James Wolfensohn, President World Bank: "The planet has got a lot of people on it - six billion today - but in the next 25 years we'll add two billion to the planet, so it will be a planet of eight billion.

"And so it becomes an extremely important issue that all of us should join together to protect the planet that we're living on."

Caption: "Today the global economy is five times greater than it was in 1950."

Sir John Browne, Group Chief Executive BP: "Consumer goods, power consumption, energy. The world is er growing in terms of it's population and people's aspiration to have a better tomorrow than today, er is I believe in the minds of everybody."

Caption: "The global average income per capita, is 2.6 times greater, in real terms, than it was in 1950 - Yet 1 in 4 people are living in severe poverty."

Dr. Michael Otto, Chairman Otto Group: "Each citizen, each er entrepreneur - in miniature - and each politician is responsible to keep our planet earth to live on for our children, for the next generations."

Caption: "So far, economic growth has taken little account of the environment."

Ray Anderson: "Every living system - every life support system - er together make up the biosphere. They are all in decline and it is the externalisation of costs that's allowing that to happen: the trashing of the biosphere."

Caption: "Most businesses now claim to respect the environment.

In this Earth Report corporate leaders and the World Bank President, give their vision of a sustainable future.

Can the world's natural resources continue to support unlimited economic growth?"

James Wolfensohn: "We're losing our bio-diversity at a very rapid rate, and this is as a result of the human pressures on the environment in which we're living. We lose - as an example - timber holdings to the extent of the size of Switzerland every year.

"The economy is truly the wholly owned subsidiary of the environment."

Ray Anderson, CEO Interface Inc: "The economy takes the end from the environment: air - fancy getting along without air - water, food, energy and it gives off in the other direction waste, pollution, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases etc., etc. And the result of all of that is the economy grows and the environment shrinks.

"How long can that go on? There is most certainly a limit and it's in businesses' interests to be sure that, that stability is achieved in those flows and equilibrium is achieved - that is sustainability.

"The key driving force for unsustainability, in my view, is a system of economics that allows the externalisation of cost. The system that is focussed only on exchange value without regard to use value and puts no value whatsoever on nature."

Dr. Michael Otto: "We have to act in a sustainable way. That means that we should not use more nature than can be recreated. And therefore I think sustainable practices are very important for companies but I think for the society at all."

Sir John Browne: "Everyone must recognise that the world which surrounds them isn't free.

"Er, so we can't actually go and use the environment as if it's someone else's problem er to sort out."

Sir John Browne: "It belongs to everybody and so we've got to take a proportionate share in making sure that whatever we do with the external world, er the externalities of activity are somehow incorporated in the full cost of the activity that takes place and something is done to reduce the impact on things which belong to everybody."

James Wolfensohn: "No normal person be he rich or poor would prefer to live in an arid desert without access to forests or without access to clean water, or in a polluted environment which affects their health - rather than live in an environment which can promote not only their financial wealth but their personal wealth in terms of the way in which they are living.

"Poor people are not very different than rich people. They get to know the difference between a good life and a bad life. They know the difference between clean air and unclean air. They know the difference between putting their health at risk and being able to drink the water, or to live in a noxious-free environment. And so the issue is really answered by you asking yourself: why would you want to live in an environment that is being ruined?"

Sir John Browne: "It's very difficult for people to think about abstract things that happen to the world as a whole. Indeed there has to be a high state of awareness and, and possibly er experience to let people think about what the world has to do.

"We also have to start with what affects an individual, how it gives an individual a sense of place. So for example in the environment, the care of the environment, I've always found it very difficult er to talk to people about what is happening to global warming when they say: yes, but I'd actually like some clean water first!"

James Wolfensohn: "In terms of the way the corporations conduct themselves, they need to recognise that spewing out noxious fumes into the atmosphere, or putting acid into water, or putting toxic materials in the ground may be a short term expediency, but in the long term will affect the people around them who sometimes get so mad that they turn the factory into a rubble by tearing it down.

"So there is a connection between what is both ethically and morally and even economically indefensible and the pressure which comes on companies. And that is being demonstrated now in quite a number of ways, both by a "push" on the companies and by consumers taking products for companies which adopt what they call a ætriple bottom line' of social responsibility, environmental responsibility, as well as profits."

