“The best marketing strategy is to destroy your industry before your competition does.” –Seth Godin
When I worked in the nonprofit sector, I frequently heard the adage, We’re working ourselves out of business. Meaning, in the world we envisage, services like ours won’t be necessary – everyone will have a roof over her head, partners will live free of abuse, natural habitat will be safe, all kids will be able to read, etc.
It seems to me that sustainable businesses are working themselves out of business. Sounds like a contradiction, right? If you work yourself out of business you are not sustainable. But wait.
Sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Part of the sustainable economy, sustainable, triple bottom line businesses create prosperity, empower people, and restore the planet. Sounds like a vision of an ideal world to me.
Now think of a truly sustainable business you know. I don’t think there is one. The businesses that label themselves sustainable are only working their way to the one hundred percent mark. What’s more, because sustainability is about systems, reaching that destination will require all other businesses to be sustainable as well (can a business be sustainable in an unsustainable economy?). When that happens, sustainable businesses will have worked themselves out of the business of becoming sustainable.
Take sustainable marketing. To quote Rich Bruer:
“We need sustainability embedded in marketing. In other words, marketing — by definition — must be sustainable. There is no green marketing or sustainable marketing. There’s only marketing. And it’s sustainable.”
Once all marketing is sustainable, there is no sustainable marketing, just marketing. Once all businesses are sustainable, there’s no sustainable business, just business.
Let’s work ourselves out of business.
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That word is thrown around so much now, do we even know what it means anymore?
Dr. Letitia Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
Sustainability as a term has, indeed, seen a bit of a usage inflation. It still means the same thing as it did before the current upswing.