In the earlier blog I had concluded that sustainability software must not be sourced from the west and it must birthed and developed in India. I want to criticise the choice of sustainability leadership of some corporates.
It is a popular practice to employ expertise from the west and usually they seem to be fit right on the top ad head of sustainability for an entire group. They usually come from countries such as America, UK and Australia. I am left wondering what the reason could be for such a decision. Most times I arrive at the conclusion that they are here either because they are experienced performing equivalent roles or because an outsider tends to unite different organisations within a group. Both the reasons are seem to be weak. The primary motivation should be understanding of culture and what would an expert from a developing nation know of a culture of a nation such as India. Further this argument is post facto as we have not seen real success in implementations where the sustainability leadership is from the west. The most spectacular failure can be seen in the Aditya Birla group and contrary magnificent success is the Mahindra group. Mr. Anand Mahindra took his leadership to the fight and stepped up his ambition and signed up to be part of any and all important climate based business groups, brought a magnificent leader from within that was driving business strategy in one of the groups largest and profitable business. The turnaround is immediate and red hot as this blog gets published.
In these times where intolerance to criticism is reached new heights I must submit that I acknowledge prejudice in the wordsmithing of the previous paragraph. I mean to be vehement and impactful but not prejuidced.
Conclusively, sustainability leadership must be from within the organisation as not only the culture of geography but the politics of the organisation is also important for a successful implementation of sustainability.