The anxiety among young people and those concerned about our current path is evident.
Every year, leading up to the COP meeting at the end of November, there is a constant flow of panic-inducing news reports, followed by speeches from UN officials and heads of government who try to compel us into taking action.
While some businesses in the Caribbean are starting to think and talk about sustainability, an increasing number are also taking action.
However, these efforts are insufficient, and urgent scaling-up is required. T
o accelerate progress, we must identify genuine sustainable initiatives and distinguish them from superficial attempts that continue harmful practices.
Unsustainability a governance failure
My colleague Dr Victoria Hurth, with whom I had the pleasure of leading the development of ISO 37000 Governance of Organisations – Guidance, which was adopted as a national standard in TT, St Lucia and Jamaica in 2022, presents a clear and compelling equation:
Economy = wellbeing = sustainability
Economies are the systems through which we convert various forms of capital into the wellbeing of people. This is the ultimate value we aim to create.
Governing involves three decision practices: directing towards goals within constraints, overseeing to ensure goal achievement within constraints, and accountability to others if goals are met or explaining corrective actions if they are not.
Over the past few decades, the assumption has prevailed that financial success, measured by GDP at the economy level and profit at the firm level, is a sufficient indicator of wellbeing.
As a result, resource consumption, social and human impacts and the actual achievement of wellbeing have been left entirely to the invisible hand of the market and as a result, unsustainably governed.
A major study on biodiversity published in February 2021, The Economics of Biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review, revealed that our current approach to value-generation is highly inefficient and unsustainable.
Maintaining our current living standards would require 1.6 Earths and the stock of natural capital per person has declined by nearly 40 per cent between 1992 and 2014.
This is not solely due to market failures, but also institutional failures.
Our governments often exacerbate the problem by financially incentivising the exploitation of nature and prioritising unsustainable economic activities over conservation.
In the Caribbean, a review of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in 2023 showed that after seven years, only 23 per cent of the goals are on track, leaving 77 per cent to be achieved in the next seven years.
Sustainability is emerging everywhere
In this context, sustainability is seeking to emerge at all levels worldwide.
Wales, for example, is redirecting its economy to establish a wellbeing economy.
However, the main focus of this column is on companies, how they can grow sustainable value generation and how they can contribute to sustainable development.
In this respect, the Caribb
