3 Reasons the First Future-Fit Benchmark is for Business

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“Global governance failure.” That risk to world economies was ranked #7 of 31 risks in the World Economic Forum (WEF) “Global Risks 2014” report’s. In the WEF’s 2015 report, “Failure of national governance” was on the list of the 28 biggest threats to large economies – that is, multinational corporations and countries. This raises the question: “Who’s running our world?” There are 3 reasons that the answer is “Corporations.” They are the same 3 reasons that the first future-fit benchmark is for business.

So, who’s governing / running our world?

  1. The United Nations? Some of us would like to think that the United Nations is fulfilling the global governance role. The UN provides excellent guidance such as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) unveiled last week but it lacks the resources and clout to make them happen. Unfortunately, the UN is too often relegated to reacting as best it can to humanitarian crises. It is not empowered by member states to proactively govern our world
  2. National governments? The second global governance candidate is the collectivity of national governments. The principles by which each sovereign nation governs their people and territory vary widely. There is no coherent, consistent approach to governing their collective countries. In fact, there are violent differences, as evidenced by another risk identified in the WEF “Global Risks 2015” report: “Interstate conflict.” Recent attempts by the United States to play its historic self-appointed role as “Leader of the Free World” and intervene in foreign conflicts have ended badly. There is no evidence that national governments are able to collectively govern the world in the best interests of global human society, or even desire to.
  3. Global corporations? That leads us to the third candidate:  global corporations. Thomas Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, had a hopeful slogan, “World peace through world trade.” That is, multinational corporations have a the possibility of having a major role in world governance. Three institutions ensure that economic interests are paramount in decisions affecting global well-being: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Corporate interests directly or indirectly control these organizations. The same can be said for corporate influence on many national governments.

Is that good news or bad news? So far, its been bad news. Corporations are not democratically elected to govern our world, and the promise that globalization and free trade would raise the quality of life for all people has not been realized. But, if corporations bake science-based sustainability principles into their business principles, it could be good news. If we can’t fix it, feature it. Until global governance moves to more democratically elected bodies, the highest leverage that sustainability champions can have is to convince large corporations to become truly sustainable so that their actions and influence will be better aligned with the well-being of human society on this finite planet.

That is no easy task and requires two steps. The first step is to be crystal clear about what a truly sustainable company looks like. Using best-available science, that what the Future-Fit-Business Benchmark (F2B2) does. Its 21 environmental and social goals set the bar for the level of performance required by a company that desires to be truly sustainable, to do no harm to the environment and society, and to be fit for the future.

The second step is to sell the benefits of achieving F2B2 goals in business-relevant terms. So far, we have identified 50 potential benefits from projects that contribute to company progress on the F2F2 goals – a company can avoid 28 downside risks that could threaten its success if does not meet the goals, and it can capture 22 upside opportunities if it does meet the level of performance defined by the 21 goals. Achieving the level of performance defined by the 21 goals is not a sacrifice; it provides a huge sustainability and competitive advantage to the company.

I have been working with Geoff Kendall and the Future-Fit Foundation for two years on F2B2. We will release F2B2 for the for-profit business sector in December this year. Given sufficient support, by 2017 we plan to create future-fit sustainability performance benchmarks for four other sectors: the public sector (governments), the academic sector (higher education), the civil society sector (not-for-profit organizations), and for households.

We started with the benchmark for the business community because it is the most influential governing force on the planet. We’ll get to the others next. .

Then, I’ll really retire.

Bob

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