Caption: "How is business practice changing?"

Sir John Browne: "For us there are two things that we focus on which make our business I think better for the future. And these are the natural environment er and the way in which we deal with communities and human rights.

"I think it's all about progress.

"Technology of course is so critical in this area.

"I mean the rate of progress of technology is not going to stop. If you look over the last two hundred years, er there has been continuous progress - I can't possibly believe that it is not going to carry on.

"The gasoline that we make today bears no relationship to the gasoline made ten years ago, and it gets better and better and better. It has no benzine, no sulphur, no lead - in most parts of the world - and this dramatically improves the way in which engines work and reduces the amount of low level which produces smog and all sorts of things like that. But also make the engines more efficient so they produce less carbon dioxide for every unit of work they do.

"And so it's about progress. In order to maintain progress we have to maintain development and curiously I believe that all the problems that people see with development are best solved by more development rather than less. So sustainability, however we define it, is something which is important so that we can carry on developing for the benefit of mankind.

"Every single way you look at the world, it's clear the world is going to consume more hydrocarbons every day as peoples of the world develop. One of the fundamentals of development is, apart from food, it's energy, gives people the aspiration to have light and heat or cool and mobility. And it's a very, very important component I think of the world's future progress. However we look at energy a large bulk of it will come from hydrocarbons for the foreseeable future.

"I am sure there will be other types of engines added to the overall fleet of cars and trucks, but there's a lot of room still for huge efficiency gains and hugely better output of emissions from the internal combustion engine. Now first question to ask is why on earth should we bother? And indeed some readings of the way in which the economics of business work is to say: well, we're in shareholder value, er we're in the business of increasing shareholder value.

"And people look very short range and say: and that's a quarterly thing - every 90 days you have to do something - so let's not bother with any of this, we're in the business of being in business and if the world's free, let's use it that way!

"This, I think, is a deep misconception of the nature of business. First of all the value of a business is set er by its long-term growth rate, long term. All the value is in the future - not in the past, not in the quarter - and in my business in particular we have to deal with 50-100 year time scales."

James Wolfensohn: "Having a sense of social responsibility and environmental responsibility does not by any means mean that you make less money then you do if you're, if you are behaving in an appropriate way."

Ray Anderson: "I believe personally that we will only realise real value by doing what we do in an environmentally responsible way.

"In the summer of 1994 the company was already 21 years old, and er for the first time we began to hear a whisper from our market place - mainly from interior designers and architects asking: what is your company doing for the environment? And we really had no answers for that.

"And while I was sweating, Paul Hawken's book The Ecology of Commerce landed on my desk and I began to read it. And very quickly it became - as I've described it many times, a "spear in the chest" - a real emotional, epiphanal experience. And it convicted me on the spot as a plunderer of the earth and I knew immediately what I had to say to our people. And that is that we should be the company that leads the industrial world towards sustainability. Somebody has to lead; why not us?

"Infusing this into our culture has been - has-has taken six years but today environmental sustainability and sensitivity and responsibility, there in the DNA of our company. We've changed the culture of our company, changed its value system.

"We've eliminated half the waste in that company over the last six years - and that's measuring waste against perfection.

"That says do it right the first time, every time; no scrap, no off quality - perfection.

"And against that very harsh standard we've reduced waste by half.

"And there's much, much more to be done by actually move ahead on closed loop production processes - including retrieving our products at the end of their useful lives and giving them life after life. Capturing those precious organic molecules and giving them life after life.

"We've studied mount sustainability very, very carefully and so far we've found seven faces of the mountain and we're intent on climbing all seven and meeting at the top - and that defines for us sustainability - zero footprint: picture the point at the top of that mountain. The seven faces of the mountain are: eliminate waste; benign emissions - to be sure whatever we emit is benign and harmless to the environment; renewable energy - first efficiency and then switching to renewable sources; closing the loop on material flows, carbon neutral transportation. We've sited our factories near their markets - which we do in planned logistics for maximum efficiency; which we try to do when we video conference to save the unnecessary trip - when we've done it all there will still be a carbon gap, and truly only the automotive industry can close that gap, we'll do our best with carbon offsets.

