BUSINESS & The “Profit and Planet” Question

Forward looking businesses are now considering the “profit and planet” question – the essence of business sustainability:

How, profitably, to satisfy the needs and aspirations of customers, consumers and shareholders today – in ways which maintain our planet’s resources and stability systems – to secure a continuing basis for business opportunity and general prosperity tomorrow.
^{© 2006-2007 Richard Poynton}

Typically, the initial response of an alert business is to consider one, or more of the following questions:

Where have these new business challenges come from?

SHORT ANSWER: Wrong assumptions, reasonable at the time and made long ago. It was wrongly assumed, first that our industrial and commercial activities were disconnected from nature and second that our planet had an infinite capacity to assimilate the carbon emissions and other wastes produced by our use of fossil fuels and by our industrial processes, transport and offices. In those days, there was no expectation of human activity affecting, or being affected by, our planet’s feedback systems and therefore no consideration of the risk of adverse, future consequences.

MORE:

Why are these new challenges mainstream business issues?
Can the resolution of these challenges generate business opportunities?
In practical terms, what is required?