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I guess most of you know by now that the two-week Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change or COP15 in short has begun yesterday.

This blog post is about why this summit is so important for the concept of Sustainability and three possible impacts on Sustainability if a deal is made or not. This is purely my opinion of course, but I believe that we are at a decisive point in time now. Not only with regards to tackling Climate Change but also with regards to credibility and support for the concept of Sustainability as a whole.

Importance for Sustainability
We are living in an unsustainable way. There is enough evidence that supports this. However Climate Change is by far the biggest threat to life on this planet and to us. Climate Change is one key aspect of the concept of Sustainability. If we can stop our planet from warming then we are well on our road to living sustainable, ie. living in harmony with our planets resources and wild life. This is the definition of Sustainability if you want to dive deeper into this subject.

COP15 – At the crossroads
We have two possible roads to follow now after Copenhagen. 1) We can make a deal that will change the way we will tackle Climate Change now and in the future or 2) we will fail to make a deal and need to live with the consequences in the years to come, knowing that we could have changed something but did not manage to agree.

How the face of Sustainability can change if a deal is made:

• Increased Credibility: The concept of Sustainability will have gained credibility and its critics will have sen that we can make change happen.
• Sustainability Institutionalized: Possible legislation to tackle rising global temperatures that will lead to a change in our climate in the long term will have been introduced. I know that there are a lot of skeptics with regards to mandatory legislation. The reality unfortunately is that most organizations will not change their ways significantly without mandatory legislation.
• Motivation: The motivation to make even more progress. A positive experience and feeling that we pulled ourselves together and got over our egos for the greater good is often underestimated and essential for future success.

What will be the impact if a deal is not made:

• Believability: The Sustainability movement will have lost credibility. Maybe even beyond repair.
• Encouraging the Skeptics: Climate Change skeptics and denouncers will feel encouraged and get an even larger audience despite the damning facts and science about Climate Change.
• An Uncertain Future: We are in deep trouble because we have lost the biggest and best chance to change our ways of limiting our carbon emissions. Just imagine how long and how much work it took to get everyone to the COP15 and this close to agreeing a common goal. The future will be very uncertain going forwards.

This is OUR opportunity to change the way we take care of our planet and make smart climate decisions for a change. Will we choose to evolve in order to make smarter decisions for the future of our children or are we going to be the old selfish short term sighted humans that we currently are?

We have a decision to make and the time is now. And in my view this is not only about Climate Change but Sustainability as a whole.

While the days are getting shorter and the first wave of sore throats and constant coughing by everyone around you is nearly over the new reality of an economy in recession (yes I have written the horrible r-word) is becoming more and more obvious.
Now you are thinking…….oh not again…….I can not hear it anymore.

Don’t worry this post is not meant as a doom and gloom message. Rather a short note on how (and why) we can ensure that our companies still do their bit when it comes to sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

In my opinion the upcoming recession or at least economic downturn is a not as bad when it comes to sustainability and the responsible business practice as long as we consumers and employees ensure that companies keep doing what they are doing and improve gradually over time.

Here is where I come from. Companies in the last decade have only seen booming times and mostly rising budgets for their sustainability and CSR activities. With that rosy outlook sustainability policies, strategies, actions, etc where fairly easy to push through on company level. If they always had an impact is another question.

Now this is changing. Companies need to consider the cost implications and „ direct benefits“ when it comes to justifying the costs for a Sustainability Report, redevelopment of a strategy, next implementation phase, you name it. And I think this is a good development.

Mainly because throwing a lot of money at something is only likely to help in the short run but not necessarily in the long run. It helps you to get started but especially in the Sustainability sector it will not bring you very far. What is needed is a constant engagement with your stakeholders and proper business management when it comes to sustainability and CSR within a company. This is the only successful way of imbedding Sustainability/CSR within a business.

Having that in mind, the next 12-24 months will show how sustainability and CSR within companies will survive or change with the the challenge of lower budgets, less internal influence due to cost cutting and less of a hype by the public as each and everyone needs to start looking out for themselves.

Here is what we as consumers and employees should ask for in responsible business practice and how (if at all) companies are adressing these issues/topics:

• Are companies still looking to clean up their act when it comes to supply chains, child labour and sweat shops?
• How important is the discussion of organic food, GM food now? Is this still a discussion item in the news? Or has everyone forgotten about this?
• What about fairtrade? Same as above. Is this something companies now still talk and do something about?
• Are we seeing an increase in companies reporting on their performance when it comes to sustainability?
• What about the possiblities for employees to do something for their local community? Is this still being supported by companies that where marketing with their social competence?
• Do you hear more about Stakeholder Engagement from companies? Or is it purely marketing communications and no dialogue anymore?
• Do we see more Communications Managers address the topic of Sustainability/CSR within an organisation now rather then the Sustainability/CSR person? If that is the case then be alert. This is a sign of lower importance in my experience.

These are just some of the questions we as consumers and employees need to start asking companies in the next 12-24 months in order to see where the sustainability/CSR efforts are going. If we keep quiet a lot of what we have achieved with the sustainability movement will be lost and companies will go about their daily business as if here has never been a sustainability and CSR movement.
History has shown that letting companies do what they want will not be successful when it comes to Sustainability and responsible business practice. We have made a good start into the sustainable business future. Now we need to focus on keeping this momentum and act as watchdogs for the responsible business practices of business.

We need to move forward, not backwards. But businesses can not do this on their own, they need our help.

Picture Credit: immarkcz