Greenwashing Is Yesterday’s News
For a growing number of companies, sustainability is no longer just a marketing argument, but an economic necessity. In a time characterized by supply bottlenecks for raw materials and rapidly rising energy prices, using scarce and expensive resources efficiently is gaining importance. Zero emissions and CO2 neutrality are also increasingly coming into focus.
There are many approaches to shaping a sustainable economy. Perhaps the most sustainable one – to stay in the terminology – is that of »strong sustainability«: This concept places ecology at the center of all efforts. The idea is that a strong social system can only be formed within an intact ecosystem, and only a strong social system will produce an economy that functions in the long term. A society that exploits its environment beyond its regeneration capacity is not economically viable in the long term, let alone capable of survival.
More sustainability is therefore achieved first and foremost through ecological action. The importance of ecological action is currently being recognized more strongly than ever before. Just a few years ago, energy efficiency and the sparing use of resources were in large parts of the economy primarily sales arguments for companies that wanted to »give themselves a green makeover«. Now they are becoming a prerequisite for competitiveness. Since energy prices have exploded and even raw materials from which one would not have expected this – wood, for example – have become a luxury good, it has become clear, at the very latest: Things cannot go on as before.