What will change in the sustainability world in 2008?
February 5th, 2008 by Fabian
Welcome to our first blog post in 2008.
We would like to start this year with a question and your opinion.
What will change in the sustainability world in 2008 in your opinion?
Will companies act more responsibly? Will the US government finally accept that Climate Change is happening? Will the next US government be different when it comes to sustainability? What do we in Europe do to be more sustainable?
What do you think?
This is what I think.
- Companies will feel an even stronger need to act more responsible when it comes to their actions and will see a stronger demand from their stakeholders to do more on all sustainability topics they are involved in.
- The internet and all electronic communication channels will become even more important for companies as well as individuals to communicate sustainability topics and problems.
- On the topic of climate change many countries around the world will begin to feel through an increasing frequency of natural disasters, etc that our world is really changing and there is only a very limited amount of time left before the “tipping point” is surpassed.
- The concept of Sustainable Living will be even more popular then in 2007. Sustainable building, organic products, fairtrade products and all related products and services will continue to see an above average growth during 2008.
- The whole topic of energy will be discussed very intensively during 2008. In the UK we will see the nuclear discussion taking off, in the US and worldwide petrol prices will continue to increase and plunge the world economy deeper into recession. At the same time the rich Middle Eastern countries will continue to heavily invest in renewable energy technology to increase their chances of survival after the era of cheap oil. But we in Europe and North America still do not act convincingly to change our looming future energy crisis.
These are just five points I see as important developments and changes during 2008.
But what do you think?
All the best,
Fabian
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 4:44 am and is filed under Climate Change, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
I hope companies will begin to consider sustainability more seriously… and not just because it’s “in vogue” or is a trendy marketing topic. I also hope they start to think about sustainability and not just simply “being green”. I came across a company (Steelcase - they make office furniture) who I’ve been doing some research on and they have impressed me. They just launched a recent ad (I saw it in Forbes, not sure where else it is running) and it was called “GreenGiants” at first I was thinking, “great, another GREEN campaign from a company” but the ad’s writing intrigued me and I went to their site (www.BeAGreenGiant.com) and I realized it’s about sustainability - environmental AND social. I applaud Steelcase not only for taking that approach (and other things they’ve done that I’ve read about outside the campaign), but also for promoting the CAUSE every bit if not more than their own accolades. The site does have some info about Steelcase, but it’s clear they are using this as a platform to talk about sustainability. Refreshing in this time when you pick up a magazine and companies are saying “look at us! we recycle business cards!” I hope companies become more genuine and sincere in their approach this year. That’s my desire (and to fish more).
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
In response to how well the U.S. government will incorporate sustainability, I don’t think we’ll see many changes until a new administration comes in. Although it appears Bush is finally recognizing it as a problem, I think that issue is forced and the things he’s offering to do are quite trivial.
It’s encouraging that all 3 potential candidates (McCain, Obama, and Clinton) will likely bring in environmental initiatives and congress will be in support of many of those. One of the first steps will likely be to ratify Kyoto. All 3 seem on board for this. However, I would like the eventual successor to take this a step further as Kyoto is already outdated. We need at least 60-70% reductions below 1990 levels, if we want to start to level out CO2 in the atmosphere. Hopefully, the new administration will be more forward-looking and set such goals to help counteract the short-sidedness of the current administration.