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Winning in the Green Frenzy Gregory Unruh (gregoryunruh.com) is a professor and the director of the Lincoln Center at Thunderbird School of Global Management and the author of Earth, Inc. (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010). Richard Ettenson (richard.ettenson@thunderbird.edu) is an associate professor and a Thelma H. Kieckhefer fellow in global brand marketing at Thunderbird. In our experience, executives are of two minds regarding sustainability standards. Some view them as distractions from the im- portant work of running a business and avoid the discussion altogether. But that won’t make the standards go away, and simply claiming you’re green when you’re not de- stroys credibility. Other executives want to en- gage in the standard-setting process but are uncertain where or how to begin. Our recommendation: Leverage opportuni- ties to position your company as an influen- tial—or, better, dominant—force in the green- standards battle. Before choosing a strategy to accomplish that, you’ll have to make assess- ments in two areas, one external and one inter- nal. The former involves reviewing existing sus- tainability standards in your industry, the issues surrounding them, the forums in which they’re discussed, and the roles of key stake- holders—including competitors—in driving the debate. Your aim is to determine how much standardization exists in your industry and what opportunities you have to engage in or even reshape the sustainability discussion. For the internal assessment, evaluate your organization’s green capabilities, including technical competencies; its ability to generate superior green innovations in products and op- erations; its credibility as a green company; and current or potential partnerships. The cen- tral question you need to answer is “Do we have the right resources and competencies to set the sustainability pace for our industry?” Four Strategies to Choose From Once you understand both the situation in your industry and your company’s capabili- ties, you can determine which strategy is best: (1) adopt the existing standards; (2) co- opt and modify them to suit your capabilities and processes; (3) define standards for your industry; or (4) break away from existing ones and craft your own. (See the exhibit “Assess Your Possibilities.”) Adopt. If your industry has well-established standards and your sustainability capabilities are minimal, you should probably employ this strategy. Consider the situation in the building sector, where the opportunity to set standards has largely passed because the market and stakeholders—including builders, nonprofits, and governments—generally agree that LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental De- sign) certification constitutes the definitive standard. That has important implications for architects, designers, construction companies, suppliers of office-interior products, and a host of others. Because the LEED rating sys- tem offers four levels of certification—certi- fied, silver, gold, and platinum—that depend in part on greener building materials and fur- nishings, suppliers are scrambling to maxi- mize their products’ LEED scores. Likewise, suppliers to Wal-Mart, Tesco, Mc- Donald’s, and even the U.S. government are pressed to adapt their operations and offerings to meet the standards set by their major cus- tomers. In July 2009 Wal-Mart announced plans to develop a worldwide “sustainable product index” for everything it sources from its more than 100,000 suppliers. The index measures product-related energy use and waste and evaluates impact on natural re- sources and communities. Many companies will have no choice but to adjust their supply chains and operations if they want their goods to remain on Wal-Mart’s shelves. Companies that adopt industry standards should not underestimate the strategic value and marketplace advantage this option can give them. Adhering to Wal-Mart’s sustainable fisheries standards made The Fishin’ Company a trusted partner in its customers’ sustainabil- ity efforts. It became Wal-Mart’s largest sus- tainable seafood supplier, winning unprece- dented purchase orders and long-term contracts. And adopting industry standards need not make you a bystander in the debate. On the contrary, adoption legitimizes your par- ticipation as your industry’s sustainability stan- dards evolve. Co-opt. Green standards may be far along in the building sector, but the frenzy is just start- ing in most industries. The noncorporate stakeholders that are engaged in standard set- ting all want to see their own standards widely adopted—which means they need to find cor- porate partners to champion the standards and commercialize them. That fact gives com- panies an important but limited window in which to co-opt the standards of a credible sponsor—to negotiate modifications that will accommodate both commercial realities and social and environmental considerations. The banana producer Chiquita forged such a partnership with the Rainforest Alliance, an NGO that had long criticized Chiquita and its harvard business review • november 2010 page 3PDF Image | Winning in the Green Frenzy
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