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Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Strategic Implications of Sustainable Development

In the McKinsey Quarterly for June/July 2008, Lovins says: “Environmental strategy is not about manipulating regulatory systems to put your competitor at a disadvantage. It’s about redesigning your company’s processes and products so that regulation is relevant only to your competitor, not to yourself. The real leaders are going to be smart companies that see the competitive advantage in leading energy transformation in their sectors.” In my work with the development industry, I find the most difficult part is to get people to look outside of the industry’s mindset of lowest first cost, to get people to realize that it’s the appropriate level of investment that should be looked at. In that context, sustainable design and green buildings should be seen as value adders and risk reducers, with clear economic values ascribable to these functions. For most corporations, sustainability is not about the things that they do today, but it’s about getting and keeping the people who will accomplish major changes over the next three to five years inside the organization. Technology per se is not a competitive advantage; what really counts for a company is a crafting and maintaining a mindset of continuous improvement in sustainable operations; energy savings are a result of this mindset, not the end goal in themselves.

Posted by Jerry on 07/01/2008 at 05:52 PM

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