Green Monday is a monthly news and networking event that brings together senior CSR, Sustainability, and climate change leaders and related green business innovators. Each monthly event will be a mixture of news, insight, analysis and networking.
This event will ask the critical question of whether our companies and economies can continue to grow without ultimately increasing ecological impacts. It will explore the relationship between our economy's cultural structure and the aims of the sustainability agenda. And explore the limits therein.
A number of businesses have recently announced ambitious plans to cut emissions, but they fall in to two distinct camps. One group are talking about absolute cuts and the others are talking about relative cuts - i.e. the second group are not pledging to cut their emissions at all, they are only agreeing to drive down the intensity at which those emissions are produced.
The question we need to be asking for our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions is can they be properly de-coupled from growth (the rate at which the services and products sold increases). There are other questions here around the incremental degrees of contentment that further growth brings and questions around the current model that values shareholder value over all else. But the main theme for tonight is: can businesses and economies continue to grow without a rise (and sufficient decrease) in ecological impacts.
Tim, who wrote the fascinating “Prosperity without Growth” and sits on the SDC, will be giving a snapshot of his thoughts on the topic and a feel for the alternative propositions. Santiago, VP, Brand Development at Unilever, will be explaining their view of the consumer business model going forward.
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