John Elkington - The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Connect Todays Profits With Tomorrows Bottom Line

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Copyright 2014 by John Elkington and Jochen Zeitz. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Elkington, John, date

The breakthrough challenge : 10 ways to connect today's profits with tomorrow's bottom line / John Elkington and Jochen Zeitz. First edition.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-53969-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-118-92394-8 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-118-92393-1 (epub)

1. Sustainable development. 2. Social responsibility of business. 3. Management Environmental aspects. 4. Organizational change. I. Zeitz, Jochen. II. Title.

HC79.E5E4586 2014

658.4'08dc23

2014007575

To those who seek breakthrough change for a better world

When I started Virgin several decades ago, I was excited to build businesses that made people's lives better. Holding true to this dream is an ongoing journey. We are constantly looking at ways to reinvent what we do to take better care of people and the planet, as well as make a profit. We've had some great successes, and we've also had our share of spectacular failures.

Over the last decade, we've seen a rapidly evolving movement of business leaders who want to create a Plan B for Business that connects the entrepreneurial drive to succeed with the needs of growing numbers of people and a planet under pressure. I've had the great pleasure of working with Jochen and John to take on this challenge. Both of them have been inspirations to me and to Virgin with the deep commitment they have to crafting a vision for this Plan B that shows that anything is possible and that business can and must play an exciting role in creating a new and better future for all. Over the last few years, we have joined forces with a greatand growinggroup of partners to start The B Team, a strong coalition of global leaders who are catalyzing a better way of doing business, one that builds value while taking care of the well-being of people and planet. John Elkington, sometimes called the godfather of the modern sustainability movement, and Jochen Zeitz, co-chair of the B Team, sum up in The Breakthrough Challenge the B Team's mission: business is and must continue to be a force for good in this world, both in social and environmental terms. Ever the relentless optimist, I see that not as a frightening prospect, but as an amazing challenge. Success and sustainability are two sides of the same coin. Where the priorities of business and society align, everyone stands to gain. Better still, there are countless stories of entrepreneurial spirit and energies that help make the impossible possible.

Nothing is ever easy. Much of the business world continues to operate as if the financial crisis and all its resulting unrest never happened, but The Breakthrough Challenge has enormous potential to bring out the best in usas all good challenges do. Leaders in all sectors, around the world, must recognize the need for a collective, concerted effort, and not shy away from setting bold targets.

Whether you are passionate about sustainable business, passionate about meeting stockholders' short-term profit expectations, or both, you know that our world is at a crossroads. As business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and advocates, the choice is ours: either we become part of the solution, or we will forever be seen as a major part of the problem. I choose the former, as do the members of The B Team, and we hope that you will, too.

Call it serendipity. We first met outside Geneva, at a small roundtable convened by Sir Richard Branson's foundation, Virgin Unite. The session explored early concepts for breakthrough capitalism1 and for what ultimately would evolve into The B Team, a new grouping of CEOs and other leaders from the private, public, and citizen sectors. All those involved are dedicated to changing the rules not just of business but also of markets and, ultimately, of capitalism. The goal: a sustainable market economy. The proposed solution: Plan B, outlined in more detail in Chapter One.

The idea of pulling some of this together into a book came a couple of months later, as we explored converging interests. Back in 1994, John had coined the term triple bottom line, and, in 1995, he came up with the linked term people, planet, and profit.2 As chance would have it, this book's year of publication marks the twentieth anniversary of the triple bottom lineand, many years later, the 3Ps would serve as The B Team's launch strapline as it began to evolve its Plan B agenda.

Jochen, meanwhile, had been the youngest-ever CEO of a German publicly listed company, Puma. His first book, The Manager and the Monk, was cowritten with Anselm Grn, a Benedictine monk and prolific author.3 The book explored the overlap between prosperity, values, and sustainability from the viewpoints of both business and religion. Working with PwC and Trucost, Jochen had also pioneered the environmental profit and loss (EP&L) accounting approach at Puma and its Paris-based owner, the global group Kering. He saw the EP&L as the first step toward a fulland increasingly integratedset of triple-bottom-line accounts. Ultimately, alongside an economic impact analysis, this would also include a social profit and loss (SP&L) element, with external stakeholders signaling that this is doable, although social accounting can be even more complex and political than environmental accounting.