This slideshow is one I am delivering in September in Japan. It explains, simply, how to do strategy and sustainability - by asking the right questions and being human centric....

1. Strategy & Sustainability:
Its really a question of changing conceptions
because of a changed context
The power of this paper is not necessarily what it proves but rather what
it suggests (Fiol, 1989)
Nick Barter
n.barter@griffith.edu.au
@greenstratdoc/@griffthmba4life
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2. The Basics...
“there are no inputs from outside and no outputs to the outside;
indeed there is no outside at all” (Boulding, 1966, p.2),
“It is quite simple wrong to regard action on the psyche, the
socius, and the environment as separate…[to present these areas
as if they are separate is]…acquiescing to a general
infantilisation of opinion” (Guattari, 1989, pp.134)

3. What is Strategy?....
strategy is “the determination of the long-run goals and
objectives of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of
action and the allocation of resources necessary for
carrying out these goals” (Angwin & Cummings, 2008,
p.119)
“Strategy is the coordinated means by which an
organisation pursues its goals and objectives” (Carpenter &
Sanders, 2009, p.10)
strategy as “a course of action for achieving an
organisation’s purpose” (De Wit & Meyer, 2010, p.52)
Strategy is actions, plans, narratives to help an
organization achieve its purpose
A guide for our behavior and decision making
within the context of any particular organization
within which or for which we are operating

4. What’s an organisation?
“special purpose social collectives whose activities are
informed by the interests of organisational participants”
(Egri and Pinfield, 1999, p.225)
“a social device for efficiently accomplishing through
group means some stated purpose” (Katz and Kahn, 1966.
p. 16)
“economic and legal entities created by groups of people
who have common or, at least, compatible goals”
(Shrivastava, 1995, p.123)
Strategy is about purpose, organizations are about
people coming together for a human constructed
purpose…the key are the assumptions, the
conceptions that inform the purpose

5. What’s sustainability?
“development which meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 8).
Sustainability is a relationship between dynamic human
economic systems and larger dynamic, but normally
slower-changing ecological systems, in which (a) human
life can continue indefinitely, (b) human individuals can
flourish, and (c) human cultures can develop; but in which
effects of human activities remain within bounds, so as not
to destroy the diversity, complexity, and function of the
ecological life support system (Costanza, Daly, &
Bartholomew, 1991, p.8).
sustainable development is a process of achieving human
development in an inclusive, connected, equi-table,
prudent, and secure manner (Gladwin, Kennelly, Krause,
1995, p.878)
Sustainability is a human story…about how
we might want to live…purpose

6. Sustainability is not about saving the environment
“the environment does not exist as a sphere separate from
human actions, ambitions, and needs, and attempts to
defend it in isolation from human concerns have given the
very word environment a connotation of naivety” (WCED,
1987, p. xi).
YET….“according to most strategic management
literature, an organization … exists within an
independently given environment” (Smircich & Stubbart,
1985, pp. 724),
AND….Mutual embedding may be “so obvious…all human
organisations are embedded within the natural
environment and all of those which have human managers
and other employees, also contain the natural environment
in their respective biophysical bodies” (Starik & Kanashiro,
2013, p.8/9)
Its about saving ourselves, our purpose….

7. Corporate strategists are key and so are new models…
“corporate strategists…have more opportunity than
ever….to drive sustainable development” (UNSGHLPS,
2012, p.22)
Sustainability and Strategy…the key is how
we conceptualize and the questions we ask….

8. How to Conceptualise for Strategy & Sustainability?
Environment
Economic Social
No….
Yes
An astronaut’s view, not a partial view

9. And then ask human centric questions…
Regarding what we might have called the environment - ask what is
the impact on humans’ (our) biology?
• Will it make the air I breathe cleaner, the water I drink cleaner?
• Would I want to ingest, breathe, touch…the physical outcomes
of this strategy?
• If the answers are NO, don’t do it….or redesign or
ameliorate…
Regarding society - What is the impact of this strategy on humans’
(our) society and our ability to….
• Enhance inclusiveness?
• Enhance connectivity?
• Enhance equity?
• Enhance security? (Gladwin, Kennelly, Krause, 1995)
Regarding economics - What are the returns and how are they
impacted by the questions above ? In both the short and long term?
To answer these questions you need more
perspectives and experts in the room, hence more
collaboration…before the final decision is made
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10. Think like an astronaut