SustainAbility

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Founded by John Elkington in the late 1980s, SustainAbility calls itself “a strategy consultancy and independent think tank specialising in the business risks and market opportunities of corporate responsibility and sustainable development.”

SustainAbility tries to bridge both camps between the NGO world and business community, arguing of the need to bring the two together. It is both a business consultancy but also a progressive think-tank. Its critics argue that it just helps big business greenwash its operations.

Key People

John Elkington, Founder and Chief Entrepreneur. He is widely seen as an authority on corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. Best-selling author of numerous books. Coined the phrase “triple bottom line”. Chairman of the Government’s Export Guarantees Advisory Council (EGAC) July 2005-2007.[1] Also on the committee for Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, Business in the Environment, Royal Society of Arts.[2]

Sophia Tickell, Chair of the Board. She is an ex-Senior Advisor at Oxfam and Pharma Futures, a scenario planning exercise on the long-term risks & opportunities facing the pharmaceutical industry.[3]

Mark Lee, CEO. Ex- Vice President at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) in San Francisco and, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility at VanCity Savings in Vancouver. Clients include Ford, Nike and Starbucks.

Raison d’etre

SustainAbility sees itself as having pioneered the CSR and sustainable development debate for thirty years. It has pioneered corporate benchmark reporting and dialogue. However, many of the techniques being advocated by SustainAbility are used by business as PR techniques to greenwash their operations and divide their opposition. SustainAbility is a business strategy consultancy: offering advice to some of the world’s most controversial companies that have huge ecological social and cultural impact.

Re-branding Shell from Corporate Villain to Good Corporate Citizen

In 1995, SustainAbility initially refused to work with Shell following the Brent Spar fiasco and its endemic pollution and collusion with the Nigerian military in human rights abuses in Nigeria. However by 1997, the consultancy was advising Shell on its major new public relations campaign called “Profit and Principles” as well as Shell’s underlying PR strategy. In 1999, Shell even borrowed SustainAbility’s catch-phrase, “People, Planet, Profit” for the subtitle on one of their reports. Tom Delfgaauw former Vice President of Sustainable Development at Shell later joined SustainAbility as its first non-executive director.[4]

Biotechnology

Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, a healthcare and pharmaceutical company is one of SustAinability’s oldest clients. It has also worked with other biotech companies such as Aventis, Cargill Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis and Unilever. Elkington has made much of the fact that SustainAbility resigned its relationship with GM giant Monsanto in the late nineties, because they resisted his advice on societal tensions in Europe with regard to GM technology. Elkington is pro-biotech arguing that “there is a ‘sustainability case’ for many forms of biotechnology.”[5]


Bluewashing

In 2002 SustainAbility launched The 21st Century NGO: In the Market for Change report, published with the UN Global Compact. Whilst this report argued that NGOs themselves needed to become more accountable, some have questioned the legitimacy of the Global Compact. CorpWatch in the US argues that the Compact allows companies to “bluewash” (rather than greenwash) their operations. Bluewashing is, according to the New York Times, “allowing some of the largest and richest corporations to wrap themselves in the United Nations’ blue flag without requiring them to do anything new.”

Further criticism

It has drawn criticism from other quarters too: Judith Richter, the author of Holding Corporations Accountable argues “I am very concerned that the Global Compact has endorsed and thus legitimised a corporate study on how public-interest NGOs should behave.” Richter argues that if Sustainability’s “recommendations were heeded, it would put corporations and their lobby associations in a better position to lobby for a cut in funding of corporate watchdog groups and networks … The UN's support, via the Global Compact, for the simplistic analyses presented in this study may damage efforts to hold corporations accountable to the world's citizens."

Best-selling author David Korten is similarly sceptical. He argues “the effort by corporations to discredit the public whistle blowers who are exercising their rights as organized bodies of citizens to draw attention to corporate attacks on democracy, the public interest, and the integrity of the United Nations is an example of cynical corporate PR spin and unmitigated hypocrisy”. Critics argue that is Sustainability’s problem: it promotes engagement between NGOs and companies as the way forward, yet companies use dialogue as a PR technique to outwit their critics. Companies may also change their literature but not their operations. If this is the case, SustainAbility becomes nothing more than just another public relations company –with its “green credentials” providing better cover than most PR companies.


Contact

20-22 Bedford Row London, WC1R 4EB

References

  1. [1]
  2. [2]
  3. [3]
  4. SustainAbility website, accessed November 2007
  5. John Elkington Biotechnology: the Case for Sustainability, OpenDemocracy, August 19, 2003


Clients

Since 1987 SustainAbility has worked for more than 150 clients including companies, governments and NGOs worldwide.

