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from satisfied. The ultimate goal, he notes, has always been to integrate these three dimensions of value creation—something he argues very few businesses have yet done.
Taken on board by organisations like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI), the TBL concept has enjoyed considerable success since the turn of the century. The TBL mindset encourages organisations to take a longer-term perspective of their operations, and also encourages them to engage a wider range of internal and external stakeholders. With his theory, Elkington has helped transform the way we do business, ensuring that,the ‘sustainability’ agenda that many business leaders are now embracing is understood to be much more than corporate citizenship. Instead, it implies major shifts in the economic system—including radical changes in the way that accountants and economists think and advise leaders in the public and private sectors.
Although he is often described as a pioneer in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), with BusinessWeek describing him in 2004 as “a dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades,” Elkington is critical of the ways many people define CSR. It is not simply about philanthropy, he insists, even though people like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are hauling corporate giving into the twenty-first century. Nor is simply about better stakeholder engagement and reporting. In a world driven by the forces of globalization, demographic changes and the dawning realisation that we are already breaching key planetary boundaries, CSR Lite is no longer enough. If it ever was. So what is the future of this agenda? Is TBL a universal and perpetual theory, or is it time to look beyond this formulation? For instance, some critics of the TBL approach argue that it is too difficult to find relevant data and metrics to determine whether a particular project truly contributes to sustainability. How can we weigh up the positive social contributions made by particular businesses and the social harm they may cause in the process? How do the concepts of Shared Value (advanced by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer) link to Sustainability? Are they the same or different? And, if different, where is the sustainability agenda likely to head next?
Corporate Sri Lanka has the opportunity to shape and even lead in the transition, as John Elkington himself takes the stage in Colombo on 1 September to discuss the next stage in the evolution of what he calls tomorrow’s bottom line. Incidentally, he will launch his new book The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Link Today’s Profits With Tomorrow’s Bottom Line – co-authored with former PUMA CEO, Jochen Zeitz – in September.
In a recent article in the UK, John describes the ‘Breakthrough’ initiative as a call for business to get involved in shaping the world fit for a population of nine billion by 2050: “It’s part of a longer journey – and an opportunity to sketch a roadmap for our future,” he says. Breakthrough thinking requires leaders to ensure that their business is sustainable and in a resilient position for the future. Key to the concept is setting the right mix of stretched targets. It also involves investing in the most innovative people in an organisation to help sketch a Breakthrough trajectory for the organisation, engaging key stakeholders and even – something that would have been unthinkable a few years back – competitors.
Breakthrough Capitalism is a much broader and evolutionary theory than the original TBL formulation, based on the projection that the next 15-20 years will see more change in markets and business than we have seen in the past 50 – or even 100. With his TBL thinking, John Elkington helped corporates change the way they think of value creation, of the life cycle of products, and of the rights of a growing spectrum of stakeholders, in some cases as yet not born.
That said, the agenda for business, often portrayed as a gloomy landscape of increasingly pressing risks, also presents an immense and expanding panorama of opportunity. The global energy market alone needs to see the investment of over $1 trillion a year in clean technology over the next three decades, for example.
To enjoy the rewards, however, business leaders must work out how to help governments shape tomorrow’s markets for more sustainable outcomes, rather than fighting tooth-and-nail to stop the introduction of new rules and regulations. Elkington will share more on ‘The Breakthrough Challenge’ in Colombo in a matter of weeks, as Sri Lanka gains this exclusive opportunity to tap into the latest thinking of a key sustainability guru.
