Profile: Maria Adebowale

Businesses that put people and the planet before profit are more likely to make it through the tough times, says Maria Adebowale, founder of Capacity Global, a UK think tank and social enterprise working on environmental justice. While not predicting the clinking of celebratory glasses in the corridors of most small sustainable businesses, she is willing to bet that sustainability will stay at top of their agenda.

Maria Adebowale for the Guardian Professional Network  (28 December 2011):

Sustainable companies see profit as a means to an end, not the end in itself.

Common themes run in conversations with partner organisations and friends running small-scale businesses in the third and social enterprise sectors. These are: the loss of contracts and funding, the eating up of reserves, which, in the worst scenario equals a further loss of staff, and the end of projects that support local engagement and environmental improvements in some of the most vulnerable neighbourhoods.

Based on these conversations, the potential collapse of the Eurozone and shadowy second dip recession, predicting the future for sustainable business in 2012 could be a pretty depressing task. It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s time to toast to a bright new year. But there is a case for dogged optimism.

My guess is business that is not centred around profit will slog through the hard times fully committed to the triple bottom line: people, profit and planet. That means continuing to allocate resources: money or time to reducing carbon footprint, supporting sustainable behaviour change, whilst actively working with poorer communities – economic down turn or not.

This is down to a fundamental principle of authentic sustainable business. Profit is a means to an end not the end in itself. Austerity can hinder the time it takes or how much can be done but despite this the commitment to social and environmental change stays at the heart of a holistic business.

The slightly rosier scenario is that smaller businesses that aren’t only there for profit, will get far more canny at reducing spend and pooling resources to deliver as part of cross sector consortiums to maintain cash flow and deliver on their organisation’s cause.

This does not mean that there will not be fewer projects and services needed to support community asset building or environmental protection nor does it mean that balancing priorities won’t create numerous challenges. And frustratingly it doesn’t even mean that some good sustainable businesses won’t really struggle and possibly fail.

So I am not predicting the clinking of celebratory glasses in the corridors of most small sustainable businesses but I am willing to bet that sustainability will stay at top of their agenda next year, and the next.

Maria Adebowale is director and founder of Capacity Global, a think tank and social enterprise working on environmental justice and a member of the Guardian Sustainable Business Advisory Panel.

Capacity Global is the only non-governmental organisation and think tank in the UK focusing on urban environmental justice and equality, and the first national environmental organisation to be awarded the Social Enterprise Mark for its economic, social and environment aims.

Maria has a degree in Organisation Studies and Business Law and a Masters in Public International Law (human rights and environmental law) and is the author of the Third Sector Climate Change Declaration.

Maria advises on advises on environmental justice and is currently working on the challenges of climate change, transport and food security on urban regeneration and environmental justice. She is also listed as one of the most influential environmentalists for her contribution to the environmental and social justice agenda.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk