John Elkington We will live and do business differently, as we work to realign our economic, social and political systems to new realities.

Jochen Zeitz This becomes particularly evident when you consider the objective of our current economic system, based on Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” concept dating back to the 18th century. The idea is that entrepreneurial activity and the pursuit of profit also indirectly generates growth and prosperity. Consequently, this system will have to be adjusted at some point so that companies – directly or indirectly – not only ensure economic growth but also the well-being of our environment and society.

Make me feel uncomfortable.

Katharina Roehrig What lies ahead – and what we at the Melitta Group are working hard on – is the question: how can systems, structures, and processes be designed in such a way that business decisions always support, or at least do not negatively impact, environmental and social objectives?

Esther Bahne After all, companies are dependent on the acceptance of all stakeholders to secure their license to operate. The most successful companies not only ensure acceptance, but also relevance: in the long term, those who make a genuinely positive difference to the lives of their customers will prevail.

“Green Swans”: Profound market changes that will alter our paradigms, values, and attitudes, and thus lead to new needs, business models, technologies, and different regulations and laws.

JZ I believe this transition can only succeed if we also assign a value and a price to ecological and social “assets”.

JE It will also make it easier to identify, stimulate, and promote developments that I call “Green Swans”. By this, I mean profound market changes that will alter our paradigms, values, and attitudes, and thus lead to new needs, business models, technologies and different regulations and laws.

KR Incidentally, the example of the circular economy clearly demonstrates that the future must – and will – require much stronger cooperation between social groups.

Katharina Roehrig Everyone probably has their own ideas about how we want to live and do business in the future. What is clear, however, is that without sustainable action there can be no future. The pursuit of sustainability goals and the development and implementation of sustainable technologies will therefore increasingly determine our lives and business activities.

Jochen Zeitz And as the Sustain­able Development Goals (or SDGs) adopted by the UN are widely accepted internationally, they also outline how we want to live and do business in the future.

Esther Bahne For a long time, for example, the idea of generating energy exclusively from renewable resources was definitely a utopian vision. Today this has evolved into a realistic and concrete goal.

John Elkington And we should not forget that implementing these SDGs offers enormous revenue potential for companies.

Sustainability is neither a fashion nor a trend, but a prerequisite and an attitude.

KR The transformation will be much more far-reaching, because every existing product – with all its properties and components – will have to be reassessed and redesigned from a sustainability perspective. And the same applies to production processes and, of course, to supply chains.

EB On top of this, our lives and business activities will not only be drastically changed by technological progress, but also by other global developments.

JZ And this is a good example that sustainability is neither a fashion nor a trend, but a prerequisite and an attitude.

JE Most people do not want to think about sustainability when buying their products. They want to be able to trust brands, producers and retailers.

EB Sustainable business is a sine qua non these days. The electric cars of today, for example, are not about sacrifice; in fact, they are even more dynamic than conventional vehicles. They are not only “The New Good” but also “The New Cool”.

Jochen Zeitz If a company claims to be playing a part in shaping the future, it needs to develop “genuine” innovations. Unfortunately, however, we often talk about “innovation” when it is actually only an optimization.

Katharina Roehrig You can only achieve quantum leaps if you challenge the entire product category.

John Elkington The locomotive, the light bulb, the smartphone: they were all extremely successful innovations because they all resulted in a complete system that was hardly conceivable, or even utopian, at the time of their invention.

Esther Bahne In order to create such innovations, companies have to ask themselves the key questions: Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it the way we are? What do people really want?

We need
the power
of utopia.

JZ And this is exactly how “genuine” innovations are created. They are often solutions that future users do not even know they need.

EB My bold hypothesis is that if you as a manager have not heard anything risky, crazy or even heretical for a long time – then your culture is not innovation-driven and therefore not future-proof.

KR Mark Twain once said: “A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds”.

JE It is precisely such unexpected events with significant adverse effects, in today’s world the coronavirus pandemic, that expose the flaws in systems we previously took for granted, that accelerate a range of existing trends and, in the end, can spur huge changes in the norms, rules and institutions that shape market expectations.