Sustainable Amidst Austerity, Resource Scarcity and a Limited Growth World

2nd March 2012

The event "Sustainable Amidst Austerity, Resource Scarcity and a Limited Growth World" organised by These Young Minds took place at the London School of Economics on Tuesday 28th of February. It had an impressive array of speakers at hand who addressed topical issues affecting the society such as unemployment, limited economic growth and the Eurozone Crisis. Proactive solutions to these challenges as well as their present and future impact on Sustainability were also addressed.

A blend of perspectives from the influential and distinguished panel shed light on how the current bleak reality of the economy and its effects on sustainability can be turned into an opportunity to create a more promising future. The talks included: ‘Circular Economy- Opportunity for Entrepreneurs’ by Marc Zornes from McKinsey and Company, ‘What are expected of Entrepreneurs in a Resource and Growth Scarce world’ by David Williams, CEO of Impact International. Others were: ‘How to motivate colleagues to take on a Sustainability stance’ by The Rt. Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben, ‘Skillsets that Sustainability professional will require in a resource scarce and limited growth world, Samantha Heath, Founder and CEO London Sustainability Exchange, and ‘CSR is dead. Long live sustainability’ was delivered by Charles Simmonds, News Director at BBC and former Founder of Sustainability production, BBC.
Marc Zones Sustainability expert at McKinsey and Company illustrated how the demand and utilisation of the earth’s limited resources such as energy, water, food and basic materials are expected to drastically increase with an emerging middle class in developing countries.

These socio-economic demands will exceed the earth’s resources. Thus, meeting these human needs would be incredibly expensive and challenging. However, he suggested that a possible solution to this growing dilemma would be to break away from the “take-make-dispose” linear economy pattern that is common to most businesses, and adopt a more sustainable and financially rewarding concept of a circular economy; where the technical and biological nutrients of a disposed product are recycled and reintegrated into other products as part of their business model. He explained that for this concept of a circular economy to be viable from a sustainable and financial perspective, businesses would need to develop innovative business models, governments should set standards and policies, and research institutes should continue to analyse potential of circular business models to drive material and technological innovations.

David Williams, CEO of Impact international shared his passion for sustainability and his inspiration to start his company thirty-two years ago. He explained that Sustainable Enterprise is about creating and innovating new business strategies and activities that accelerate positive social change, protect and preserve environmental integrity, whilst enhancing business performance. Alim Abubakre, Founding Executive Director of These Young Minds said that “the only pragmatic solution is for both entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs to challenge the norm and adopt certain traits. These traits would include; being globally integrated, ‘creatively disruptive’ in nature, innovative and imaginative in their attitude as well as having a hunger for positive change”.

Samantha Heath, Founder and CEO of London Sustainability Exchange, elaborated on ‘The Big Five Vital Ingredients’ for sustainable progress. A few examples of the five vital ingredients included: inspiring others to take action with leadership, empowering others in communities to work together and encouraging organisations to take positive action. Rt. Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben said “the ideas presented at the event were fresh and vigorously presented and the audience attentive and seriously interested. Well done These Young Minds - it's just the sort of occasion we need”. In addition to this, David Williams said “I was invited to this conference to present some Ideas on Impact's work "Creating Sustainable Enterprise”. A thought provoking evening that is bound to bring about real changes in behaviour and will hopefully inspire more people to become sustainable entrepreneurs in their own right”.

Bob Ward, Director of Communication and Policy, Grantham Research Institute at LSE who chaired the event added to this by stating; “This was an impressive event with a first-class line-up of speakers addressing a very sharp and knowledgeable audience. The speakers drew upon their huge combined wealth of experience in the public, private and government to provide an impressive overview of how to tackle the issue of sustainability in an ‘age of austerity’. The debate not only covered the business case for sustainability, but also the moral and ethical case as well. It was obvious that the audience found the event not only thought-provoking but inspiring as well.”

www.theseyoungminds.co.uk