Making Boring Sexy in Sustainability
And now, for a short rant…
I had an interesting conversation today with a friend who is a big thinker on sustainability. We were bemoaning the fact that sustainability is a topic that can look incredibly boring in the short run, and we (as media and/or sustainable business proponents) are missing a huge opportunity to celebrate and encourage the radical new thinking, boring as it may seem on paper, that is so needed in this movement. How do we make sustainability sexy, in all its phases and shapes, from compliance to employee engagement to fleet fuel efficiency? And, this means it has to be sexy enough for the media to want to cover it and sexy enough for younger generations to see sustainability as a very exciting engineering, math and science-oriented career path. A tall order.
As someone who writes about sustainable business, I am surely guilty of being attracted to stories about huge new innovations or emerging audiences, for example. There is something in our culture’s 24/7 news cycle that has jaded us enough that we don’t see some of the foundational work quietly occurring in many industries. But, the boring stuff really IS moving sustainability in substantial ways, and will eventually serve as models and case studies for all (but perhaps only in hindsight).
Here’s what my friend and I were thinking: if sustainability is about systems, and seeing the long term rather than jumping for the sexiest short-term “green” thing a company or brand can do (or that can be seen in quarterly reports), why don’t we operate more systemically in the way we talk and promote sustainable business? It is a huge risk and a 180 degree shift from our culture’s modus operandi of delivering and eating up sexy, immediate, celebrity-driven “bits.” But, sustainability doesn’t happen on the 24/7 news cycle or in always astounding ways.
So, what is always sexy about sustainability and the steps businesses take to move in that direction? That whoever is leading these charges is taking huge, huge risks to limit themselves to the boring work, with their eyes on a bigger, far in the future, and very exciting prize. It’s almost an extreme sport to step off the cliff of how things have always been done in a business or ignore the traditional view of what makes for big news coverage, and say.. “you know.. we need to be more deliberate,” or “I see a very exciting long-term result if we start with this small step.”
The thing is, systems thinking involves a future-orientation, and I mean so far in the future that we might not be able to claim “we did it” or be on the cover of The New York Times because we did it. That is what we have to give up in order to really make a difference in this realm.
But, risk-taking IS sexy. Think fast cars, steep ski slopes, and extreme skateboarding.
So, how about focusing on the ways never-before-taken risk can lead businesses down whole new paths, into incredible collaborations and toward unanticipated innovation for the good of industries and communities overall? This less-newsworthy stuff has to happen. It is the groundwork.
If we want future generations to look back on the incredible sustainability shift that simply must take place, and be proud of us for helping in that, we have to make boring sexy.
