The most feedback I’ve received about an article submitted to the Journal was entitled "Selling Sustainability" (Aug-Sept 2008) and was published just before the severity of our economic condition had come into view. In preparation for this edition of "Prospecting" I was reading over the article and realized how dramatically things have changed since then and thought I’d put my thoughts down on how this economy is affecting the sustainability movement.

The initial premise of the article is that the enormous volume of media attention about sustainability is inconsistent with the amount of business it generates. How has this concept evolved over the last eight months? Frankly, I am surprised by the way the movement has held up. It would be easy to assume the expense associated with sustainability to be high on the list of items cut from budgets being reduced by corporations. But the commitment to sustainability seems to be, for the most part, remaining. The media attention has diminished due to other pressing economic stories to tell, but the fact that companies are even still talking about sustainability, to me, is an encouraging sign.

Sustainability’s measure of success being linked to its positive impact on the bottomline is being tested. If corporations were flush with cash and had few economic worries, a sustainability program with marginal bottom line impact might be easier to accept. But now, when every expense is heavily scrutinized, only programs most critical to profitability are supported and funded. If a sustainability program helps the bottom line, it stays. If not, it goes. We have seen companies selecting individual components of their program to keep, and discarding those less beneficial. The result is an evolution of sustainability initiatives with a heightened focus on their return on investment.

The economic downturn is a good environment to validate the content of sustainability programs as a whole by identifying what elements really contribute to the financial well-being of the company, and which ones are of soft benefit. A cleansing, if you will. You can be sure the adjustments that are made now in the content of sustainability programs will be based in reality and, in my opinion, will be the components that stick around for the long term. Only the most appropriate, productive and high ROI items will remain. This economic downturn may be the best thing that has happened to the sustainability market place.