In our sustainability month, during the conference where we presented our Social Report 2022, with Aurelio Bauckneht of Gabrielli & Partner, author of the podcast Stories from Markets, we discussed some important topics related to the history of sustainability, corporate culture and marketing.
There are concepts and disciplines such as sports, war, sexuality, fashion, good food, or medicine that we all know well or badly; they are part of our everyday life and therefore anyone could have a sensible opinion on the subject without being a true expert. Often our lives refer to concepts that we humans began to develop long, long ago, sometimes as early as prehistoric times. These are issues that run under our skin, in our DNA, part of our collective imagination. Unfortunately, however, for sustainability, this is not quite the case.
Sustainability: a new concept
Sustainability is a new concept that we started talking about, basically, only in the 1800s, and that is why we still struggle to understand its true value. The history of sustainability has a very recent origin, and Aurelio Bauckneht has narrated its main junctures. Among the various milestones, extremely significant is the so-called Dust Bowl, a phenomenon that occurred in the Great Plains of the United States in the 1930s, which created massive economic and environmental damage due to poor agronomic practices. Decades of deep plowing and mismanagement of monocultures, such as corn, led to the disintegration of the first layer of fertile soil; the humus little by little became dust and the winds swept it away, generating real sandstorms that largely ended up in the ocean. All this led to a devastating decline in agricultural productivity; many farmers lost both their jobs and their homes, originating a migration phenomenon that involved hundreds of thousands of people. A truly catastrophic socio-environmental and economic drama. This is just one among the events that happened that, decade after decade, contributed to the maturation of the concept of sustainability and environmental preservation in the full meaning that we now share globally. But it was not always so. It has been very difficult to unhinge that anthropocentric view that granted humans the right to exploit the planet. A real awareness of these issues really began to grow only in the second half of the 20th century.
"Just think," Aurelio Bauckneht continues, "that until 1968 no human being had ever had the opportunity to see planet Earth in its entirety. In the - very recent - chronology of photos of the Earth taken from space, the breakthrough was made possible by the Apollo 8 mission of '68, with some wonderful photos that have rightfully entered our imagination. Before then, no one had ever admired the beauty of that extraordinary blue dot immersed in the darkness of the universe that we all know today. The Apollo 8 photos represent a fundamental turning point in the development of the concept of sustainability. Until then, humanity could only rely on grainy images taken by a few satellites, which were mostly black and white and unclear. The photos taken during the Apollo 8 mission were among the first to show the Earth in its entirety, allowing the birth of a new visual and cultural relationship between humans and their planet. For all of us today, it is taken for granted to see the Earth from that perspective, but at the time it was not at all. It is thanks to such episodes that sustainability-from a phenomenon unknown to the masses-slowly began to transform into a public, widely shared heritage.
Knowing the flow of these historical facts is important for understanding the history of sustainability. But history has always been determined not only by facts but also by people. Who are the personalities who have most marked our imagination, by virtue of their passion, professionalism and commitment? During his talk, Aurelio Bauckneht mentioned three in particular:
- John Muir born in 1838, traveled extensively across the United States in territories not yet man-made. He discovered the natural beauty of the Yosemite Valley and encouraged the establishment of one of the very first national parks in the world. Through his experiences and writings, he is considered the father of environmentalism. He is an extraordinary and emblematic figure who also helps us understand how many things we take for granted today, for example, the very concept of a protected area, a natural park. But nothing in history is ever taken for granted, especially in the history of sustainability. All these happenings, these breakthroughs, have all been difficult achievements that, progressively, have allowed us to arrive at our time with our awareness about sustainability.
- Aurelio Peccei was an Italian manager who held leading roles at Fiat and Olivetti; through his extraordinary work, he fostered the acceleration of the culture of sustainability by revealing the global scope of social change. With the support of leading scientists from around the world, he founded the nongovernmental association Club of Rome in 1968 and initiated reflection on various issues, from the exploitation of raw materials to climate change. Peccei's work took off, among other things, in a very particular historical period, full of social tensions that threatened to overshadow issues such as environmentalism and sustainability. If today the universality of these concepts, with their global reach, is a clear and shared fact, it is thanks in large part to Peccei and the Club of Rome.
