What India Can Teach Us About Sustainability

Whether you’re crafting artisan-made sustainable clothing or manufacturing circuit boards, this sustainability expert’s concepts apply. His views are informed by a culture vastly older than ours.

"I arrived in India as an expert. I left as a novice."So says Adam Werbach, former Sierra Club president and Global CEO of the sustainability consultancy Saatchi and Saatchi S. Werbach recently toured India talking about the principles laid out in his book, Strategy for Sustainability. As he toured this vast country giving speeches and trainings to future consultants, Werbach came to realize that India in many ways already models the strategies he champions—and then some.

In the wake of that trip Werbach published a report that looks at the things India has to teach the rest of us about achieving sustainability. It’s called An Elephant in the Room—Lessons for Corporate Sustainability. It’s a fascinating and inspiring read packed with ideas you can put into action both in your personal life and business.

Werbach’s five key takeaways are:

Hire people, not machines. As workforces shrivel around the world and unemployment soars, putting people to work doing things that machines can do suddenly seems to be a rational strategy. India excels at this.

Cultivate self-reliance. Werbach has long been a proponent of acting now and seeking permission (and perhaps forgiveness) later. Don’t wait for government to mandate change. The Indians are masters of this principle given their dysfunctional and often corrupt bureaucracies and glacially slow judicial system.

.

Think in whole systems. Indian spiritual traditions and philosophies celebrate the underlying connectedness among all things in creation. Paradoxically, in the “real” world, Indian systems rarely work as anticipated and businesses that thrive there know how to adapt and integrate out of dire necessity.

Align with natural forces. Despite being subjected to centuries of external counter-cultural influences that have often backfired, (think plastic bags for one) India manages to endure. Today, India’s most successful businesses function in concert with natural and cultural restraints, traditions and realities.

Plan first, then jugaad. Jugaad is a Hindi word that means making do with what you have in tough times. It speaks to adaptation and improvisation—skills that Indians possess in spades and that the rest of us need to cultivate in challenging times.

.

Werbach’s report is rife with case studies of Indian businesses that have figured out how to prosper in challenging times. At the same time he acknowledges the enormous tasks and pitfalls that face India: rampant economic growth, staggering population density, water problems, pollution and vanishing biodiversity. In the end it may be India’s brilliance at jugaad that will be its saving grace.