How Sustainability Will be the REAL Driver of the New Economy

As expected, my column on the mistaken role of government in using taxpayer money to create “millions of green jobs” provoked some protest, but this recent item from Barron’s shows that government has a long history of failure in the business of funding technology ventures.

But there’s another way of approaching the challenge of addressing the resource constraints, and environmental and social problems that are the impetus for all the current noise about creating a new, green economy. “Sustainability-based thinking” holds out the genuine promise that we can reduce our exposure to escalating energy and commodity prices, reverse the declining competitiveness of the American economy, and at the same time reduce environmental degradation and create a better world for future generations.

In the past decade, many of the world’s largest corporations have discovered that sustainability-based thinking can be a powerful driver of innovation, competitive advantage and – to the astonishment many old-school business leaders – improved financial results. In fact, there’s brand new evidence that those companies that have made sustainability a core element of their strategy have outperformed financially those that haven’t.

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Source: Environmental Leader

By: Graham Russell is Founder & Principal at Trupoint Advisors, which helps companies achieve strategic success through sustainable business initiatives. www.trupointadvisors.com. Russell writes and speaks on the subject of sustainable business and teaches sustainability in the University of Colorado Denver MBA program.