- Pope Francis published the encyclical Laudato sì in 2015. Religion has always been a cultural driver influencing our lives: with this encyclical the revs of the sustainability engine have increased, albeit with great delay. Pope Francis, especially within the perimeter of Christian culture, has contributed strongly to overcoming the anthropocentric vision of a creation made for the exclusive use of humans.
The correlation with organic farming
The history of agriculture rightly participates in the history of sustainability. And here, too, it is appropriate to become aware of those facts and personalities that enabled its development. We have just passed an important anniversary: in 1922 chemists Bosch and Meiser perfected the industrial synthesis of urea, a chemical compound at the very basis of the concept of fertilization. The use of this nitrogen fertilizer greatly increased agricultural production after World War II, consequently improving food sustainability worldwide. But this product is a full 101 years old and is, in fact, an obsolete technology even though it is still the basis of many conventional fertilization plans. If we asked farmers to replace urea with something more innovative and sustainable few would agree because the "I've always done it this way" mentality still dominates. This fact shows how there is a lot of resistance to change in the sustainability story that we have to deal with.
Another key figure is Sir Howard, an English agronomist and pioneer of sustainability in agriculture, who in 1940 published a book devoted to natural fertilization techniques. He is considered to be one of the fathers of organic farming, an agronomic technique that, playfully, is very recent; organic has not yet had time to build up a solid and firm "know-how"; let us make, for example, a comparison with medicine, a discipline whose history is very ancient and is based on knowledge established over millennia. But other agriculture, not organic as we understand it today, is also based on recently developed agronomic techniques. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1970, is considered the father of the Green Revolution, a definition that refers, in essence, to what we now call conventional agriculture. The proposed agronomic techniques were based on a strong increase in chemical fertilization and phytoiatric defense, and genetic improvement of varieties. But soon the unquestionable successes achieved, related to increased productivity and improved food sustainability, opened up environmental questions that still have no clear answer today. But again we see that the story of sustainability (which also becomes food, economic, and social sustainability) unfolds through very recent stages that have yet to be consolidated; a rich, challenging, but young story.
What can companies that have embraced the path of sustainability do to share this know-how?
Doing business is very complex, as is selling. The consumer is contradictory and convincing him to accept our promise of sustainability is very difficult. Business communication must first comply with legislation, and the European Union is actively helping to create the cultural and regulatory framework, but the framework is not yet completely solid. The Italian Constitution is, in this sense, emblematic: the concept of sustainability was introduced Constitution only in March 2022 with the updating of Articles 9 and 41. In particular, Article 41 is-for those involved in business-especially poignant because it substantially rewrites the very definition of a company. Today a business must be sustainable by law. If you are not sustainable, you cannot be a business. Promoting sustainability is therefore about the purpose of the company, first of all because the state is asking us to do so. And it is also, of course, about content and language, which the state and the EU are progressively perimetering; today, for example, it is no longer possible to use claims such as "zero km" or "short supply chain" if you do not meet precise parameters; in 2022 the European Council proposed to regulate the use of terms related to the semantics of sustainability to avoid the abuse we have all witnessed in recent years and to give the consumer the most transparent information possible. But it is not only an issue related to regulations. Communication in Italian companies is often problematic because important knots underlying business culture have not been untied. The DNA of SMEs is linked to production, to know-how, to the production line, and this is reflected in communication that is often too focused on the product, on the technical detail; identity, the "why" and positioning take a back seat. Simon Sinek with his work on the Golden Circle in 2009 made a key contribution, and this is one of the aspects that characterizes the consulting service we offer as Gabrielli & Partners. Communicating sustainability makes sense if it is really part of the corporate identity, of one's "why," and if it translates into a true value underlying the client's "why," that is, the reason that should drive us to choose one supplier over another. Let us add, moreover, that companies often come from a past with little concern for sustainability, from a culture that is a child of the 1900s with other priorities. So-called greenwashing certainly does not help to resolve these situations; on the contrary, it makes them worse. But change is always possible and can be communicated, without being afraid of our past.
Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset left us an important lesson: "I am me and my circumstances, and if I deny them, I deny myself." Corporate identity is always connected to its history, its growth, its territorial and environmental context, and it is also the child of mistakes and failures. A full awareness of oneself and corporate values must also start from these circumstances and must be transformed into a value narrative to fuel the so-called strategic positioning.
Review our event dedicated to the Social Report 2022 here.
