Today we're going to tackle one of the key questions of this course: what is a sustainable enterprise, what are the key characteristics that we would expect to see when we aim to create a sustainable enterprise or when we study, where we try to create a sustainable enterprise? As you will see, we will discuss the key elements of organizations, so a lot of this discussion will apply not only to business enterprise but also to public enterprise, public organizations and NGOs. We will do so with the help of a number of experts in various aspects of organization. And what I will do is provide you with my own overarching perspective before we hear from the expert. So here is one way to think about the various elements that would make up a sustainable organization: First of all, we need to understand what is the purpose of the organization. Second, how would a sustainable organization be governed, what are the key governance rules? Third, it’s a question of the strategy of this organization, how they intend to succeed. Then we have the activities, the processes that obviously would support and execute on the strategy. We would then need to also think about the capabilities, the various forms of capabilities, that will be necessary in order to make sure that those activities, those processes, those initiatives will succeed. And then it's a matter of people and their motivations, their ways to engage with the organization. And finally it’s a question of values, what is it that really motivates people connecting to the foundational reasons that they consider important for their own life. And of course from values, if you want to think about it, obviously you go back to the discussion about purpose. So this can be seen as a cycle of these seven key elements. So the first element has to do with purpose. Purpose is the answer to some key questions, like why do firms, organizations exist, why have they been created? And more importantly, what kind of value are they aiming to create? And, perhaps even more importantly, why? What kind of value and for whom? So, the sustainable enterprise is usually considered an organization that has a broader purpose. So it is created in order to create value for a broader set of stakeholders, not only for clients and for investors but also for employees, for suppliers, and for the communities in which it operates. But also the type of value that it will aim to create is also much broader, so it goes way beyond economic value. It has to do with social value, if you want, the quality of the engagement, of the interaction within the organization, for example, for employees, the development of employees, right, through their own learning experiences, the quality of the experience that customers have and the engagement of suppliers and communities. All of those aspects have dimensions that are much more complex and subtle, if you want, than the more straightforward production of economic value. But all of those are parts of the notion of purpose of a sustainable enterprise. The second element that we need to consider is the one related to governance. Governance, essentially, is the set of norms and rules that the organization gives itself in order to operate. It's a little bit like the constitution for an organization. And so given the purpose that was defined for a sustainable enterprise, governance obviously has to be aligned to that purpose, and therefore provide voice and role, representation for all the various classes of stakeholders that the organizations want to engage. So, for example, on the board of directors, you would expect sustainable organizations to invite representatives of employees, of customers, of suppliers, of local communities and engage them in the discussion of all the key decisions, key issues that the enterprise is facing. But more broadly you would imagine that a stakeholder oriented governance structure doesn't stop at the board of directors level but actually creates a number of communities, a number of committees or instances where stakeholders can have their voice, can be heard for not only the decisions that need to be made, but even the understanding of the issues, the development of the alternatives to face those issues, and then of course for the selection and the implementation of the decisions and strategic actions. That is what one would expect to see in terms of governance by a sustainable organization. The third element has to do with strategy. Strategy is the set of key decisions that any organization has to make in order to implement, essentially, realize the purpose that it has given itself. Now, what would a strategy of a sustainable enterprise look like? Well on one hand, the content of these types of decisions we would expect to be emphasizing cooperation, not only with stakeholders but even with competitors to the competitive drive that has characterized strategy over the decades. And even with stakeholders, rather than extracting value, the idea would be of course creating value, not only for the company but also for its suppliers and customers. Other key questions, for example, have to do with the speed of growth of the enterprise. Again, a sustainable enterprise might de-emphasize growth because it might generate negative spillovers for the interests of stakeholders, the quality of the environment, the natural environment might suffer and stress on resources and even the psychological wellbeing of employees and communities might be increasing the number of negative implications of growth. So that is for the account. And for the process, we would expect to see a much higher level of engagement, involvement of a specific type of stakeholders in the various strategic committees, right? The investment committee, the innovation committee, that large organizations normally have in order to function. So those key decision-making bodies would even involve, as representatives of stakeholders, individuals that have the capabilities and the wisdom to provide input for those types of strategic decisions.