"Today we plant trees. Trees for travel. I'm told that a tree in it's lifetime will sequester the carbon generated by four thousand passenger miles in a commercial jet. So every time one of our people flies four thousand miles we plant a tree.

"Er, sensitising our people and the whole community of interest - customers, suppliers, the communities from which we come - creating, if you will, an ecosystem around interface where co-operation is the prevailing mode as opposed to confrontation. And finally, er reinventing commerce - when all the rest of this is in place, it will be possible for us to sell the service that our product delivers rather than selling the product itself. And that is good ecology."

Dr. Michael Otto: "We started, of course, with the question of sustainability in the late '70s and also in the '80s we had mainly single projects within our company. But in the second half of the '80s we started to act more systematically, we developed management system for sustainability.

"We created special division with a director who was a co-ordinator for all these questions of sustainability and who is reporting directly to me. And there we, we started to analyse all areas of the company, and er that means, of course, all processes er within the company were analysed and we, we change the processes.

"Another area had been the assortment of our catalogues - there we have 120,000 articles in our assortment - so it's an ongoing process to analyse all products and to change them to environmentally products.

"Wood and cotton are very sensitive areas.

"So we take er wooden products like furniture or paper - how does the wood come from and how is the whole production chain? Is very important that we use sustainable forestry. We must also put the question: how can we secure this? And there we found the label Forest Stewardship Council - that's our international organisation supported by many NGOs - which is giving certificates to forests which are er having a sustainable forestry policy.

"The same with er cotton. Erm I think there we know that er cotton is, is er using a lot of water and it's spoiling water by, by fertiliser, by chemicals and er therefore we have also to start the cotton plants.

"We hope to change cotton plants into environmentally friendly er production er plants."

Caption: "Is environmental responsibility good for profits?

James Wolfensohn: "As you will see on television many, many of the ads that are now appearing showing little children running across a carefree country scene, saying: my dad works for such and such a company and they make this possible! If you are a hard headed businessman and you are looking about marketing, er those ads would not be going on television unless it was having an impact.

"So it's very clear in the behaviour of companies that they are anxious to project not only a profitable er, er future but also a morally and ethically sound future. And there's a lot of reason to think that er the two are not incompatible."

Dr. Michael Otto: "If a company acts er sustainable then er I think er it gets, of course, a positive reputation which will help also for, for the er public relation of the company.

"We have many cases where we can do environmentally friendly things and even save costs.

"For example if we save energy then we save costs, then on the other hand also it's positive for the environment."

Caption: "Does business have a moral responsibility?"

Dr. Michael Otto: "Trade, of course, is always done for economical reasons that the trading company wants to make profit. And therefore trading companies are importing from companies and from countries where they get the best prices.

"So we have to define standards which finally can be reached also by companies of the third world.

"We have defined social standards, which are part of our buying contracts with our manufacturers - and er of course it's not enough to define social standards; we have to control it. And er what is very important, we have support our manufacturers to reach these social standards, in particular in countries of the 3^rd world.

"What is interesting is that the manufacturers are basically not against these social standards or environmental standards - they understand it, they accept it, they are willing to reach it, in particular when we tell them that it is our requirement to place orders. As we have a certain size and therefore a certain buying power, these manufacturers are of course are interested to meet our standards. These standards of course require no child labour and minimum wages and working hours and no discrimination in respect of gender, in respect of religion or ethnic groups. There's very important they don't have the feeling that we er just dictate them what they have to do.

"But that we are co-operative, that we want to work together with them, to help the, the environment, to help the people and finally to make a good business together."

Caption: "Should business or government take the lead?"

James Wolfensohn: "Well, the role of the private sector is incredibly important because first and foremost if you can provide jobs to people that's the first key out of poverty; you need to have growth.

"And people that live in an atmosphere where they have opportunity and where they can improve their life-standards are obviously much better able to cater to the environment around in which they live.

"I think behind all this is a growing recognition on the part of individual human beings that it is an economic and social cost not to take advantage of sensible practices for sustainable development - and of course the bank plays a role, partnership role, with all the players.

