What challenges and strategies are top of mind for you in sustainable business?
Things often get lost at the intersection of art and science in sustainable development. We want data and science and return to drive investment into sustainability but sustainable development is so much about the people we affect and what they value – how to make sure we are not taking away from their safety, their health and their contentment in pursuit of the business’s bottom-line.
The standards and regulations that help establish new, and hopefully improved, baselines of behaviour and performance, can sometimes contribute to clouding the simple idea of understanding your business impacts and using your know-how to do better.
The past few years has amplified this and has seen many of us buried under the weight of haggling about how many data points is too many or not enough to constitute true transparency. But the geopolitical and world crises of the 2020s showed how flimsy the idea of sustainable development can become when we lose sight of why it matters in the first place.
What should we be doing differently today?
Standards and regulations provide an important safety net, but too often organisations treat compliance as the objective rather than the starting point. The real opportunity is to use the process of understanding your impacts to identify where your business can create value, reduce harm and strengthen relationships with the people affected by its operations. The companies that will lead over the coming decade won’t necessarily be those that report the most. They will be the ones that understand their impacts deeply enough to make better strategic decisions, even when the regulatory landscape continues to evolve. Durable solutions are rarely imposed – they are built through trust, curiosity and a genuine willingness to listen.
IF YOU COULD RESET SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS, WHAT WOULD YOU EMPHASIZE?
I would encourage organisations to return to first principles.
For years, organisations have searched for the next framework, standard or set of metrics that promises to make sustainability simpler. These all have an important role, but they cannot replace the work of understanding your own business.
Take the time to understand how your organisation affects people, communities and the environment, and where you have the greatest opportunity to contribute. That process is rarely straightforward, but it builds the confidence to make decisions that remain relevant even as expectations change.
We are entering a period where substance will matter more than ever. Political and public opinion may continue to shift, but organisations that have genuinely embedded respect for people, human rights and sustainable development into the way they operate will be far better prepared when scrutiny inevitably returns.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
Whether developing international sustainability standards, designing social impact management approaches or helping shape community investment initiatives, my work has always centred on bringing together different perspectives to solve complex problems.
I am proud to have contributed to work that has influenced how organisations think about their responsibilities and their relationships with the people around them.
I have so often found myself in unexpected places – thinking about how to manage the waste of a gas project in Myanmar, what tax data is relevant to a sustainability perspective, how the children of Western Australia can best be served by a $20 million social investment fund. These challenges all begin with the same question – what matters, to whom, and why? Taking the time to answer those questions has consistently led me towards better outcomes.