Sustainable Business Development

by Ashok Khosla

The frontier is no longer where it used to be – over t he horizon. Each day we are
confronted by the limits of our planet’ resources. Survival, even in the short term, is now
widely recognised to be a matter of wiser use of nature’s bounties. But where does the
trade-off between conservation and industrial growth lie? And who should decide on the
costs to be paid and the benefits to be gained? A nation’s entry into the global market
brings it not only foreign investment and new products, but also fresh ideas. Some of the
new products and ideas can be quite destructive of indigenous industries and values.
Standardised by alien packaged foods and drinks, uniform patterns of dress and mindless
consumerism represent the less attractive outcomes of globalisation.
But the fresh ideas can also open avenues of great hope for the future. Competitiveness,
efficiency and self-fulfilment through better use of resources are certainly goals all societies
can meaningfully aspire to. At the same time, they must also deal with many issues of a
global nature. Saving the ozone shield that protects us from the sun’s ultra violet rays is
one such issue. Avoiding sea level rises that are likely to follow the rise in global
temperature which, in turn, results from man made gases released into the atmosphere, is
another. More important, perhaps, is the fact that the causes of environmental problems
also include many global concerns, particularly the stark imbalances that exist in
international economy. Neither the problems of poverty nor those of pollution can be
removed either by unthinkingly accepting one type of ”development” as the only correct one
or blindly rejecting another. In a country as diverse as India with people and resources
whose characteristics span a range that is almost global, no single type of solution can be
enough. Our needs will require solutions that are both big and small, public and private
and combine the modern with the traditional.
Corporations have great power in determining the directions our future takes. Industry
gives us the many products we now need merely to survive. And the jobs to earn the
incomes we need to pay for these. But it is also like a hungry monster, devouring large
quantities of raw materials with an insatiable appetite. Through the choice of products they
manufacture, the production technologies they employ and the marketing strategies they
use, the corporations have a vast impact on both the environment and development. With
such power comes responsibility.
2B or not 2B. That was the question that troubled Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. But the
princes of today run corporations, not states. And, with all the benefits they confer on
society, there is yet something rotten in the world of business. Waste, pollution and
resource degradation. The question to business is no longer 2B, but rather 4C. Will they
introduce their own machinery to foresee the future, and introduce cleaner production, or
will they have to be forced to do so by the public? Foresight and strategic planning do not
come easily to executiveness whose primary concern is the bottomline for the next quarter.
But the market place is not only efficient. It is brutal. Businesses that do not stay one step
ahead of the impending resource and environment crunch will soon be out of business.
It is not uncommon for industrialists to take advantage of the free resources of the
environment, both as raw materials for their processes and as sinks for their wastes. The
costs are, of course, passed on to others who have to breathe the foul air and drink the
contaminated waters left over. And to those who have to eke ecosystem. That, after all, is
what the marketplace has been doing for the past couple of centuries: internalising the
benefits and externalising the costs.
But if the invisible hand of the free market is not to become the clenched fist of neo feudal
economy, our basic assumptions must change, quickly and quite radically. Money cannot
be all that counts. People, nature and life in general are also important. Busines must now
become a better corporate citizen, for its own good and for the good of its neighbours.