While the past century has brought extraordinary improvements in health and material well-being to many people, the side effect of our progress has been the destruction of nature and social systems, often far away from where the benefits are enjoyed.
Life-sustaining natural resources — productive ecosystems and clean air, water and soils — are subject to systematically increasing deterioration at the global scale. At the same time, trust between people, and between people and their public institutions, is eroding, at a time when we need trust to cooperate for a sustainable world more than ever.
It is as if our civilization is moving deeper into a funnel whose narrowing walls symbolize that there is less and less room to manoeuvre.
Seen through the eyes of any organization, the business case follows: if you gradually transform towards the opening of the funnel rather than its walls, this is a winning strategy regardless of what other organizations are up to.
What will resources cost as we keep losing them? What will happen to insurance and waste management costs if you are, relative to your competitors, a large part of the problem? Is it a good or a bad idea to learn how to provide real value to markets at lower and lower resource demands?
The strategic conclusion is clear: lead the way towards the opening. Not too fast, to assure enough return on investments in time. Not too slow, to avoid losing market opportunities. Surfing ahead of the game is the winning strategy.