Brainforum

Sustainability sucks!?!

Sustainability sucks? At least that´s the impression we get when thinking about the social, economic and ecologic problems we are facing and the things people do or don´t do to change the way the world moves.

Even single persons struggle with integrating sustainability into their daily life. Public transport to get to the office? Recycling? Car-Sharing?
When it is not even possible for private persons to make the step towards sustainable behaviour, how should this work out for a global company? Even more: Do we then have the right to demand this kind of attitude?

When looking at corporate homepages, the first thing that comes into view most of the times is a big and shiny button screaming “Corporate Social Responsibility”. The flash video next door talks about sustainability. In my opinion, these two terms seem to have evolved to the new and hip gadget in the world of corporate communication. The true motive rarely is an altruistic one, but the fear that some day society will deprive the company from taking action and drift over to competitors.

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“Blindfolded – The future of our children”

“The future of our children” – The title seems to affect all of us, no matter which generation we belong to.
For the old generation, the future is connected with the fear of having depreciated the things they achieved.

Our parents in contrast feel fear and hope at the same time when thinking about their children´s (which means our) future. They guide us hoping that we´ll some day find our own way and they are scared that we won´t be able to cope with all the requirements of today´s society.

Our generation on the other hand is confronted with many feelings and influences at the same time. We are torn between the pursuit of professional success and self-realization.
So is there anyone among us thinking about children? We all know that some day we want to have a family, but this day seems so far on our journey throughout life´s suprises. We conduct this journey blindfolded without knowing whereto and why. And while we are travelling, the pressure to perform and the run of information increase and our future is becoming more uncertain with every second that passes. And that scares us!?

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The consumer’s power

The concept of a flashmob might be known by lots of people, as there have been many of such gatherings lately.

One great and widely recognized example during election time in Germany was the flashmob called “And everyone goes Yeah” that was organized by the online community during a speech of Angela Merkel, where the people present shouted “Yeah” after every sentence she finished. Merkel was pretty disturbed at the beginning and the initiative even made the evening news.

But while flashmobs are often criticized by certain people and characterized as being senseless, the alternate concept of smartmobs is making positive headlines. One sub-category of the smartmob movement is the one of carrotmobs. The initiative’s name derives from the image of a donkey longing to eat the carrot someone is wagging in front of his nose. In our case, the donkey stands for the business sector and the person holding the carrot is the conglomeration of customers. For organizing a carrotmob, it therefore takes a group of customers that are linked throughout some device (most of the times an online community) and a group of companies competing for the carrot which symbolizes the consumer’s spending power.

How Organized Consumer Purchasing Can Change Business from carrotmob on Vimeo.

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Are we completely free at the point of decision making?

As a professor for business psychology at the University of Cologne, Professor Fetchenhauer carried out a survey concerning the image of economists throughout the population.

He found that only 15 percent of the people asked believe economists to be credible. Worse off are only politicians and astrologists, who have a credibility rate of only three percent.

Prof. Fetchenhauer blames this result on the aspect that people think of economists as the ones predicting the prospective economic development. And most of the times, their predictions don’t become true. The focus on efficiency and rationality as main criteria in economic models therefore is questioned by some people. They argue that human beings are not always rational, and that they can’t be seen as one entity which behaves in the same way, no matter what.

As one possibility to strengthen trust, the research group tells economists to try to be a better communicator with their environment.

So far, these are no findings which disturb the world (except maybe the egos of certain people out there).

What strikes me most in the findings is the insight that there is nearly no difference in decision taking and the act of judging a situation between people who are experts and people who are not, and especially no difference for people with dissimilar education level. All of them took decisions on a gut level. At least that´s what the findings suggest. So are we only lead by our instinct or do other circumstances influence our behaviour?

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