Cynthia Carroll,
Chief Executive Officer - Anglo American
Robert A. Eckert,
Chairman and CEO • Mattel, Inc.
Sir Michael Rake,
New Chairman • BT, Former International Chairman, KPMG

Other three speakers shared their views with the audience: speaker, Mr. Robert B. Reich - author of "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life" and Professor of Public Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley speaking about the relationship between sustainability and democracy, Mr. Vinod Khosla , venture capitalist, speaking about the power of biodiesel and Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr. Gerd Leipold.

Besides, many other breakout sessions bought the possibility of the discussion of a great variety of subjects related to the theme, one of which we had the pleasure to be one of the speakers.

Our involvement had, for us, a very special touch. We participated in an experience of a new method of subject discussion, in which various speakers were placed in circle in the middle of a room whose chairs were also arranged in circle. The innovation was the fact that, as part of the game, the speakers would leave their chairs to give way to the public and their manifestation. In addition, the theme was at least intriguing - "CSR is dead - long live CSR".

We were five speakers. We united geographical distances - Brazil, Philippines, USA - and distinct professional experiences, as consultancy, industry and NGO, with purpose of launching a critical and innovative view to the much talked about Corporate Responsibility. How is RC nowadays being practiced by corporations? Are we in the right direction, in other words, are we becoming more sustainable through RC practices? How should be the future of RC?

Beyond answers, the wealth of this dynamic resided in the possibility of dialog, in the availability of many audience members to go to the center occupying the chairs, exposing their opinions and ideas, doubts and experiences. It was soothing to perceive that the different has momentum, that the process was understood, resting the only assurance that there are no certainties, neither right nor wrong, but an immense need to reflection and to think the way to Corporate Responsibility as so much more efficient as our capacity to challenge our truths.

Our special thanks to Diane Osgood, mentor of this modality, one of the event's organizers and a friend and companion for "out of the box" arguments.

The CEOs speeches - we share a summary of our understanding of the speeches we were present. As we unfortunantly missed the one of Dr. Gerd Leipold, we do not have comments on that. Anyway, official summaries of all BSR event are available in its site http://www.bsr.org/bsrconferences/2007/session-notes.cfm

Cynthia Carroll - Chief Executive - Anglo American - Ms Carroll opened the event, bringing the dilemmas of a major mining company of the world. Our role of critic listener was easy, difficult was that of a woman in the mainly masculine corporate world, in an industry highly impacting in social and environmental aspects. She illustrated how much progress has been made; she emphasized zero tolerance for fatal accidents in Anglo's mines and plants in any corner of the world, and showed her humbleness in revealing she didn't know yet how to define the limits of responsibility of her company.

Robert A. Eckert - Mattel Chairman and CEO - with the rather difficult mission of explaining the many recalls of China made toys,Mr Eckert showed his will and sincerity in sharing not only the company's good achievements but also its mistakes, reinforcing the importance of the "how" next to the "what" as a true value for transparency. Nevertheless, his speech exposed his understanding of engagement to be based more in communicating than in dialoguing. Taking the risk of being unfair to some, my reflection is, consequently, that: in what engagement is concerned, we are all still in the same boat, sinking.

Vinod Khosla - Khosla Ventures Partner - presenting resounding arguments against the utilization of fossil fuels, he tried to show that as far as investors point of view, the return shall come from the investment in biodiesel, which in his vision, besides being environmentally less impacting, promotes social benefits to countries of the third world, where biodiesel is produced. In our opinion, Mr. Khosla, forgot to add to biodiesel cost, the social and environmental costs of the extensive monocultures and land disputes due to the biodiesel "opportunity", to the hunt for small properties, the utilization of slave workforce, the incredible negligence of large sugarcane and soybean farmland owners to the environmental issues. It seems to us that it is licit and necessary to avoid fossil fuels, but we must go furtherer in the understanding the impacts of those said to be green energy…

Mr. Reich, the author of the books "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life", gave a brilliant speech of which two matters caught my attention the most. In first place the reflection on the increase of lobby money in Washington, sponsored by corporations. It is a serious threat to democracy in the US and in our country having lobbyists arranging representatives to approve laws which are, eminently in the interest of corporations, since their bargain power is much larger than that of common citizens. The second interesting issue was the call on the existing conflict on the roles we assume in society. As citizens, we support sustainability; as consumers we want less expensive products, conditions which are not always compatible.

It was a wonderful experience to discuss about Corporate Responsibility with local businessman and executives of private and state owned companies. We learned that the eternal confusion of Corporate Responsibility being the same as Social Investment and/or Social and/or Environmental Programs or Projects happens there too.

