Is enterprise 'sustainability' sustainable?

Christopher Mines:  Green is everywhere. The popular press, the business press, the technology press, really around the world, has captured the latest round, I suppose, of green thinking, green innovation, green behavior on the part of business and consumers.

The danger in this kind of picture is "Gosh. Is this a bubble? Does this feel like something that is spiking here." And of course, spikes have two sides to them; the up and the down.

At Forrester, we try to back all the way up and understand and document for ourselves "Do we really think this is something fundamental?" And if you like, how sustainable is sustainability?

We put together a set of dimensions, that I will show you in a second, that really capture our belief that we think a profound economic change is under way. This is not a fad. This is not a bubble. This is something that we think is in fact sustainable, if you like.

We see a variety of dimensions on which we can pretty confidently make that argument. Whether it is the attitude and pervasiveness of environmental regulation, whether it is the growing segment of consumers who not only pay attention to but are willing to pay for environmentally friendly equipment, products, and services and want to do business with environmentally friendly companies, manufacturers and retailers. The growing interest, not only interest, but putting their money where their mouth is of shareholder groups and investors...

We add this up and say this sustainability thing has a lot of legs. This is a profound, thorough, economic change in the way businesses operate and in the way people live their lives, each of us as individuals and family members making fundamental and long lasting changes in the way we behave and in the way businesses operate.

You have heard already this morning a number of these kinds of initiatives; these big Fortune 50 sized companies making significant new commitments to environmental responsibility; putting millions if not billions of dollars up to change the way they do business, to invest in new, greener technologies, to get their employees, shareholders, customers, regulators, and management teams all aligned around this notion of increasing sustainability.

Of course, these are the leading lights. Most companies are just getting started on this kind of journey. And we think that the opportunity for leadership is pretty quickly disappearing, but the risk of being a laggard is becoming more and more visible to companies in many industries, and in many geographies, with every passing day.

It is almost tipping now from the perspective of "Can you be a leader within your industry?" Well, in many industries the leaders are already well established and well understood. Are you going to be a laggard within your industry? That is the risk of not getting a corporate green initiative, and a pretty broad based one, underway pretty rapidly.