So, what does ’to be‘ sustainable mean to someone who has been Managing Director of Ecover for more than 15 years?  I suppose it can mean many things. For me, two things stand out: firstly, it is an attitude, and secondly, it is an ongoing process.

 

As an attitude, ‘to be’ sustainable means being accountable to the generations that follow. The next generations are your children and their children and it is simply wrong to create problems for them that they will need to pay for later.   We can be sure, they already will be inheriting a fair number of problems, from depletion of natural resources, to pollution (air, soil, water, food), to global warming and climate change.  We need to understand that environmental damage often is not an acute problem; on the contrary, studies show that much damage persists for decades if not semi-permanently.   Just look at some of the toxins that we find today in our habitat: high concentrations of DDT in our Flemish waters can still be found, even decades after we banned the stuff.   Studies also show that our greenhouse gas emissions will cause near permanent climatic change.  Since we cannot turn back the clock we need to act now to start minimizing our destructive impact.  Otherwise our children, or their children, will have a truly tremendous problem to deal with.   

 

The second point on this matter that really stands out is   that the work we do regarding sustainability never ends. Every morning when I get up for work, every evening when I leave for home, I face the knowledge that my job in managing a sustainable business is never complete. If we had a sustainability report it would only reiterate how much work still lies ahead; how we need to drive innovation across the company, continuously measuring and enhancing the ecological performance of our products, using our energy and resources more efficiently, focusing more on our employees, reviewing and improving our supply chains, upgrading our production processes, developing promotional activities driven by sustainability, communicating our messages to a wider audience, all of this and more means that for me the concept of sustainability is an open-ended and ongoing process. 

 

Almost 30 years ago, Ecover looked at the laundry detergent business from a different angle. We started with the products themselves and then, over the years, this evolved into building an ecological factory.  Today we continue to look for the next step, investigating the role of sustainability in all our activities.  This was groundbreaking stuff and no way near what we were taught in school.  Our whole industrial model since the industrial revolution is based on a linear model assuming near limitless natural resources and tolerance to pollution.  So yes, it is fair to say we have improved in recent years and we have become more energy efficient and we generate much less hazardous waste and emissions.  Yet, as the world economy continues to grow, so our mountain of waste and pollution concentrations will continue to grow in absolute terms (although perhaps less rapidly). 

 

We need to continue finding new and improved ways of producing. There are a few companies out there who are truly making a difference, but to say that they are 100% sustainable or environmentally friendly is nonsense.  Let’s be honest, most companies are inherently ‘unfriendly’ to the environment – they may have become less unfriendly over time, but to say that one is truly sustainable or environmentally friendly  requires a fundamentally different industrial model. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any company has truly gotten there yet. Not even Ecover and that is why it is a learning process.  

 

Today it is more vital than ever that we evaluate all our processes from a long-term perspective.  As a company committed ‘to be’ sustainable and to integrate it into everything we do, I can only say that we have done a great deal so far but still have a long way to go.