A Big Surprise (a mix of anxiety and relief)! - when several of the participants in the formations we gathered perceived that investing in solar energy technology or in a more secure workman's posture of its suppliers, still targeting cost reduction, are Corporate Responsibility attitudes!

Our congratulations and gratitude to "Do It", the local consultancy in sustainable management, which in the charismatic faces of Patricia and Claudia is starting a hard work of bringing conscience in the country, with much resolve and professionalism.

The bad news first. Unfortunately, there is no absolute point at which a company can say it is 'sustainable'. Instead, sustainability is a moving target - and in this it is not unlike the concept of business 'success'. Just because a company is considered successful today, does not mean that by continuing to act in the same way, it will remain so in future. As the business landscape changes and the competition develops, so companies must evolve to remain successful. Sustainability is also a relative concept, with some companies justifiably considered 'more sustainable' than others at any one point in time.

The good news, however, is that sustainability is not as elusive a concept as it may seem. Like any business strategy, sustainability is about understanding and responding to the shifting external landscape - the big picture against which future strategies will be played out. The difference today is that expectations of companies have moved beyond simply providing profits to owners, while selling goods or services and (hopefully) creating jobs, and have begun to include concerns about environmental and social impacts. Good business management means identifying these changing expectations and integrating a response into operations and processes.

How, exactly, do companies do this? What actions need to be taken to build and implement a sustainability strategy?

The first step is to analyse the current business approach. What is the company's mission? What are the key drivers of success and competitive advantage? Where do the greatest competitive threats lie? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation?

Against this background companies will need to identify key business risks and opportunities. Company managers should be able to provide a starting list, which can be broadened by assessing societal trends to identify further short, medium and long-term risks and opportunities. Drawing on the views and experience of many people from within and outside the company, including business partners, government, local communities and NGOs, will add important insights around the trajectory and relevance of these trends. Through this process, companies are likely to identify more potential risks and opportunities than they can take on board - and so will want to assess and prioritise those issues that are most relevant to their business approach, and of most concern to broader society. For maximum benefit, this whole process needs to be embedded in the firm's main business planning rather than left to a separate ad-hoc exercise.

Assessing these high priority issues against an understanding of the business approach allows the company to develop a strategy to manage risks and capitalise on opportunities. Here there is no simple prescription. The strategy will depend on the company's individual circumstances and should consider whether a particular issue can be addressed through operational changes, such as changing a production system, or whether more strategic actions are required, such as modifications to the business model itself. In addition, companies should take into account the degree of control they have over an issue or whether collaborations and partnerships - with other companies or industry associations, NGOs or government bodies, for example - need to be sought.

The action plan that results from this strategy will need to show the key stages, objectives, success factors and targets to monitor value-added to the business and to society. Implementation will also require internal communication and incentives, training and the development of links with other business priorities and resources. The world is evolving rapidly, so it is important to monitor and review the strategy on an ongoing basis, checking progress against established targets, feeding learning back into the process and adapting plans as necessary.

Finally, companies will need to communicate their strategy and progress against it externally - to investors, business partners, government and society. This does not require a new communications approach, but means embedding information in existing communication channels including, for example, customer or investor presentations, or in the annual report. In communicating progress, companies will need to tailor the information to the needs of different external constituencies, using relevant language and measures of success. For example, investors respond to concepts such as profit forecasts and asset valuations, while customers relate to messages around product quality and safety, and communities are likely to be interested in economic opportunities.

The steps described above are not unique to sustainability - they are part of any good business planning, which requires a thorough awareness of the operating environment and a business strategy to respond. That said, it is not always necessary to develop a full-blown sustainability strategy before companies can begin taking action. Many businesses find that small, discrete initiatives can yield benefits. Nevertheless, integrating sustainability in core business strategies ultimately provides the greatest likelihood of long-term benefits, maximizing the alignment of business, social and environmental objectives.

Jodie Thorpe is the Manager of SustainAbility's Emerging Economies Program (www.sustainability.com)

Since a few centuries ago, our behavior has been based in the concepts of material science, from which we get the notion that in all complex systems the behavior of the whole may be analyzed in terms of its parts, strengthening the belief of separateness. Mind is separated from body, separated from soul. Men are separated from nature. This paradigm has, for many years, affected several spheres of our lives - the education separated in hypothetically independent disciplines, the medicine, which treats our organs if they were autonomous, the organizations severed in departments in search for individual success of each cell, and science, which separates the scientist from science results.

In general, these paradigms affect the organizational/business reality in the same manner. Cartesian, materialist think models have been supporting the organizational strategies since their existence, resulting in management based in control excess, authoritarianism, victimization and guiltiness (someone is always guilty - the supplier, the other department, the economy, the politics, etc…). In this context the organizations have been stage to not accepting differences, for castration of creative processes, for competition and individualisms, for the scission between emotions and reason in the working environment, for maladies, and obviously for disrespect in processes inherent to human kind and nature in general form. They become unsustainable.

