HBR guest blog: new Sustainability tool

I just came across this blog entry from Andrew Winston, writing in the Harvard Business Review — it presents a nice conceptual wheel that can help companies better strategize about how to develop meaningful, strategically relevant sustainability practices for their companies.Examining the different aspects of the wheel, I felt there was a lot of alignment between it and the focus/ideas of The Business Detox Project. Specifically the outer edge of the wheel covers the issues generally associated with business’s relationship with the natural environment, while the inside edge covers off consumers and workers as key stakeholders. A comment that I posted to Andrew’s article reads in part:

Andrew,
I like your wheel concept and I think it could find much use as a strategizing tool for businesses that want to be proactive in developing relevant sustainability practices…… In a nutshell, I applaud any business that takes “sustainability” seriously and uses it as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink their approach to business (eg: Ray Anderson & Interface). However, I believe that to reach a real tipping point we need to concretely address the structural/legal aspects of how businesses are “allowed” to operate — this is the thrust of the Business Detox Project initiative.

Any comments? Do you see a strong level of alignment between Andrew’s tool and the Detox focus? Could tools like Andrew proposes be used effectively by a companies to better “detox” their companies?