Client Sector Country
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ABN-Amro Finance Netherlands
Abbott Laboratories Pharmaceutical US
Ahlstrom Fibers Finland
American Chemistry Council Chemical US
Aracruz Celulose Pulp & Paper Brazil
AWG Plc Water services UK
Association for Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Finance UK
AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical UK / Sweden
Aventis Pharmaceutical France
BASF Chemical Germany
Baxter Pharmaceutical US
Bayer AG Healthcare & Nutrition Germany
BC Hydro Energy Hydro Energy Canada
Ben & Jerry's Food US
BMW Group Automotive Germany
Body Shop Retail UK
Bristol Myers Squibb Company Pharmaceutical US
British Petroleum Energy UK
British Petroleum Chemicals Chemical UK
British Airports Authority (BAA) Airports UK
British Airways Aviation UK
British Telecom/BT Telecommunications UK
British Gas Energy UK
Building Design Partnership (BDP) Architect UK
Cable & Wireless Telecommunications UK
Camelot Lottery UK
Capital One Finance UK
Cable & Wireless Telecommunications UK
Cargill Dow Polymers US
Canon Electronics Japan
CEFIC Chemical Belgium
ChevronTexaco Oil US
Chiquita Food US
Coca-Cola GB Beverages US/UK
Commission of the European Communities (CEC) Government Europe
Compass Group Foodservice & Hospitality UK
Co-operative Bank Finance UK
Credit Suisse Group Finance Switzerland
CSIRO Research Australia
Danish Steelworks Steel Denmark
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI ) Government UK
Deutsche Post Telecommunications Germany
Dk-Teknik Energy Denmark
Dosfasco Steel Canada
Dow Chemical Chemical US
DuPont Chemical US
Energex Energy Australia
European Environment Agency (EEA) Government Europe
ESAB Welding & Cutting Sweden
Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD)
Ferrosan Healthcare & Medical devices Healthcare & Medical Denmark
Ford India Automotive India
Ford Motor Company Automotive US
Friends, Ivory, Sime Finance UK
GEMI US
General Motors Corporation Automotive US
Greenpeace International NGO UK
Hewlett Packard (HP) IT US
Holcim (formerly Holderbank) Cement Switzerland
IBM Corporation IT US
IBM UK IT UK
ICI Plc Chemical UK
ING Finance Netherlands
INSEAD Academic France
Intel Corporation Electronics US
International Finance Corporation (IFC) Finance US
ITT Flygt Pumps Sweden
Microsoft IT and Software US
Mistra Foundation Sweden
mmO2 Telecomms UK
Monsanto Biotechnology Biotechnology US
National Grid Energy UK
National Power Plc Energy UK
National Provident Institution (NPI) Finance UK
Nike Apparel US
Nissan Automotive Japan/UK
Noranda Mining and Metals Mining and Metals Canada
Norsk Hydro ASA Energy & Aluminum Norway
Northumbrian Water Plc Water Serivces UK
Novartis International AG Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Switzerland
Novo Nordisk A/S Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Denmark
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Multilateral Multilateral
Pfizer Pharmaceutical US
PG&E National Energy Group Energy US
Powergen Energy UK
Procter & Gamble Consumer Products UK
PruPIM Property UK
Queensland Environmental Protection Agency Government Australia
Rohm & Haas Company Chemical US
Royal Dutch / Shell Group Oil UK / Netherlands
SAB Miller Brewing South Africa
St Luke’s Advertising UK
Schlumberger Oilfield Services US
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Government UK
ScottishPower Energy UK
Shell Chemicals Chemical UK
SITA Waste Management UK
Skanska Construction Services Sweden
Solvay Chemical & Pharmaceutical
Sony Consumer Electronics Japan
Starbucks Beverages US
Statoil Oil Norway
Swedish Airports Authority Luftfartsverket Airports Sweden
Swiss Re Finance Switzerland
Sydney Water Water Australia
Tioxide Chemical UK
Toyota Automotive Japan / Belgium
TSB Bank Finance
TXU Energy
Unilever Consumer Goods UK / Netherlands
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Government
United Nations Global Compact Government US
Vodafone Telecommunications UK
Volvo Automotive Sweden
Volkswagen Automotive Germany
Wachovia Corporation Finance US
Watercare Services Ltd Water Services New Zealand
Westpac Banking Corporation Finance Australia
World Resources Institute (WRI) NGO US
WMC Mining & Minerals Australia
World Bank Finance US
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) NGO UK