Business 21C - Published by UTS Business

The biggest challenge for businesses and industries within the sustainable space is to cut through the clutter of greenwash communication and deliver a true message of environmental sustainability, says Philip Dalidakis, CEO of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.

Sustainability is a word under threat. It’s a word in danger of losing its meaning, its identity and its impact. As society strives to become more environmentally responsible – and drags the commercial world with it – a new vocabulary has emerged to accompany this trend.

Unfortunately, words that once aptly described the environmentally conscious are fast losing their impact as we become saturated with greenwash buzzwords from organisations trying to cash in on the slightest of green credentials. The biggest challenge for businesses and industries within the sustainable space is to cut through the clutter of greenwash communication and deliver a true message of environmental sustainability.

As Victoria’s timber industry has found, transforming an industry or business into a sustainable entity is only half the challenge; the real legwork is in taking the general public with you on your journey. Terms like ‘social license’ must be treated with as much importance as ‘economic returns’ and ‘profitability’ – just ask BHP post the OK Tedi mine disaster. After all, actions speak louder than words, and in this world of 24-hour news cycles and freely accessible information, companies can be googled very quickly, and any claims must be met with supporting evidence.

In the most basic sense, sustainability means fulfilling the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. In theory, a sustainable business should be able to operate forever without having a detrimental impact on the environment. Twenty years ago, the concept of a ‘sustainable timber industry’ would have sounded as plausible as ordering a ‘healthy choice meal’ from McDonald’s. Cutting down trees has long been represented as environmental vandalism. To save a tree from the axe was to show one’s true love for the environment. However, it is not only the times that have changed but the science as well.

Environmental science now suggests that a well-managed forest must include appropriate harvesting activities, be they selective or clear fell harvesting. (See, for example, work done by Associate Professor Gregory Nolan at the University of Tasmania, UTAS Forests and Forestry.) As a result, the industry has undergone great change and progression in recent years. It now operates at a level that is sustainable and that balances the needs of industry with the conservation of the environment. Currently the industry harvests 0.075% of Victoria’s forests annually. Meanwhile, 89% of Victoria’s forests are in conservation reserves or never to be commercially harvested.

While the process of transforming the native timber industry into a sustainable one has not been without its difficulties, the process of informing and transforming the minds of the general public is proving to be just as challenging. It is no longer enough for a business or industry to simply claim that it operates sustainably; there has to be a genuine and constant demonstration of how this is occurring. For an organisation to be able to legitimise itself as a sustainable entity, it must be transparent and willing to open itself up to all forms of scrutiny.

For the Victorian native timber industry, this scrutiny is greater than most. Our operations are guided by a strict code of conduct and subject to an annual independent audit by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Rather than seeing this as a hindrance or an obstacle, the industry embraces ongoing assessment as verification of its sustainable practices. At the end of the day, the businesses and industries that can authenticate their sustainable ethos will be the ones that thrive and survive in the ultra-competitive, environmentally-conscious market, both locally and overseas.

But Victoria’s timber industry can by no means rest on its laurels and think it has ‘succeeded’. Significant challenges remain to secure the industry’s future remain, both in light of the devastating impacts of the Black Saturday bushfires, and in the continuing education of the general public about the industry’s environmental scorecard. However, with great challenges come great opportunities. Timber’s greatest asset is its ability to absorb vast amounts of carbon while growing, and then to continue to store that carbon as a timber product for the remainder of its life. When new trees are planted to replace those harvested, even more carbon is absorbed. It’s a wonderfully simple formula that is too often lost in the emotion that surrounds the issues. There is also great potential for the industry to utilise wood waste for bio-energy. Given the right regulations and support, Australia’s forest industry could supply 20% of our renewable energy targets without harvesting one additional tree.

Victoria’s timber industry represents a commercial sector that has undergone radical change and continues to push itself. Change is not something to be feared, but embraced. The industry is meeting and exceeding the general public’s high demands to become sustainable and to minimise its impact on the environment. And just as the public has asked more of the timber industry over the last twenty years, so it will ask more of other industries and businesses into the future.

The onus will be on all organisations to cut through the chaos and prove that sustainability is more than just a word.

In July 2009 the Victorian Association of Forest Industries launched the Victorian Sustainable Forestry Council (SFC), a first of its kind for Australia’s forest industry. The SFC has been established to seek advice from independent experts and community representatives with an interest in contributing to policy formation for the future of Victoria’s forests.

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