Gästbloggare
We use the word ”sustainable” in connection with many things today: companies, development, cities, processes, lifestyles, societies and so on. But last week I found myself challenged to think for the first time about sustainable markets.
At the first stakeholder workshop for MISUM – Handelshögskolan’s new Mistra-funded research centre in Stockholm – 100 business leaders sat down together to define sustainable markets. You might think this would be easy, but it turned out to be surprisingly difficult.
In small groups we produced diagrams, pictures and lists. There was general agreement that sustainable markets would require values, vision, knowledge, leadership, rules and regulations. But all these exist in today’s markets, which are far from sustainable.
This left us asking, ”which values?” ”what vision?” ”what knowledge?” ”what types of rules and regulations?”
When it came to defining the characteristics of sustainable markets, the list we came up with was rather short – refreshingly so. I noted just three:
– there is no corruption
– externalities are priced
– interactions result only in positive lasting impact on people and the planet.
To these three I would add a fourth, inspired by a recent speech by Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fair Trade International: sustainable markets reduce inequality.
We tend to think of sustainability in terms of the environment, but Harriet reminded me that impacts on people are just as important since the way we treat each other is intimately linked to how we treat the planet.
I propose that these four characteristics give us the direction of travel. If we design the infrastructure of markets to achieve these outcomes then we have a chance of transforming today’s markets into sustainable markets.