August 1981 was a big month for new stuff; MTV launched on the first day of the month, the first IBM PC was introduced to the market on the 12th day of the month, interest rates were hovering around 20%, the term sustainable development was six years away from being added to our dictionary, and I was about to head off to university.
Thirty years later MTV hardly plays anymore music videos (we watch them on YouTube anyway), we carry around 1,000,000 times more computing capacity in our Blackberry’s and IPhone’s today than the original IBM PC’s capacity, and the interest rate is hovering around 1%.
What do 1981 and 2011 have in common; challenging economic times and uncertainty about the future. What do the two years not have in common; we have more tools and data to help us compete today, in a much more competitive market.
One of the major influences on industry in the 1980′s was certainly the personal computer. The PC enabled us to use spreadsheets for data analysis, use Harvard Graphics for presentations (apparently it is still around) and the early versions of AutoCAD to move blueprints from paper to digital format.
Computers were reserved for ‘geeks’ in 1981. In fact, I was one of them for all of four months. My first term at university was in Computer Science, using punch cards and learning about if-then-else and comment cards in FORTRAN. Hindsight being 20/20 I may have been wise to stick it out, but quite honestly, I didn’t see a future in calculating the square root of 1 to 1,000 with a bunch of computer punch cards. Oops.
Again, hindsight being 20/20, I am glad I switched to Engineering at Christmas of my first year, and, oddly, have spent the last quarter century working on computers – go figure.
In the early 1980′s the number of people in a company that used a computer was limited, much like the number of people who deal with environmental issues today in most companies; environmental managers who deal with regulatory issues and engineering and maintenance staff who focus on improving energy efficiency.
The same trend seems to be happening today, the number of people in an organization that take environmental issues into account within their scope of responsibility is growing quickly, it is no longer reserved for engineers and environmental managers.
Companies today (especially manufacturers) face environmental / sustainability issues from three frames; compliance / beyond compliance and path to sustainability. For example:
- Product Development / R&D: reducing and/or eliminating toxic substances can reduce the cost of environmental compliance and
give marketing a green attribute to add to your product (see a quick video about GM moving to greener paint) - Engineering and maintenance can improve energy efficiency which in turn should reduce your GHG emissions intensity which,
again, is a good news story for your marketing department to share with stakeholders and to share on in programs such as the Global Reporting Initiative - The generation now entering the workforce is looking for employers with a green track record meaning environmental progress
should be on HR’s radar and shared accordingly with potential new hires.
Thirty years is a long time, and 2041 is just as far away from us today as 1981 is; a lot has changed during the last 30 years, and undoubtedly will over the next 30 years. In fact, change is our only constant (that and taxes).
The question today is how will your company thrive tomorrow, next year and a decade from now in a competitive global market that is increasingly focusing on sustainability issues?
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