SustainAbility

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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. Also on the committee for Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, Business in the Environment, Royal Society of Arts.

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.

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.

Contact

20-22 Bedford Row London, WC1R 4EB

Clients

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

Client	Sector	Country
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 EuropeanCommunities (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-operationand 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