Best Buy does it's best!

Yesterday Best Buy organized a webinar to discuss it's sustainability efforts. It was fun. Four people behind the table discussing what was going on and in the mean time you could post your questions via Twitter. Which I did, and it is always amazing to hear that your question is actually addressed. You hear your name being called out and here it comes.

The best I liked was one of the Best Buyers saying like: "Yes, but I think we should do more in that area." That's what really counts in the first place. No transparency, no belief.

And Best Buy is doing it's best. Some amazing schemes I never heard about here in Europe. E.g. the Buy Back scheme, yes, also making sure consumers dare to buy, but also taking care of waste that consumers do not like to take care of.

I found this experience intriguing. You just invite the world, and whoever you are, you can comment. Not just the usual friends, the friendly NGOs, no, just you and me. And isn't that what it is all about in sustainability. That we get a grip.

Oom Jan's funeral today and also May 4, commemoration of the dead

Today we buried Oom Jan, my one favourite uncle still alive until Friday. He was the friendliest man. He and Tante Gerrie owned a bicycle shop and the greatest treat was to drive around with him in his Ford Transit, delivering bikes to his customers. I was allowed to 'repair' bicycles, to find my way on the attic where you could find all kinds of treasures. Not in the least those Trix trains you then still had. He came in so handy, also during the 2nd World War. He was 15 when the war started. Installing that electricity switch trick, that fooled the Germans. One turn, no light. Two turns, light. With Germans two houses down the street, doing his own thing to frustrate them.

May 4, commemoration of the dead all over the Netherlands. Silence for two minutes. Birds singing at the Waalsdorpervalkte, where so many people were executed. We know, once again, how valuable our freedom is. Let's not forget.

Empty shelfs, can you imagine? Preferred supplier become preferred buyer

World population going to 9 billion. BICs picking up on similar consumption patterns as we in the North are used to. Tremendous pressure on commodity volumes. Not just population, increasing consumption per capita, but also climate change.

Empty shelves, can you imagine? We are so used to a situation where buyers from North can divide and conquer, can select wherever they want to buy. That will be of the past. That time is passing by. With limited volumes available, there will come a power shift. From buyer to supplier. The preferred buyer becomes the new breed. And they are quite a few buyers out there that need to change their minds.

The way out? Committed sustainability. As a buyer you will have to invest in long term partnerships with your suppliers to guarantee long term volume, quality and a reasonable price. No partnership, no business. No sustainability, not enough to grow.

When do YOU become a preferred buyer?

Multi-stakeholder out, dedicated stakeholder in.

I am just wondering. This whole concept of multi-stakeholder dialogues about standards, sustainability and what you have. Does it actually work? I have now seen quite a few of those dialogues. For one thing: they take forever. And once they are finished you actually accomplished something. And there is a lot of frustration. And everybody can join. And it is very politically correct to do the multi-thing. But can we find more efficient ways without driving business crazy?

I propose the "Dedicated Stakeholder Dialogue". Let's say you have a supply chain for cashew. Whoever takes the initiative maps the relevant actors in the supply chain, basically from farmer to buyer. Who's relevant: all actors that invest into that supply chain. The farmer because he or she buys inputs and sells cashews, the buyer because he buys those packs with cashews from a packer or whatever and that farmer supporting organization that invests donor money into increasing productivity and quality.

Those actors use one of the available sustainability scanning models to find out what the hot spots are in the supply chain. Then they start thinking about solutions, maybe even writing them up as a standard, get going in a pilot, have Wageningen University evaluate if what should work actually works and up-scale the whole lot.

Works if actors in the chain are committed to each other. Anyway, we are going form preferred supplier to preferred buyer anyhow. With increasing commodity prices and volume pressure the supply chain for most commodities will experience a turn-around.

Result: fast track sustainability, isn't that what we want, really?

Partnering for change in chains: on the capacity of partnerships to promote sustainable change in global agricultural commodity chains

Verena Bitzer wrote a thesis on the most debated subject of the influence of partnerships on sustainable change. Because the full text is not yet available, I am writing between the lines of her abstract. My text is is italics and in bold.

