Business and society are faced with two coinciding factors that will change everything. Those factors are Climate Change and Peak Oil. How badly or positively they affect us depends on how we respond - starting now!
Climate Change has been well documented of late; the burning of fossil fuels and the release of Greenhouse gases are changing weather patterns, melting the Polar Ice caps and destroying the Ozone layer. This is placing many habitats human or otherwise in peril. We are already in a crisis and the only strategy available is damage limitation.
Oil supply
The other side of this coin is the dwindling supply of oil, which combined with spiraling demand is already pushing prices up. This scenario will not change, prices sooner or later will sky rocket as production falls and demand continues to grow with the emergence of a car driving middle class among the vast populations of India and China.
According to Dr M. King Hubbert (www.hubbertpeak.com), backed up with information from the US Government supplied by www.planetforlife.com, we have already gone past the time of Peak Oil production in 2004. Estimates predict supply will run out within the next 30 - 40 years possibly sooner depending on consumption.
The age of cheap oil has gone. Our costs will go up and up and up if we continue to use oil as a resource. How we live and do business will have to change radically sooner rather than later.
Oil Consumption
Worryingly all our lives are built on oil. Technological advances in industry, food production and general health, the very affluence of 21st Century life have all been driven by oil. It supplies electricity to our homes and businesses, it transports us to work and to our holiday destinations, it brings our food to the supermarket and our products to market. It cultivates and fertilizes our farms in intensive food production and is used for packaging, plastics, insulation and many other purposes, the list is endless.
Add to this the fact that the world population today is more than twice what it was in 1960, 6.5 billion now, to 3 billion then. And the population is still rising, 10 billion will be reached by 2050 on current growth rates. (Figures obtained from the US Census Bureau). This expanding population has been fed by an increased availability of food which has been grown and fueled with cheap oil.
Scientists predict that without cheap oil only 2 billion people will be able to survive on this planet. The land will not be able to be farmed nearly as intensively and food will not be able to be transported as far without perishing. The alternatives to oil that aren't renewable will use up more energy extracting them than they will yield and will only compound the problems.
In the worst case scenario, unusually, it is likely to be those who are most dependent on cheap oil (us) who will suffer the most. Those who can still remember how to live in harmony with nature and grow their own food will have to change the least.
What are we going to do about it?
Society and business are faced with some very serious questions, that very few people are aware of. Disaster could be imminent unless we are all prepared to focus on these issues and change now.
Unless we can find a sustainable way to maintain the lifestyles we have become accustomed to we face losing them and about 4 billion lives with it, in an inexorable slide into a modern dark age.
The big question is how? How can we reshape our society so that it is sustainable for the benefit of all?
Gandhi would say that we must "be the change we want to see in the world."
In other words the only way we can create a sustainable society is to start by being sustainable ourselves both at home and in our businesses.
What am I going to do about it?
It is not so much our 'needs' that make our lives unsustainable as our 'wants'. Many of our 'wants' are driven by our own fears and insecurities and we want things that make us feel better about ourselves. Many of us invest our energy in all sorts of things in the hope that they will make us happier, only to find more disappointment.
So it follows that; if we can become more confident in ourselves, if we can know the purpose of our lives and commit to it, if we can truly know who we are and learn to be it without fear or compromise, if we can be authentic. We will both have less wants and be happier, we will also have more energy and belief in our own ability.
If we can apply all of this energy, passion and confidence to our business as well we will have what is known as an authentic business. Authentic businesses generate their profits through the pursuit of a profound and positive purpose. Authentic businesses enjoy very significant business benefits over more conventional rivals.
Authentic businesses spend up to 80% less on both marketing and HR costs for a given level of return. For example Yeo Valley Organics are the sixth largest yoghurt producers in the UK. Last year they spent £750,000 on marketing to achieve a market share of 6%. Muller the market leader has a market share of 36% which costs them £40,000,000 per year to maintain. Put another way Muller spend 80 times more than Yeo Valley to sell six times as much product!
Howies, the third largest clothing company in Cardigan, Wales. Has average returns of 20% from it's catalogue compared to an industry average of 1%.
A sample of authentic businesses has an average of 0.3 sick days per employee per year compared to a national average of 3 days per employee per year.
Average recruitment costs per employee in the UK are £4000, Happy, a computer training company in London has a waiting list of 2,000 and only employs 40 people.
Authentic businesses work not solely for profit, for the benefit of all. Customers, staff and the environment. More people relate to them, want to work with them and for them.
To have an authentic business we must know the profound and positive purpose of our lives and commit ourselves and our businesses to achieving it. Being authentic in both our lives and our businesses facilitates satisfaction and happiness without costing the earth.
For more help on becoming truly authentic and working in a more sustainable way please contact the authors.
Neil Crofts, Authentic Business, neil@authenticbusiness.co.uk
Simon Blackler, Idealic, sblackler@idealic.co.uk