For a long time now, the term sustainability has been flying over corporate strategies (and those of entire countries) and many business models. However, very few companies have since managed to give it the value of a strategic axis of transformation. And even fewer have been able to extract a demonstrable economic benefit in their balance sheets and income statements.
Why is this happening? The answer is surprisingly simple: because no one has wanted to see that natural resources and energy sources are finite, the cost has never reflected the scarcity that has always existed. Therefore, recycling, repairing and manufacturing locally have never been competitive with waste and squandering. It is that simple and that sad. The palpable proof of which we are beginning to pay the consequences is globalization: producing thousands of kilometers away, with cheap energy sources (and pollutants such as coal), with almost slave labor and with raw materials from the Third World that have been plundered.
Of course, with the complicity of millions of consumers in the first world. For example, it is known and proven that there are not enough rare earths and precious metals to manufacture the huge number of batteries needed to implement the electric vehicle under a business model based on ownership. The cost of extracting these materials rises every day and generates geopolitical tensions in Africa for the control of the deposits. Does it make sense for the big manufacturers to continue manufacturing millions of cars? Although the correct question would be whether they will be able to do so.
The paradox is that the wealth generated does not go to society (or at least in an equitable manner), but to oligarchs, billionaires and political or military elites.
Well, this is all over. We can now say that sustainability is starting to be profitable and that technology, not just digital technology, is the key to enabling the new industrial transformation that lies ahead.
How will we replace the semi-slave labor from underdeveloped countries that is used in some industries? With automation. There is already enough robotic technology to automate any industrial process; all that is needed is for the numbers to come out. And they are starting to. Faced with rising logistics costs, many companies are relocating their production and investing in robotic plants. Any job that can be robotized will disappear. The economy will become servitized and technology will make it possible. All sectors will be technified and management profiles will be transversal to operations. Technology will be the common and binding element that will enable future strategies. Any action derived from a strategic plan will need technology to be carried out.
It is clear that if there is less production, less work, less material resources and expensive energy, societies will become poorer. If we continue to measure GDP as we have been doing up to now, we will certainly do so, and at this point, we have come up against the real challenge: changing the consumerist habits of our society. There is talk of evolving towards a conscious or responsible capitalism, but certainly the term “capitalism” does not fit very well with any other word that sounds like altruism. At the moment there seem to be no alternatives, they are just utopias, although they are increasingly becoming a reality.
At the individual level and in our organizations, we must incorporate sustainability and investment in technology as key factors, not only to improve competitiveness, but also to survive. On the one hand, we must anticipate the scarcity of natural resources by seeking alternative materials for our products or by recycling them, increasing their sustainability (this will soon be a legal requirement and an indispensable value in the customer experience) and reducing energy consumption.
On the other hand, we must invest in technology in two ways: automating and extracting knowledge from production and market data. Our ability to transform data into knowledge is the key.
A final brief note on sustainability: throughout the post we have used the term “sustainability” as a synonym for respect for the environment. We have not forgotten that being sustainable means much more. Sustainability is about putting people at the center. For this reason, no strategy will be sustainable, if it forgets about people.
And no technology will produce sustainable efficiency if the benefits generated do not benefit the company, society and the environment. The challenge as a society is to make business models that do not produce the above effect economically unviable.
We are at the beginning of this transition: in the battle for resources. The war in Ukraine, the African battlefield between China and the West, the emerging disputes in the Arctic, and so on. We are all trying to buy time separately and forget that we will find the solution together.