One general remark, and I guess that might be university policy, is that Verena is throwing out her research in the newspapers and that there is no way to read her work, only days after publication. With challenging findings like these, I would have thought a seminar with the actors described and based on the full text would actually result in a healthy discussion.

Partnerships mirror the changing nature of the relationships among state, business and civil society organizations I would change state for government and add academic institutions, that more often than not also play a pivotal role in partnerships. , and are often considered as innovative mechanisms to overcome single actor failure Failure is a big word, that could be the case, speed of change might be another. in the context of globalization.

This thesis analyzes the capacity of partnerships to promote sustainable change in global agricultural commodity chains, using the global coffee, cotton and cocoa chains Being very specific commodities with special context, also depending on the regions and countries. We can only learn later when the full text is available. Challenging commodities like palm oil and soy would have added to the conclusions. as main fields of application for the empirical analyses. All three chains are characterized by various sustainability challenges, including environmental degradation, abundant use of agrochemicals, poor working conditions, and widespread poverty.

From a governance perspective, the emergence of partnerships is largely positive inasmuch as partnerships act as initiators and agents of change which, although still mostly confined to niche markets Excuse me, niche markets? Coffee, cotton and cocoa? In terms of supply, or demand? Or related to sustainability?, unfolds a chain-wide governance effect. Partnerships create new practices focusing on technological change and performance at the production level. While many partnerships promote standards as competitive strategies Or pre-competitive, as is mostly the case. It's about level playing field most of the time. to safeguard the application of the new practices, other partnerships link up in networks and exchange resources to facilitate sustainable change. From a development perspective, the positive effects of partnerships are rather indirect and ambiguous. Yeah, and now I need the full text, because what does Verena mean by that?

Several aspects of partnerships can be viewed critically and challenge their capacity to promote sustainable change. The benefits for producers are often uncertain as partnerships largely operate in a business-driven and top-down mode, and do not address certain development concerns Which does not mean they are not beneficial for the producers as is indicated here., such as the strengthening of organizational capital. You would like to see a situation where partners agree on the issues and concerns and then act on those. In as far as that is logical for the main objectives of those partners. I still remember all the wise words from Director Generals at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture before going to Africa, telling me that "You have to make it work on both sides and make it business, because then you are talking sustainable sustainability!". And I would add that producers should be part and parcel of the partnerships: committed sustainability or "embedded certification" as Adrie Papma of Oxfam Novib called it this afternoon. By creating long term inclusive partnerships we could even get rid of certification and go for sustainability processing throughout the chain. These differing conclusions on the capacity of partnerships can be explained by the fact that partnerships largely embody the neoliberal agenda, which appears to marginalize certain development concerns Agree, because that was and is not supposed to be the reason for being for those partnerships. Business Based Building for Sustainability. Other actors are in the 'business' of addressing "certain development concerns"., including the issue of smallholder empowerment Now, this is adressed in most parterships nowadays., the costs and benefits of different certification schemes This is most certainly discussed., or the implications of partnerships for the poorest segment of producers Is Verena talking here about producers in the chain of producers outside the chain, not to conclude that every producer should and would benefit from being a part of the chain. The dominance of business objectives over development concerns It's not the dominance I would say, it is a deliberate choice to concentrate on what you are good at as a partner and what kind of change you can actually make. shows that partnerships are constrained in their capacity to reshape the relationship between business and development without external incentives. Ultimately, they might adjust current structures, but it is unlikely that the incremental change pursued by many partnerships would lead to a more fundamental change. Fundamental change of what? This indicates that such concerns cannot be addressed through a collaborative attempt to make a business case They also should not if I have a feel for the development concerns of Verena. We do not want private sector governance in public sector issues I would think., as is the underlying assumption of partnerships. As a result, it might be hypothesized that the resolution of such issues would require a political struggle of social contestation A struggle for superiority or victory between rivals, sounds like a war t me. .rather than collaboration in order to re-negotiate the relationship between business and development. Is that not going back to the old days, where we tried to catch each others flies. I hope not.

