, Kellogg and PepsiCo, among others, to its Bentonville headquarters for a sustainability summit. Several of these top food execs promised to persuade farmers in their supply chains to use less fertilizer and water to grow crops, and to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions;
• Unilever’s Corporate Challenge;
• the reaction of @Adidas to a factory strike in China;
• Google Aims To « Fundamentally Change the World of Power« ;
• The CEO of Coca-Cola on Using the Company’s Scale for Good;
• Starbucks, Green Mountain and McDonald’s pour on coffee efforts;
• Apple increases focus on sustainability with « Better » campaign;

In short, BIG brands are making their move on « purpose ».

Be it a purely image driven movement or an enligthened CEO, the important thing is that the race is on.

Consumers are also making a bid to change the world.

Recently, the New Nielsen Study Says Consumers Are Ready to Pay More for Social Responsibility. 55 percent of global online consumers across 60 countries are willing to pay more for products and services from companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact.

The real question is : « who isn’t making the move? » This is not about pointing fingers, it is about raising awareness, accelerating the movement, changing the world. So don’t feel bad if you haven’t really started. But start!

 

The next question is: How do I start? There are a lot of great people out there creating solutions. Creative thinkers, social businesses, intrapreneurs are all shaping up to design innovative solutions.

But (3rd question), who’s designing the challenges? Societal issues are complex systems requiring, wether we like it or not, complex solutions. To have an optimal solution, we need to understand the problems. And here, I’m not talking about global warming, I’m talking about issues that connects the business to its consumers and society. Where are those models?

 

The next posts of this blog will try to elaborate on the subject. Leave a comment if you want to adress a specific issue.