As I was idly scouring the internet this chilly New Year's Eve, I found some news to warm the cockles of my heart. And it seemed such a good way to end the year that I thought I would share it with you.

 

It seems that earlier this month a whole load of companies participated in the "Sustainable Brands 2008 Conference". Companies including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson flew their staff (carbon-offset, no doubt) to Miami Beach in order to "share ideas about how to create new business value in today's rapidly changing landscape".

 

But it seems this was no ordinary corporate jamboree.

 

For Peter Salmon, writing on the 'leading source of CSR and sustainability news' CSRwire,"the conference was one of those definable change moments, the birth of sustainability 2.0".

 

"The sustainability debate", he says, "has been positioned all wrong -- as an environmental problem, as something business needs to account for, a risk to be managed or a tax to be paid. And now, in a volatile global economy and competitive environment, sustainability is being pushed aside as a luxury."

 

"But it's not an and/or situation. The answer is and/and. Sustainability 1.0 - compliance, CSR, reduction, limits, is over. Sustainability 2.0 is here. Sustainability 2.0 is an outcome-focused all encompassing approach. It's a process that builds prosperous businesses creating innovative products and services; businesses founded on good financial results, responsible use of resources, and community well-being."

 

Of course Tomorrow's Company has been saying all this for years. And its members have been listening.

 

But it is good, I think, to end the year realising that in the midst of all the doom and gloom, some more people are beginning to get it.

 

Here's to a great 2009 !