E - Evaluating Sustainability

Parents

E - Monitoring and Evaluation Top Level

Children

* Activist investors have enforced the profit motive, and nudged markets towards more short-termism
* Companies should pledge to not compromise societal efforts to protect the planet
* Systemic intervention is required, raising the bar on private-sector leadership on sustainability
* The "win win" framing of the problem has bloomed into "greenwishing" that distracts attention from the unsustainability of the economy
* The disclosure needed today is not GHG emissions, it is what companies stand for in promoting systems change
* We must formulate a new minimum standard of social responsibility, a step towards eco-literacy
But many things still aren't profitable, and don't make the cut
But today's profit calculations are half-baked and incomplete
Corporate P&Ls are the basis for corporate and investor decision-making, and ignore externalities
Ecoliteracy remains a distant goal
Environmental reporting metrics during the 1990's served an invaluable role in teasing out profitable areas for innovation
Improving sustainability metrics have been overwhelmed by shareholder value maximization
In failing to to take a systemic view, the sustainability movement has failed to engage politically
Ironically, a focus on voluntary measures detracts from efforts that might make a real difference
It is pretty much impossible to make a functioning economy from companies held in sustainable portfolios
It may be wishful thinking to hope that today's voluntary action can be replaced by voluntary systems-change action.
Profit enforcement is increasingly being turned over to AI, compounding the problem
Regardless of corporate charters, the actual purpose of a company is what decision-makers deem it to be
Sustainable businesses pitch their products as bigger solutions than they are, and suggest that sustainability is cost-less
Sustainable companies showcase their own piecemeal efforts rather then collaborate for the needed system change
SVM was the result, and has gone viral through technology innovation
The 1970s saw a reframing of corporate purpose - sanctioning corporate self-interest
The challenge is no longer what individual companies can do, it is what the private sector can do to drive systemic change
The founder of the triple bottom line has now issued a "product recall" of the whole idea - it just hasn't been a fair fight
The global finance industry in effects acts as an international profit-enforcement agency
The intractable influence of half-baked profit measures and shareholder value maximization
The market can never be "complete" so market efficiency should not be assumed to lead to good outcomes
The market that Adam Smith envisioned is totally different from today's markets
The problems we face are the result of the workings of complex systems
The profit motive has been a key catalyst for unprecedented improvement in living standards
The reality is that neoliberalism has captured environmentalism
The role of "market forces" has exploded in the last 40 years
The sustainability movement has contributed to the failed idea that sustainability is costless
The sustainable business movement has tried to fill in missing information, starting with the triple bottom line
Today market failures are deemed tolerable while government failures are ruinous
Today, companeis can only pursue sustainable behaviors that are profitable
Today's markets are not "complete markets" as generally assumed in economy theory
Unpriced externalities exceed global GDP, but we focus only on priced exchanges
We delude ourselves in thinking that voluntary non-price metrics can overcome SVM
We must use markets more intensively (e.g. through pricing externalities) while reducing the power of "market logic"
Well-intended corporations are trying to make a difference from within straitjackets of self-interest
What's missing is the incorporation of "externalities"

Jumps

I - EvaluatingSustainability

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