Leadership in the rainforest: new measures of business excellence?

Citation

Edgeman, R.L. (2001), "Leadership in the rainforest: new measures of business excellence?", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 5 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2001.26705aaa.001

Leadership in the rainforest: new measures of business excellence?

Leadership in the rainforest: new measures of business excellence?

Measuring Business Excellence readers are at least passing familiar with the principles and criteria of business excellence and know that these demand much that is tangible from an organization's leadership, including tangible influence in and impact on both the environment and society.

This is critical at a time where humanity teeters on the brink of environmental catastrophe and the number of human inhabitants of planet earth dwelling in abject poverty is estimated to be in the billions. Evolving conditions these past 500 years have produced increasingly complex, resource-consuming technological and economic demands with well-chronicled adverse effects such as deforestation, diminishing biodiversity, acid rain, ozone layer depletion and accompanying global warming. Explosive human population growth and accompanying activities are generally identified as the culprits in this drama as it is generally held that all environmental problems have a demographic dimension.

Corporate leaders must become proactively involved in mitigation of such environmental and economic issues. Why? Because conquering these issues is critical to our survival, because their resolution will require significant resources, and because it can be contended on reasonable grounds that the long-term survival of organizations will ultimately hinge on successful mitigation.

The resources are there ...

Collectively corporations have access to massive financial, human and other resources that can and should be brought to bear. How massive? Corporations outnumbered nations 51-to-49 in the 1997 combined "top 100" list with nations making the list based on gross domestic product and corporations based on sales. CEOs of such corporations are often better known on a global scale and more influential than are heads of state.

And it can be done ... Consider just two examples of those corporations that are "doing it".

Doing what? Why, developing and applying paradigms that stress innovative integration of economic, environmental and social system goals and requirements rather than stressing trade-outs.

Volvo, with a deeply held concern for people since 1927, has a long-standing tradition of safety in human transport and a vision of sustainable mobility that integrates the environment at a strategic level. In compliance with current Swedish and European Union standards, at least 85 percent of each vehicle by weight is recoverable for re-use, recycling or energy recovery with an increase to 95 percent required by 2015. Moreover, working with the Brazilian city of Curitiba, Volvo developed and deployed a public transit system that has assisted in producing a per capita fuel consumption rate that is 30 percent less than in other Brazilian cities and a 30 percent decline in traffic in the city since 1974 despite a doubling in the population during the same period.

Monsanto Corporation provides an equally notable case. In noting that there has been a global loss in topsoil of 15 percent over the past 20 years, that water salinity has increased and that commonly used agricultural chemicals are non-renewable, Monsanto has developed a potato variety that is resistant to specific pests and hence does not require the application of or preceding transport of many of those chemicals. Monsanto has also developed a herbicide that is non-toxic to animals, does not leach into the groundwater supply, has superior water-holding properties and greatly reduces the need for tilling, thus conserving topsoil. Similarly, the company has produced a cotton variety that is toxic to certain pests, but harmless to other insects, animals and people. The worldwide impact of cotton farming is enormous since it accounts for 25 percent of insecticide use globally; pesticides used on cotton are among the most hazardous in use and account for 8-10 percent of world pesticides used (i.e. 18 million kilograms); and use of commonly applied pesticides result in aerial over-spray, persist in and erode the soil and subsequently run-off into irrigation and groundwater causing ecosystem damage and loss of biodiversity. Abundantly clear from these facts and figures is the potential impact that Monsanto can have on global agricultural practice and production.

No one said that it would be easy ... but ...

Perhaps these are representative of the "new measures of business excellence" – ones that indicate not only bottom-line financial impact, but social and environmental impact as well.

Rick L. EdgemanJoint Editor