From Children to Fathers: The Grand Standard

My inspiration for this post is an article on the CSRWire by Warren Levy, called We Need a Grandchildren Standard. In it, he mentions that CSR is a leading measure, whereas sustainability is a lagging measure. It occurs to me that some people may not know exactly what this means.

I did some work for an organization on developing sustainability KPIs (key performance indicators). Some of the KPIs involved reporting on leading and lagging edge indicators to measure the success of actions taken. For example, "satisfaction" is a leading edge indicator; the satisfaction level of partners, customers, members, volunteers can be viewed as a predictive indicator of possible revenue streams.

Actual revenue streams are an example of a lagging edge indicator. It is lagging edge since it is measured in absolute terms (money), and is likely a product of activities that you and the organization have already engaged in.

So, back to Warren Levy and The Grandchildren Standard. His premise is simple: CSR is a leading edge indicator, as it represents the things an organization does to reach a long term target of sustainability. Sustainability itself is the lagging indicator. You don't have it until you have it. Levy argues for a change in how business views itself: "Sustainability requires changing business and political decision-making to the 'grandchildren standard' from today's pervasive 'no tomorrow' standard".

If you read this blog, you will know I am enrolled in an MBA program. Last night, a graduate of the program happened to drop by: Brett Wilson, a member of the wildly popular Canadian TV show Dragon's Den and self-made billionaire (yes, that is BILLIONS). He spoke about his business successes and how they have shaped his current priorities. One of his yardsticks when evaluating new projects happens to be "what would my children think of that"? This strikes me as an actual business application of The Grandchildren Standard. Its very similar to Seventh Generation's creed, the Great Law of the Iroquois Federation: "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations".

My own application of this could be called The Grandfather Standard. In fact, my father, but grandfather to four. We were talking about the roots of this recession. His opinion is that it is all about greed. He lived through the Great Depression, and he believes that businesses used to know what they were there for. To make a profit, yes, but to support the community too.

The point? Develop leading edge programs through your events that have sustainable, lagging edge results: another great reason to embrace new sustainable event measurement (APEX), management (BS8901) and reporting standards (GRI).