Sustainable development becoming integral part of business strategy.

"Sustainability is moving to the core of the business agenda," Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), told the Conference Board's annual sustainable development conference in June. The truth of his statement was reflected in other conference

For example, Randall Overbey, president of primary metals development at Alcoa, Inc. and the conference closing speaker, laid out an ambitious sustainable development agenda for Alcoa over the next few years. Some of the goals were to be expected, centering around the environment and safety, and emphasizing the "triple bottom line" so fashionable in sustainable development today: financial, environmental and societal performance of a sustainable enterprise.

But Alcoa's achievements to date are also impressive. The company has already achieved one of its most ambitious goals set in 1998: to reduce the greenhouse gas effect of its manufacturing by 25 percent by 2010. The company achieved that goal in 2003--seven years ahead of schedule--repeated it in 2004 and expects to continue meeting it in 2005.

A "Climate-Neutral" Strategy

In addition, Alcoa's Overbey reported the aluminum industry's overall commitment to a "climate neutral" business strategy. More specifically, the aluminum industry expects to become greenhouse-gas-neutral in the transportation industry by 2017 through the continued use of aluminum in that market (automobiles, trucking, aerospace, etc.).

Pie in the sky? Alcoa--and the rest of the aluminum industry--doesn't think so. Its expectations are based on detailed modeling of current trends.

Other speakers at the conference interviewed for this article reinforced the observation that the concept of sustainable development has moved to a new level, from its environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) roots of the last decade through and including the "triple bottom line" to where it becomes an integral part of business strategy--bringing in business profits in and of itself, not just as part of cost reductions for the bottom line.

This trend has been visible in Europe over the past few years, where the term sustainable development is better understood. Some European companies actually print annual sustainable development reports. But in the U.S., sustainable development has faltered. It has suffered from the failure of the Green Movement to produce any lasting business profits and success, except through smaller Ben & Jerry's-size companies. That stigma, plus the spotlight which American environmental groups constantly focus on U.S. companies' environmental efforts, has caused American corporations to shy away from touting their achievements in this area or even Social Corporate Responsibility (SCR).