From Protest to Collaboration

I was very eager to attend the Net Impact conference, to get inspired by forward thinking change happening in the world of sustainability and business. So when Kim Jeffery of Nestle Waters first hit the stage I was disheartened. Who let this guy in? How a respectable sustainability conference could put someone who represented the bottled water industry on this type of pedestal was beyond me. I wrote down my angry questions and refused to listen to any justifications from someone in his position. The only way they could justify being sustainable would be by not existing. If it weren’t for the other amazing panellist (co-author of Cradle to Cradle Bill McDonough) I would have tuned out completely. As the talk went on I slowly calmed down and realized that in fact my anger was pretty unhelpful and instead I pay attention to what was happening. If Bill McDonough was able to listen and approve, maybe there was something worth listening to. What I slowly came to realize is that an industry like bottled water is a reality; instead of protesting and fighting it perhaps we should be looking at ways of making it better. And while in no circumstance is bottled water better than reusable bottles the reality is that there are many people out there who just won’t change their behaviour. I realized then that there’s no point in me being angry in this moment, I had a lot to learn.

This shift in thinking ended up being reflective in many of the speakers I saw at the conference. I heard from a representative from the Airline industry and the Army who were banding together to try to build scale in the emerging alternative fuels industry. How Starbucks invited competing coffee shops like Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton’s to try to think of solutions for recycling coffee cups. This shift in behaviour all surrounding the issue of sustainability was actually refreshing and created a huge shift in my thinking.  It indicates that many companies care more about their impact on the planet than immediate competitive advantage. They’ve learned that gaining scale through collaboration will get them further than making excuses.

Before I abandon my anger altogether I will say that collaboration alone is not enough. You have to question why these companies are doing anything in the first place. Do you think Starbucks would be proactive about recycling cups if they weren’t met with any public resistance? Do you think the bottled water industry would be working to make their product ‘less bad’ if there wasn’t such a massive uprising against them? Hardly. Ultimately you need a healthy balance of both protest and collaboration in this world to get anything done. While I won’t stop lecturing friends and strangers on why drinking bottled water is ridiculous, I will also take inspiration from Mr. McDonough and try to actually do something about it.