BU Research Blog

Sustainability as ‘an outcome of conscious thinking’ was discussed at the Faculty of Management’s ‘Sustainability Symposium’ recently.  The event was organised by Dr Karen Thompson and Professor Janet Dickinson in collaboration with the Association of Sustainability Practitioners and we began exploring ideas for new research on sustainability.

Changing economies across the globe to low or no carbon will require new understandings of the relationships between profit, people and the planet.  The new understandings are needed to inform development of new models and ways of doing business that reflect the complexities of social practices.  Three characteristics for research on sustainability issues were identified during the event:

1. Incorporate partnerships building with practitioners and stakeholders
2. Cross-disciplinary thinking that seeks to understand the complexity of social practices
3. Fundamental re-thinking of existing models and ways of doing business.

New approaches to research will be required to address the challenges that face society today and will need to incorporate partnership building.  Derek Robbins, Faculty of Management, is already doing this in his research with bus companies on developing smart apps.  Dr Karen Thompson and Dr Nigel Williams shared their example of using social learning to collaborate with practitioners to develop the new concept of Responsible Project Management.

Their work has recently been shared with local councillors and they are exploring the possibilities for using a framework based on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals to promote better decision-making.

Research will also need to be cross-disciplinary.  New models of business that link social practices with the possibilities arising from technological innovation, such as driverless electric cars, are required.  One participant commented:

“this is a really important topic and it was useful to have people here from multiple disciplines because they have different views and are prepared to challenge.  Personally I found I learnt a lot from the other speakers even though I’ve been working in this area for quite some time, so thank you very much.” (EC)

Research that seeks incremental improvement is unlikely to deliver enough change quickly enough.  Re-thinking existing economic and business models from the bottom-up is required, and new models must balance the need for environmental restoration, reducing conflict between communities as well as being economically viable.

As well as the dependencies between economy, people and planet, there are other dependencies to be understood.  There are internal dependencies that underpin our actions and determine outcomes.  Values and information underpin the choices humans make, and our choices determine our actions and the outcomes.  Understanding and, ultimately changing values, will clearly be very challenging.

Four sustainability ‘mindsets’ have been identified and the challenge is how to move society towards the top right quadrant of conscious awareness.  Research is urgently required on understanding what will work and what are the barriers to change.  Researchers will need to work closely with practitioners and businesses to experiment and evaluate alternatives, and they urgently need to do so.

For further information, or to discuss how these models can be used, please contact Dr Karen Thompson, Dr Nigel Williams or Professor Janet Dickinson, all from Faculty of Management.

The Faculty of Management held a “Sustainability Symposium” yesterday as one response to the challenges facing businesses today. Organised by Dr Karen Thompson in collaboration with Professor Janet Dickinson and Gwyn Jones, a Director of the Association of Sustainability Practitioners, the event brought together over 50 participants, including academics from a range of disciplines, students and external practitioners.

Sustainability is not just about technology, as Professor Janet Dickinson explains:

“The Committee on Climate Change suggest the UK could achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  Technology is expected to produce 38% of the reduction, societal/behavioural change delivering 9% and the remining 53% coming from a combination of both.”

Clearly, social scientists and business experts will need to work with the technologists to develop solutions and change society if we are to achieve this target.

Nor is sustainability just an issue for future generations.  The impacts of greenhouse gas emissions are here today and, according to the latest models, we only have a very short window of opportunity before the planet reaches a ‘tipping point’ beyond which we will be unable to reverse progress towards an uninhabitable planet.  “Being less unsustainable is not the same as being sustainable” (Hugo Spowers, Founder & CEO of Riversimple).

Sustainability is high on the list of priorities for BU.  Our BU2025 vision includes KPIs for all our research and education to be aligned with one or more of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and a new Strategic Investment Area has recently been launched in ‘Sustainability, Low-Carbon Technology and Materials Science’.

Business is one of the greatest forces on the planet.  Emerging research suggests that companies who proclaim their ‘green’ credentials most loudly often perform the worst, not just in terms of the environment but also in terms of profits and shareholder value over the long term.  Trading-off between the short term and the long term, or between domains, does not produce sustainability for a business.

One of the questions posed by Gwyn Jones was ‘What are we trying to sustain?  He suggested that what we are aiming to sustain is life.  And the question we do not yet have an answer to is ‘How can 10 billion people live in harmony and peace, equitably by 2050?’

Seeking answers to this question in a business context involves developing our understandings of the dependencies among profit, people and planet.  In other words, every business depends upon a community, and all communities depend on the natural environment.

All businesses draw resources from and have impacts, both beneficial and detrimental, on the other domains.  Awareness and understanding of these dependencies will be required if we are to make progress.  The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals can provide a useful framework for analysing impact and are mapped against the biosphere, society and the economy.

Sustainability has profound implications for both education and research.

We explored the question ‘Can sustainability be taught?’ (see a separate post on this).

Research on sustainability is likely to require one or more of the three characteristics identified during the event:

1. Cross-disciplinary thinking that seeks to understand the complexity of social practices
2. Fundamental re-thinking of existing models and ways of doing business
3. Partnerships with practitioners and stakeholders representing the interests of all domains.

Further thoughts on the implications for research are discussed in a separate post (see ‘Sustainability changes everything’).

For further information please contact Dr Karen Thompson or Professor Janet Dickinson, from Faculty of Management.