Sustainable Business: Corporate Sustainable Responsibility

Businesses are realizing the need for sustainability policies. I'd like to think they establish these out of personal convictions or out of the goodness of their hearts, but the fact remains that business is based on supply and demand. Maybe some of the pioneers had a ideological reason for establishing the first businesses with social and/or environmental policies, but the truth is that there now is financial gain to be found in this.

Consumers are clearly becoming preferential to products that have been produced in a sustainable manner. While the financial aspects such as pricing are still very important, we can see that there are very few companies are now lacking corporate social responsibility policies.

In Sweden I remember quite a few public scandals caused by companies that were behaving in an immoral way. In this example it was focused more on the social rather than the environmental aspects, but there are certainly examples of every sort in most countries. A big scandal in Sweden was related to the international clothes chain, H&M. Evidence of sweat shops and child workers was presented in the media. This occurred not at H&M but at their supplier, but the public did not care and put the full resposibility in the arms of the clothes chain. H&M have since put in great efforts to repair their image and have improved greatly. They are now the proud owners of a CSR policy called "Conscious".

While the business sector almost by definition is creasing our natural resources (how else can they create a supply to consumer demand?), there is a positive trend to try to rectify or even reverse this. However, we must be careful not to fa ll in the trap of labelling and marketing. We must have mechanisms in place to regulate this type of CSR branding to make sure it is more than just words.

Dicy Dishes: Horsemeat Lasagne

The horsemeat found in some premade lasagne was probably the biggest food scandal of the year. Many were shocked and it has made it clearer than ever that we don't really know what is in the food we buy, particularly prepared food.

There have been many documentaries and reportages on the ingredients in our food and how we are increasingly being fooled to buy things that are not as they seem. Horsemeat instead of beef, adding oil or water  - sometimes simply air - to push down the costs as far as possible and to lure the buyer to buy something for double its worth.

The horsemeat scandal turned out to be partially accidental as the trickery was done in an early stage by a supplier, meaning no one knew further down the line. Or at least so they claim. Assuming this is true, it is all the more frightening. We are importing food from unknown sources and there are so many suppliers and producers along the way that we no longer know what is in the end product.

I read an interesting article "Risky Meals" on how we import more food and become less self sufficient. Meanwhile, the countries experiencing insuffiency restrict their exports as they try to continue to nourish their people. There is a clear problem of distribution of resources, particularly food products. These are being redistributed through all kinds of imports and exports, but without any substantial monitoring and supervision. While there are more and more laws and policies regulating these exchanges, this remains an issue difficult to oversee.

The article is calling for a mapping where food comes from and where it goes. This could bring insight in the strong and weak points in our production versus consumption habits. Hopefully it can also cut out many unnecessary transports and provide incentive to improve local production. One thing is certain, if we continue down this same road, the export and import networks will only extend and become more complex and less transparent.