It is in this reality that emerges the search for Organizational Sustainability or Corporate Social Responsibility: an attempt to remodeling management in a way that corporate working environment becomes less destructive to the planet and to society. It first emerges as a movement of reparation or "guilt exploration", by means of environmental actions and diversified social investments. Today we are already talking about sustainable management. Departments or directors in sustainability, comities, conduct codes, metrics, management indicators, all sorts of tools that target insertion of sustainability in the companies' strategies still replicate and are fruit of same mental models which created an unsustainable organization. Present are competition, exclusion, manipulation, individualism, authoritarism, vanity. This step, this search was and still is necessary and xxx without a doubt. But it is yet not consistent enough for a real transformation to occur, unfortunately, since the pillars of unsustainability remain intact.

Our way to evolution is shown by science and philosophy themselves, which in our days jointly perceive and point us the interconnection among disciplines, the non separatism of individual and whole; the relation between scientist and the research results. Thoughts which show us that the nature's complexity can't be comprehended through a simplistic vision, that we do not function linearly as some economists may be inclined to believe, that we are not an assembly of organs, as some doctors may believe. We are truly complex systems whose functioning happens by the interaction among its parts and not by the sum of them.

In this new perspective, sustainability relates to self questioning, self responsibility, understanding and valuing of interconnectivity between various parts, and to knowing if we are parts of a whole, we are all responsible for the whole - an opening of reality's curtains which would allow us to look ourselves as integrated parts of NATURE and not external to it. Only with this mentality change could we create new models of acting, now based in the observation that "mind is not something separated from Nature, is Nature" (Ervin Laszlo) and that systems can't be understood through an analysis of isolated parts, but only within the context of grand whole.

Sustainability is in our way of seeing it, intimately tied to the development of a systemic view, which integrates and includes. It understands that processes are many times results in their own and that should be constructed from relationships and interactions, in such a way that it gets closer and closer to common good. In a context in which each part cannot be separated from the whole, the only consequent sustainable solution is the one which contemplates the benefit of all and not only of a majority. We are certainly walking towards this direction. This will be the new era of searching for the planet's and our kind sustainability, in what concerns the business organizations. The new paradigm sustainability paradigm.

I turn on the TV to find out about the world....Headline news...some seconds later I hear about crisis in airports, corrosive politics, corruption. A defensive thirst shows up and I go to the kitchen for water, than strategically I guide myself to another room. I remember that I spent the last two weeks in seminars and conferences about sustainability. Conflict feelings arise, than I recall the theme's nature almost having some peace of mind, and I start to mentally review certain moments of the various debates and conferences I attended.

I compare the two events I've been in, one somewhat glamorous and the other more popular. The first had a complexity of matters and well driven projects and the second had architects centered in urban growth and its challenges. Difficult was not to compare them, besides all their differences.

Now, the only common issue was something called sustainability. After all who is this animal that is mobilizing so many people? What does it eat?

I realize that when typing the word in this text, the orthographic corrector (part of the software I use) does not understand the word. I thought of adding it to the available dictionary but end up deciding not to. It is better that it remains like this: underlined in red, unknown and standing out. Therefore each time I or anybody writes it some reflection ought to happen, though for a moment. When using a short vocabulary, in the end it may mean exactly this, that it feeds reflection.

Through investigating my most recent notes on studies about optimization of natural resources in architectonic projects and its complexities in wind calculations, shades, solar radiation incidence, eco efficiency, formats and other issues capable of twisting my eyes, I realize that to the general public with some kind exceptions, and hereby I appropriate myself of a concept from one of the speakers, "sustainability = rationality" - Oh!!! How can this be?

How can it be that simple? And if it is that simple why haven't we thought about it before? I understand that for people living with complex calculations and basing in never-ending studies, this can be a legitimate form of walking through the winding roads of sustainability.

In vain, I try not feel prejudiced or possessing the feeling of deep understanding about it. I look for some notes and think: this is it, this is not…After all, who could know more about this subject than a consultant in sustainable management? I reprimand myself instantly: idiot! It even seems that you know something! At least, they are trying the way they know and, surely, may be cooperating somewhat in some way.

So what bothers me? It must not only be the fact I received a mountain of marketing material from companies engaged in eco efficient recycled paper, nor the fact that may be a million plastic cups were used in the event or even less the fact they didn't have any waste recycling. It certainly does not relate as well to financial questions that make me reflect why a theme so urgent and important is debated between four walls at an exorbitant cost per participant?

