The Future of Business Sustainability

Today marks the first installment of Big Think’s new series on business sustainability, sponsored by Logica. For the next thirteen Mondays (through June 8, 2010), we will release in-depth discussions with top European experts focusing on how we can better align the interests of business with the greater social good. Today we release clips of interviews with a few international industry leaders and policy makers: Chairman of Nestle Peter Brabeck, former Prime Minister of Norway Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, and CEO of WPP Group Sir Martin Sorrell. 

Peter Brabeck isn’t particularly worried about the oil crisis. He thinks we’ll invent new ways of obtaining oil. What concerns him is the dwindling global water supply. Brabeck argues that we cannot continue to consider water a free human right, but a commercial good that costs money.

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland critiques the popular notion of sustainability as having become defined too narrowly in terms of carbon emissions. She thinks that sustainability efforts must encompass broader social issues like global equity and humankind’s shared destiny.

Sir Martin Sorrell discusses what he sees as a war for talent, given a number of demographic changes occurring across the globe. Between falling birth rates, rising divorce rates, later marriages with fewer children and the rise of women in the workforce, the talent supply will surely be reduced. It’s up to businesses to decide how to deal with it.