Deja Vu And Looking Forward

What kind of society do we want to retire to, and can we have better agency in determining this?

- Heather Jackson

You cannot be successful, nor even call yourself successful, in a society that fails.” - Feike Sijbesma, CEO of DSM, quoted in 2012. For the past 20 years the GlobeScan Sustainability Leaders Survey has monitored and shared insights about how we can tackle the world’s biggest sustainability challenges. The focus is on what business can contribute and in the South African context this would encompass cultivating a more inclusive and jobcreating path. In 2018, it covered 729 entities across the corporate and NGO sectors in 70 countries.

South Africa has more than its fair share of challenges, perhaps most acutely captured for the 40% of people between 15 and 64 years who are not employed, or in education or training (NEETs).

Internationally many corporates have realised that they are part of a stakeholder network across employees, customers, shareholders and the broader operating environment, and are being held to account to integrate sustainability into business models. It is disappointing, then, to see that Africa accounts for just 6% of respondents in this survey. And there is no mention of any SA corporate leaders. The leaders encompass the likes of Unilever, IKEA, Patagonia, Greenpeace, and WWF.

In the 1990s, post the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I recall being involved in a task team that explored introducing a “restitution bond”. This was one of a few initiatives that recognised the need for nation-building efforts across business and society to be tangible and far-sighted – seeking a kind of atonement – and beginning to build a social compact.

Then too, there was an organisation called BusinessMap, formed in the early 1990s by white South Africans who recognised the deep divides in our emerging democracy and sought to provide a bridge for our business community to engage with emerging black power bases in government and beyond.