2Sustain

A sustainability integrationist is someone who sees how sustainability issues interrelate to impact our daily social and economic lives. If you want to gain some insight from one of the best integrationists in the field, read the Q&A with MIT Sloan professor Rebecca Henderson that was last month’s installment of the MIT Sustainability Interview series.

In “Hundreds of Gallons of Water in Every Shirt,” Henderson, who is one of the founding members of MIT’s Laboratory for Sustainable Business (S-Lab),offers the kind of straight talk that I think we need to be hearing more. Climate change, energy, and water are the sustainability issues that will have the biggest implications for businesses in the future, she says. And while no one can predict the timing of the impacts, experts like Henderson are becoming increasingly more vocal about their certainty.

“Businesses have been able to proceed essentially as if energy was close to free and water was close to free, and this will no longer be true,” she says in the interview. “I mean, a lot of water goes into nearly every product we touch. There are several hundred gallons in that shirt you're wearing.”

The problem is that we have built an economic system that assumes externalities like this don’t count, Henderson explains. Now, of course, we’re realizing that simply isn’t true. Certain externalities do have value. But, what will it take for people and corporations to fully appreciate the implications of say, limited resources? Is it possible for companies to re-think profits, incentives, etc. and incorporate sustainability into a new kind of business model?

Henderson says when she talks to executives she offers four pieces of advice:

• The price of energy and water are going to go way up. You need to prepare for that.

• Sustainability offers potentially enormous profit opportunities for some businesses.

• Be informed and proactive. You want to move before regulators force you to.

• Working on sustainability issues can have a positive impact on the level of emotional commitment and excitement of your workforce. “People say to me that their number one reason for caring about these issues is hiring. That it really helps them get good people,” she says.

Sound recommendations. I’ll just add one more: Read the full interview. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.