Given the active role of NGOs in initiating the partnership trend by challenging firm behavior, it depends mostly on NGOs to re-politicize their interactions with businesses That I challenge, you seems to push business into an area where they do not have expertise, and achieve a broader framing of the sustainability problems than businesses are willing to endorse. It is not about willing, it is about expertise. And that is the whole idea behind partnerships, to bring different kinds of expertise together to enhance sustainability in those areas where business is active. Please, let's not try to make businesses into a kind of mini-governments.

Verena, I invite you for a seminar where we can discuss your research and my experience. Together with other actors. That sounds like an interesting afternoon!

Fear and sustainability

"Dear Sustainability Movement,

Please cease and desist all claims of saving the planet in promotional, educational and propaganda materials. I’ve done a simple calculation that indicates to me that the movement is not sustaining the planet, but is delaying the destruction of the planet. "

This is what Christopher Fugitt, working with LEED, wrote about a year ago. And he was a constructive guy that brought some ideas to the table to really start sustaining the planet.

I sense a lot of fear, and I think working on sustainability should be associated with hope. And most of the time that is not how it starts. I am dreaming up several phases for business in that respect:

1. The "Image"-approach. Sustainability is seen upon as a handy PR-tool. Most of the time anybody working specifically on the topic is reports into the communications department.
2. The "Risk"-approach. Oh so many risks are associated with sustainability: safety, claims related to social and environmental issues, health claims.
3. The "Retirement"-approach. This is about CEOs that are getting to their retirement and want to "do something good for the world."
4. The "It couldn't hurt"-approach. Let's do this thing and we will probably get some benefit out of it.
5. The "Step-by step"-approach. Stay very close to your business and see how you can incrementally do the right thing.
6. The "Beyond-my-grave"-approach. Also known as the visionary approach. Some CEOs love to take this route, because they will never be held accountable for their promise 10 or how many tears ahead.

Anyway, my main message today is that lots of sustainability efforts are being started upon with some pretty off track motives. Sustainability is actually about making money while doing good. And you need very, very creative people to be able to accomplish that. And I see loads of fear associated with sustainability. Not just with starting to work on sustainability because you are afraid of the consequences otherwise, but also while working on it being on the alert all the time because somebody could get after you. That leads to a minimalistic policy, avoiding the real business. Even for companies that do their bit.

Fear drives out vision. And without that it becomes sauerkraut. An acid type of doing good, only because you fear the consequences. Be transparent and engaged, and you will be complimented for that. That gives hope. The other way around you remain paralyzed in the incremental steps. Let;s get rid of the fear. Let's step out and just say what we want to do, why we want to do it, how we want to do it, what we know and what we do not know. What worked and what did not work. Then, and only then, can be we become really creative in integrating people, planet and prosperity.

Dutch supermarket industry now turning towards sustainability?

Earlier this week the Dutch supermarket umbrella CBL published its plans to become more environmentally sustainable. For whatever reason the CBL choose to go public with the weakest element of the plan: stop giving away free plastic bags at the cash register. Mind you: only at the cash register, we still have all those bags at the fruit- and vegetable counters. No clue how much bags we talk about? Plastic bags in itself are a big sales item, so we do not expect them to go away for a long time. Maybe time for some recycled designer bag ideas...

Anyway, the plans are solid in general. By 2020:

• reduce transport CO₂-emissions by 20% 
• improve energy efficiency by 20%
• green energy 20%

I could not find the baseline, bus I guess that might be hidden somewhere in the plan. Just wait, I found it: "In 10 years time..." Now, that means they will publish the baseline hopefully and report on progress. When I compare these targets against the European targets: "The European Council ... targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990 levels; increasing the share of renewables in final energy consumption to 20%; and moving towards a 20% increase in energy efficiency.", then I conclude that the first CBL target might be weaker than that of Europe, because it only relates to transport. At the same time the baseline of 2010 might make it more challenging. As for energy efficiency and the green energy target, they are both an end state, so here CBL equals Europe. I must say that the Dutch target for green energy is 14% by 2020. So related to that CBL will be outperforming.

Overall a promising sign. One challenge remains: how to get the consumer to reduce his or her footprint. That will be the debate: who is and can be responsible? How to get that consumer pure and honest at the same time.