"For example after the discussions on the various environmental treaties - Kyoto being a turning point - we started a carbon fund, in which we could offer companies the possibility of reducing their exposure in terms of carbon emissions, by buying certificates that would appreciate the environment rather than depreciate it. That was a prototype fund - with about a 145 million in it - bringing governments and private sector together. What we're trying to do - and the real test of our organisation will be less the specific initiatives that we can point to in a box, but much more importantly how they're integrated into every activity in which you're engaged."

Sir John Browne: "All business I believe is beginning to think about it. There are degrees and degrees of thought. But of course the counterbalance to all this is what governments do. And governments are there to I believe express some sort of general intent of the populations that they govern. And they in turn have to have a role in providing a framework in which business can operate, such that one business cannot take advantage of another business."

James Wolfensohn: "What we're finding is that in the bank we're being asked more and more to consult with governments, on the framework in which er companies should operate. And in fact in our whole approach to development now - which we call a æcomprehensive' approach, er like a comprehensive development framework - we try and establish the good governance and the framework of laws and rights, protection of rights."

Dr. Michael Otto: "International standards are getting more important as the world, the societies, are getting more and more global. Therefore we have to set rules er how they live together, how they work together, how they play together. Rules in the financial area er rules of, of er foreign policy - how governments are working together - but also rules how erm people can protect environment and how social standards are set."

Bono (archive): "Are you with me? Are you?"

Dr. Michael Otto: "I think the NGOs are getting more and more important because the er public realise that they are more neutral. They trust the NGOs and therefore I think the NGOs are getting more and more influence in our society."

James Wolfensohn: "So you really want to have a development of a process in countries - both developed and developing countries - er where the legal and judicial system is such that you can set up a framework for supervision and monitoring. Er, not only through the courts but also, may I add, through the regulatory system, through the strengthening of government.

"But you need a coherent system because just regulations unless you have a legal and enforceable mechanisms don't mean anything."

Ray Anderson: "I believe the power is with the people. I believe people have to lead. It is the people who are the market place; it is the people who are the voters.

"Government has its role, it has taxing power, and it would be possible for governments to redress the externalities - and internalise the externalities through an enlightened taxation policy. Taxing good things that you'd like to encourage like income and property to tax bad things that you'd like to discourage like waste, pollution and carbon dioxide.

"So a tax shift in a revenue neutral way - you would change the world as we know it.

"But, you know, ultimately the market place will move business."

Dr. Michael Otto: "I think in, in very poor countries the individual sometimes doesn't have the possibility to choose between different offers.

"Sometimes they are happy if they get some product at all.

"But in industrialised countries there we have enough competition, so the consumer really plays an important role every day. He can decide where he wants to buy a product and what products he wants to buy."

James Wolfensohn: "All of us should join together to protect the planet that we're living on.

"It's really a planetary context - different from the way in which we used to thinking when I went to school - but it's very real and it affects the lives and opportunities of poor people, but also of rich people."

Ray Anderson: "Can business provide the leadership? One would like to think so, but for sure it cannot happen unless business comes along. Whether business leads or follows it must be part of the solution to the problem. Otherwise it can drag the whole effort down and destroy, destroy the effort - in the process destroy life on earth as we know it. I mean that's the alternative."

Sir John Browne: "Wouldn't it be good if all the experiences that everybody had within a company, or as between companies, were shared so that the best way of doing something was immediately applied to the next time you did it. It is likely that there is someone somewhere doing something you're doing better than you're doing it. The key is to find out who they are and to have a dialogue with them to see what you can learn."

Ray Anderson: "There are signs - real signs, or tangible signs - that people are waking up, and in my mind that is the driving force for this. It is the hope of the future that people will rise up and demand the products, the processes, the er - and the approaches by government."

James Wolfensohn: "What we're doing at the bank is trying to bring a number of these people together and it is not difficult. It is not difficult to bring them together both to meet with each other, to meet with civil society, to meet with er environmentalists; to meet with our own people, meet with other institutions and with government officials. Just to try and kick things around on the basis that if it doesn't cost you anymore to do things right, and if it preserves also the future and it contributes to the general good then that's a better decision that one which is to spoil the general good and make people's lives terrible. So this is not rocket science, it is just good sense. Good sense for an individual and good sense for business."

With thanks to:
Michael Ben Eli
The World Bank
BP
Interface Inc.
Otto Group