How to thrive in the pressures of the “breakthrough decade”
John Elkington, the long-time sustainability champion who coined the term “triple bottom line,” has released an intriguing—dare we even say entertaining?—new treatise on how companies and individuals can adapt to survive and thrive in the face of today’s growing confluence of social, environmental, and economic pressures. The Stretch Agenda is a playful yet serious dramatization of the discussions among a fictional corporate management team faced with the a global pressure cooker of dynamic changes, as illustrated here. It’s part of a multi-pronged effort from Elkington and his consultancy colleagues at Volans. As he says, “It’s no accident that the repeated word at the heart of the diagram is security — energy, food, water and climate security. What used to be seen as citizenship issues are now evolving into major security issues.”
GreenBiz.com has a couple of in-depth features on this work that are well worth your time. Here’s a recent article summarizing The Stretch Agenda and its sister piece, The Breakthrough Forecast, a market briefing; and here’s an interview from last year. Elkington joins many others in seeing the coming decade as one in which change will accelerate. While the exact shape of the economic and social landscape in 2025 is not predictable, the general contours can be discerned, and we can continue to cultivate the qualities that will allow us to thrive in the changing world.
Tags: financial assets, future, sustainable global economy strategy