Big Bad Multinationals: Money-driven sustainable thinking

Big Bad Multinationals: Money-driven sustainable thinking

If you are an sci-fi action movie fun like me, you will notice that almost in every movie, if there is a multinational company with infinite power and resources, it usually turns out to be controlled by the villains. This plot may sound familiar to many of you: a scientist is found dead in his/her lab, with the technology of providing infinite power for mankind stolen. And the bad guys are working for a big oil company, who don't want this technology to be revealed to the world.

However, this stereotype is challenged by four big players in current global market since they shifted their business strategies to focus on sustainable development in the past year: Novelis, Fibria, Syngeta and Starbucks.

Novelis is one of the major scourers for aluminum in global market. It changes it core business focus from aluminum mining to aluminum recycling, in order to pursue a more sustainable future for the business.

The core of Fibria's business is paper products. Nowadays, it starts to shifting its business strategy to use its forest assets in a sustainable way.

Starbuck, as the home and sanctuary for hipsters, has been seeking to differentiate itself from the other coffee shop but promoting the idea of green building.

Agriculture based business Syngenta has spent more time on recovering extra nutrients from the land and help their customers to get more yields.

The most amazing fact is that these companies did not do this just for helping mankind or anything noble like that. They did it because it helps them to secure more earnings in the future. The notion of the greatest selfish-less act comes from the greatest selfishness is truly the only way to approach the matter of building a sustainable future. Praise and good will only can not convince stakeholders to pursue a sustainable strategy, but cold hard cash can
.

Reference:

http://www.sustainability.com/blog/four-multinationals-shifting-their-business-models-for-sustainability#.V1E7LJx96Uk

Image Credit:
http://soul-sanctuaries.com/whats-your-relationship-with-money/