I posted an application of Dave Snowden’s Flexuous Curves framework to the sustainability field about 18 months ago. Attending a Master Class with Dave in South Africa last week provided impetus to update it.

The updated version aligns quite well with the Sustainability Triad I posted earlier.

For those not familiar with Flexuous Curves, it combines Clayton Christensen’s S-Curves and Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” (represented by the shaded areas). The initial enthusiasm for a novel approach hits a wobble as barriers to scale become apparent. When enthusiastic ‘early adopters’ run out, it enters a chasm. By the time mass adoption takes place, it replaces the previous orthodoxy although the original concept may have been compromised in the process. Where the curves intersect for the second time, those still following the old way are in the “last chance saloon” – in other words, they risk being left behind. (There’s much more to it than that, so read the Wiki to get the detail.)

Harm Reduction began in the 80s and is presently maintained through a large number of good/best practice frameworks and standards (ISO 14 000 series, etc). That number keeps growing by the week because this is where people make money off selling ‘the best way to do it’. Once the risk is adequately managed, there’s no need to track the latest fad. A decline in marginal returns and a rise in marginal costs yields diminishing returns, which present a natural barrier to novelty.

Innovative Win-Win approaches (Circular Economy, Base of the Pyramid, Reverse Innovation, Creating Shared Value, and so on) were intended to overcome this problem and get us to scale. Sustainability became more strategic. A few innovators got it right (there’s an example below), but ultimately talking far outweighed the walking. Some companies got overwhelmed by opportunity and struggled to focus; others gulped their own Kool-Aid and/or failed to manage the risk. The concepts live on in the minds of theorists and integrated reports, but the part about scale was conveniently forgotten. To all intents and (social) purposes, the Win-Win glow has faded.

I am also wondering whether there might be an inverse relationship between the size of the management consultancies entering the sustainability field and the likelihood of taking sustainable innovation effectively to scale. The Big Cs built their reputations on disruptive innovation, encapsulated in the idea of “big risks, big rewards”. Disclosure: I was once a  fan of blue sky thinking and disruptive innovation in pursuit of social purpose. Perhaps I’m just getting old, but my peers and I have been slogging along these curves for decades and I think we have come to a little wisdom. Innovating in highly uncertain contexts is risky, subject to unexpected failure and unpredictable things. Too damn often, it just doesn’t work. (Which is why the Win-Win glow has faded.)

Turning back to complexity science, a more risk averse approach involves exaptive innovation following the work of evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba. It is not the sexy kind of innovation touted by the Big Cs. (Of course, I think it is sexy.) Examples are emerging. South African financial services organisation Discovery Group launched Discovery Green last year in an attempt to extend and adapt (‘exapt’) their experience in incentive systems, big data capabilities, and stakeholder networks to help solve the electricity crisis in South Africa. They are a few years off delivery and will encounter barriers along the way. But risk management is another key capability of theirs, so if anyone is going to succeed at this, it is likely to be them. (More disclosure: I have worked with Discovery on and off for about a decade, though not on this particular project.)

My point is that scaling positive impact requires a careful and disciplined approach. Anything else in a highly uncertain context runs the risk of scaling unintended consequences that could more than offset the gains. Which brings us to the tendrils of a new sustainability era…

Resilience is reflected in the latest curve. It’s been around before but is edging closer to the mainstream now. I say ‘edging’ because while the word is tossed around like chaff, what it means remains a bit ‘out there’. (I use Snowden’s definition which is ‘survival with continuity of identity over time‘.) I think we are circling resilience by exploring parts of it, often identified by the prefix ‘re-‘: rethink, regeneration, restoration, redistribution, rehabitation, and so on.

If your organisation failed to fly with a Win-Win initiative, the learning curve for Resilience might be pretty steep. That’s because I think we’ve Entered the Chasm before resilience has fully become a thing. I am hoping to be proven wrong about that.

Either way, I think the ESG raters have been instrumental in the slide. They pushed sustainability up the boardroom agenda, but returned the primary focus to Harm Reduction (in this case, harm to their investments). In addition to ESG investing’s recent fall from grace, we see large companies dropping or diluting their social and environmental commitments. Amongst them: longstanding sustainability leader Unilever; global banks like Standard Chartered and HSBC; and fashion brand H&M.

People are wringing their hands or pointing their fingers about this. Some are giving up and heading for the hills.

I see it as good news.

We may be in the chasm but leading companies are not trying to Pollyanna their way across the top. In this way, it is different to the previous curve. Because purpose-washing wastes time that we no longer have. Resilience has never depended on ticking ESG scorecards or turning the screws on middle managers to meet sustainability ‘stretch’ targets. It takes us into a new arena – in the sense of worldviews – where we get into the ring with paradox.

As leading companies seek greater stability and transformative change, simultaneously, they will find themselves up against:

• Jevon’s paradox, where improvements in the efficiency of resource use result in an overall increase in consumption;
• What former governor of the Bank England Mark Carney called the “Tragedy of the Financial Horizons”; and
• The inconvenient truth of Goodhart’s Law or “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”.

We’ll need a new kind of fitness. A new game. And probably a new crew in our corner.

The sooner companies realise that, the better.