19-10-2007
Julio Moura, GrupoNueva CEO, took part in a conference organized by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
The Guardian newspaper highlights Julio Moura´s participation in the WBCSD activity
Black days for green dreams
Yesterday marked World Food Day, an international day to eradicate poverty among the 3 billion trying to survive on less than $2 a day - a number likely to swell to 7 billion by 2050.
In advance, a remarkable event took place here last week: 13 of the leading companies in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development issued a manifesto calling for globalisation to be made inclusive and for fighting poverty to be put at the heart of corporate growth strategies.
They include BP, GE, Toyota and Vodafone and all have signed up to the notion that "the leading global companies of the future will be those that do business in ways that address, openly and transparently, the world's major challenges, including poverty and inequality, climate change, pollution, resource depletion, globalisation and demographic shifts."
If that sounds more like a manifesto from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or WWF, the chairmen and CEOs present like Julio Moura of Costa Rica's GrupoNueva insist that the traditional commitment to producing CSR or sustainability reports is not enough.
"We have set ourselves a target of 10% of our business coming from new areas by 2008 in a way that's ethical, extremely innovative and this has already triggered a number of innovations," said Moura. "How can I sell to people who can't afford to pay a 10th of the price our products cost? This needs a totally different paradigm and new thinking."
John Rice, GE vice-chairman, said his group is working with Tata in India to bring power to hundreds of millions without access to affordable power and clean water: there are 2 billion of the former and 1.5 billion of the latter globally. It's also helping to build 40,000 houses in Honduras.
"These are all small projects today but over five or 10 years could become meaningful ... I don't care if your address is Brussels or Washington DC, we're all affected; it's a question of where we can get the biggest bang for our buck."
But, your sceptical reporter asked, will shareholders and analysts, normally fixated by short-term returns, buy into this project?
Refuting the notion of charity, Moura glared: "This is about the bottom line; we will not succeed with the survival of our companies if the societies in which we operate fail ... If we don't do it stakeholders and especially shareholders will give us the bill."
Rice, whose company's stock has been stagnant despite its shift to green technologies, was equally adamant. "We can't make the case that people buy our stock because of eco-imagination or our fight against global warming but, if you get it wrong, you go straight to the sin bin."
Think globally, act locally, make sustained profits? The jury's out - for a long time ...
Newsitem available on: http://business.guardian.co.uk/oneurope/story/0,,2193012,00.html