I don't know....I remembered of companies saying how much they are thoughtful and nice, sponsoring all sorts of social projects, there were even fantastic musical groups to entertain their guests. It is weird to be sponsored by a petrol company, highly polluting throughout its chain, but we never know, it could be that it is like carbon neutralization: you may pollute as much as necessary, but as long as you plant a tree afterwards you will look good after all.

I put my worries and reflections aside and look after a good book: I find Ken O'Donnell's "Human Values in work" - EUREKA! I realize what disturbs me. In one of its chapters he narrates about a Mexican forum on public administration quality, where the winner of The Quality Prize made an enthusiastic speech about his conquest but in no moment, he or any other participant mentioned the expression: human being.

I think this is the variant which is not being taking into consideration in the speeches about how and what to do towards the planet's sustainability. Not that it may not be the target of scientific research on temperature, pressure, importance of colors in psychological and many other essays, masters and doctorates about this fantastic "machine" which is the human being.

One of the projects defended increasing the demographic density of São Paulo's downtown as the only sustainable solution for the city's chaos. A sudden shiver climbed through my back, I kept imagining myself in a minimum, limited space, living together with hundreds of people everywhere I went. Community sense! They defended it…hum…are we really prepared for this? Do we have enough respect? Enough trust? Sufficient love and availability for cooperation?

I think that above any investment in new technologies, new materials, new business formats, new global tendencies, new politics and new projects, we need to invest in self knowledge, the one which will allow us to evolve as and to human beings. Something which will teach us, differently than our common sense, how to dialog, communicate and exchange.

This may be another utopic thought, but it is the only one that makes me think as real the success of so much effort applied. One of the more pertinent appointments in my understanding, was one from an academic which, in the middle of a tangle of information, said sustainability has to do with common sense. Another one very much applauded (at least by me) said that nothing can be more effective than the connection between social context, natural resources and technology which go beyond the boundaries of the building, remembering that it is not isolated from the "rest" - there, optimistically I consider we belonging to the rest: beings in search for its sustainability, of its perpetuation as species, and who with much luck and faith, may take advantage of these challenges created by ourselves to evolve as a specie.

The impulse and feed for this evolutionary transmutation can't be any other than spirituality. This is it than: Sustainability is spirituality and its nourishment is the reflection! I guess…may be…hhumm…I will try to sleep over it, who knows I dream about it…I guess dreaming is an excellent start…

Marketing started to perfection, to conquer space inside the organizations, being called to participate in company's strategic definitions, creating and developing tendencies, etc…However, it gained simultaneously adjectives little favorable to its image and function due to the form of conducting certain objectives and launching some products.

It became interpreted so many times, as a tool of disguise applied to critical and not very ethical situations, and as a creator of products not always useful and appropriated for consumption. Famous phrases such as "Through Marketing a pill is golden" or even: 'Oh, this is a marketer's affair" appeared thereafter.

In fact, Marketing's true function lost its character through wrong tool utilization, lacking base for product and strategy (sometimes) development.

In modern times, marketing's challenge becomes even more critical: with its deteriorated image, how can it participate in the process of looking for Sustainability? Again we perceive the sub utilization of the discipline's tools, ever since marketing professionals are reducing the tools into one: The "P" of publicity! Not that publicity is unnecessary, on the contrary, it is, but it should not be the ultimate means of performing.

What we have been seeing as consumers, are great publicity campaigns talking about Sustainability, but not all companies utilize the Marketing tools with focus on Sustainability. Are the products sustainable? Have the stakeholders being listened to? Does the consumer really need this service or product? How could we launch a great product at a fair price? What would the consumers do with products beyond their lifetime? Marketing with Sustainability? What is that? Is it possible?

It is not only possible, but necessary!!!

The way to Sustainability will only be trailed when all the actual processes would have passed through a large and profound review, with Marketing eventually being pioneer in this process and conduct implementation, since it may be started by the marketing professionals. Could these people analyze in depth their blind belief of what truly is to be a "Marketer"? How are their personal images? What do they look after inside themselves to make a difference in the market development process? What are their values as human beings? How could they help in the building of Sustainability in Marketing through their own personal and professional values?

The professionals should search for comprehension of what is their real function as participants in an area which proposes to understand people (consumers, society) and market (invisible). After this review in their internal processes, the "marketer" could utilize all the tools in a sustainable process, in other words, including and listening to all their stakeholders in the market analysis, in the development of a new product or even in the retiring of a product from the catalog.

New times and new markets should bring new consciousness. This should be the true role of a new marketing model: helping develop their stakeholders conscience (though the 4 Ps or many more Ps that may surface) for a new way of conducting business, producing, consuming and investing.