So what am I doing here?

Yesterday I had a gmail chat with my sister and she asked me to please explain what Sustainable Development is? I guess it's the story of my life that I always get involved in or do things that are difficult to understand. In Berkeley I was quite proud to be enrolled in a course that was called "The Rhetoric of Things" which, I will readily admit, sounds pretty vague. But the course itself was really interesting, covering topics from the cult of the saints in the early middle ages to gift giving in the primitive cultures of the Fiji Islands and the minting of coins in 16th century England.

Studying 'Cultural Analysis' didn't help either. My favorite answer was that "I can explain what that actually means, but it will take at least ten minutes" which was usually enough for people to forget about it or, though this happened less frequently, start asking questions which either ended up really confusing or really fascinating them.

But now I finally got some relieve. When people ask me what I do, I just tell them I work at a bank, which seems to satisfy most. Even saying that I am writing a sustainable development report for the bank seems to be clear enough, though I usually have to add that it mostly concerns energy use, CO2 emission reduction and Microfinance.

In fact, of course, it is a lot more. The further we get in the reporting process, the more I learn about all the different dimensions of SD (as everyone calls it here). The standard definition of SD is that "the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs" (from "Our Common Future" a.k.a. the Brundtland report, 1987). For ABN AMRO (and for business in general) it also means that the organisation can keep making its profits, now and in the future.

They call it: "to meet the needs of the organisation and our stakeholders, thus seeking to protect, sustain, and enhance human, natural and financial capital needed in the future."

Notice that apart from financial capital, they also talk of "human" and "natural" capital. This is the so-called Triple Bottom Line, or People, Planet, Profit proposition. The idea is that while doing business componies should not forget that their actions have an effect on society and the environment.

Cynics will say that it's just a catchy buzz phrase and actually doesn't mean anything. Being immersed in SD for more than 2 months now I have to say they're wrong. There is too much money and effort, and attention going to all these projects that it's far beyond "greenwashing" the company (pretending that you're doing good). But I would also say that we're not there yet for a long while.

So where are we now, then? Ok, here it goes, a list of things that we will be talking about in the SD report:

• reducing waste and energy use
• training employees, encouraging volunteering
• environmental and social risk assessments
• being part of global iniatives like the millenium development goals
• introducing socially responsible investment funds
• microfinance (small loans to rural households, so that they can improve their livelyhoods) and capacity building (so that these uneducated peoplelearn how to use their resources more efficiently)
• philanthropy (supporting NGOs, charity work etc.)
• policies that aim to reduce human rights issues, or prevent getting involved in them (like conflict diamonds, child labour, money laundering etc.)

Hope that clarifies a bit what I am doing here. But feel free to make comments if you want to know more...