Business and the Environment (BATE)

November 2002, Volume XIII, No. 11 - Page 5 of the print edition
Prescription for Success

Bob Willard, retired from IBM Canada, has written a book in the same vein as "Walking the Talk" (Charles Holliday, Jr., Philip Watts, and Stephan Schmidheiny. Greenleaf and Berrett-Koehler, 2002), minus the international policy discourse. He recites a number of familiar stories to make the case that better environmental performance lowers costs and raises revenue. In the final 13 pages of "The Sustainability Advantage" (New Society Publishers, 2002), Willard gets down to the burning question. "If the business case is so good, why are smart executives not taking advantage of it?"

Willard blames four powerful factors: 1) they are not aware of the business case; 2) they are aware but don’t believe it; 3) they believe it but are worried about exposing their companies to accusations of greenwashing; and 4) their mentality is so fossilized that they dismiss sustainability as irrelevant.

To help overcome these formidable obstacles, Willard provides worksheets that present triple-bottom-line benefits in dollars and cents for a hypothetical company. The accounting forms consider the financial implications of attracting, hiring, and retaining the best talent, increasing productivity, reducing manufacturing expenses, increasing revenue and market share, and reducing risk. The worksheets are available separately from the publisher as Excel spreadsheets.

The above review was copied with permission from Business and the Environment..