Not Everything That Can Be Sustained Should Be Sustained The missing question in sustainability is not “Can we continue?” but “Should we continue?” Imagine a company discovers a business model that is highly profitable. It can repeat the model year after year. Customers keep buying. Profits keep growing. Is that sustainable? Perhaps. But what if those profits depend on exhausting employees, exploiting suppliers, misleading customers, misusing personal data or damaging the environment? Suddenly, “sustainable” doesn't sound so sustainable. Sustainability Needs Ethics I like to define sustainability simply: Sustainability is doing something again and again because it continues to create value for yourself, others and the world. But there is an important question hidden inside this definition: What do we mean by “value”? Something can create financial value for me while destroying value for somebody else. That is why ethics matters. Sustainability asks: “Can we continue?” Ethics asks: ...
by Andy Ng at www.asiatrainers.com (Sales & Management Training) Tel: 65-93672286 Email: andythecoach@gmail.com