Hello. Today I would like to write a response and expound on the topics found in a great article that I received in an email this morning from the Under30CEO.com blog. If you are unfamiliar with this organization (as I'm sure you are), it is basically a network of young, like-minded entrepreneurs for idea collaboration and support. Anyway, In a nutshell, the article addresses our responsibility, as "Generation Y", to transform the sustainability movement from a trending idea to a seamless integration into everyday activity.
You can click here to read the article, if you like, before you continue reading my "2 cents".
I share a common feeling with the author- that previous generations are to blame for the deterioration of the planet/depletion of its natural resources. I don't hold this judgment in contempt (after all, had I been born 30-80 years earlier, I would have been capitalizing right along side them), but I have always called a spade a spade. There was a clear lack of forethought in commercial expansion, resource management, and overall- a blatant disregard for product quality/composition. Though the entrepreneurs of old are responsible for providing these less-sustainable goods and services, the free market system is driven by consumer demand. So basically, it was either feed the beast or sit around and be poor while your competition happily takes up your slack. The consumers themselves were wanting more and more and less expensive and less expensive. Of course the "corporate machine" was to take off! (remember this next time your "Occupying")
But now days, as consumers are changing their purchasing habits, and consciously factoring environmental awareness into their purchasing trends, young business people (and now old, alike) are changing the way those products/services are produced and offered. I want to highlight a great term referenced in the article:
cradle to cradle. This is life-cycle concerning a product that has no adverse health affects on you personally, and can return, organically, back to the earth upon expiration of that life-cycle. It may seem like more of a dream today, but I promise you that this will not only be pervasive market-wide (and sooner than you think...), but will ultimately be mandated in the future. Why the inhibition on freedom and creativity? Because we are now cleaning up someone else's mess and there will be no other option. This could be 2100 by the time that occurs, but it will happen.
Once the change is made in the consumers mind, the change occurs in the producers of that product or service. It is our responsibility, as business leaders, to cultivate that mental transformation. Like a shepherd herds his flock, we must steer consumers towards a responsible and sustainable lifestyle that has true lasting power and will enhance their life experience like never before. Without making these changes (from both ends) rather quickly, our world will continue to dig itself further into a rut. And that rut will ironically swallow us whole, just as we did our planet's resources in the matter of a few hundred years. Thanks for listening...
