Horse Shoe Nails and Sustainable Washington State Businesses

There is an old poem “For the want of a horse shoe nail, an empire was lost.”  The poem states that when a shoe fell off a horse it went lame, a message couldn’t be delivered speedily and a rapid chain of events led to the eventual loss of the empire.  It means the littlest things can have far reaching consequences.  Right now, the future of sustainability globally is holding its breath, waiting to locate the place in America, to engage in sustainable global business.

That was two years ago.  These same sustainable international corporations are going blue in their collective faces waiting for American corporations and politics to embrace true sustainability. Our sister city to the north, Vancouver, B.C., has declared that by 2020 they want to be the “Greenest City in the World”.  California has embraced a strong sustainability path and Oregon is right behind as they both set down the political protections in new regulations and laws to protect fledgling sustainable corporations.

But our overseas partners wonder when Washington state will peek out of our sustainable silos?  True sustainability is a product/service cycle that embraces raw materials, production, customers and recycling back into raw materials with as little waste as possible.  In today’s global markets this means connecting entire value chains onto the path of true sustainability.  Yet the problems in going from a linear, costs-externalizing corporation to a cyclical, non-externalizing sustainable corporation are many, confusing and large. We can devote many future blog posts to how we solve these many decision points. But the call to action here is we need to band sustainable Washington corporations together today and actively engage international partners or lose the opportunity of global sustainable businesses to other states or countries.

We are actively looking for that Washington sustainable corporation we can host and thereby present to all our international sustainable corporations that can garner cyclical benefits from the association. We will also champion the legislative actions needed to protect our cyclical neophytes from their linear brethren. But we need to share hands across the waters to make this into true sustainability.

 Please assist us in finding that “nail” of a solid sustainable Washington business.  Send recommendations, queries and no paper via info@B2B4ME.com.

posted 1/30/12 on behalf of Mark Walker B2B4ME Head Coach