From Crisis to Opportunity: The Impact & Sustainability Perspective of Business

Winston Churchill is credited with saying “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Nobody likes to go through crises, especially ones that leave long-term damage. Emerging from a crisis is not guaranteed, but our ability to do so is related to our attitude and willingness to view the potential opportunities embedded within the crisis.

When considering opportunities in this given situation, I see several main points to consider:

1. Revisit paradigms: It’s hard to reconsider things we regard as “absolute truths”. Deep crises allow us the opportunity to revisit our beliefs and assumptions, providing a self & public legitimacy to re-think them.
2. Review the fundamentals: This helps see through the most important issues and identify the less important ones. This exercise also helps to prioritize allocation of resources such as time and attention, capital and other resources.
3. Realize that time is the most precious resource we own, and rethink priorities for its allocation.

Applying this thought process in business will lead the way to emerge from the crisis and for new opportunities to arise. I believe these are generally sound pieces of life advice, but let’s focus on the impact & sustainability angles of businesses.

1. Revisit paradigms

Most people associate 'impact and sustainability' with donating time and money to good causes.

This is of course true and important, but at the same time, a very limited approach. In the past two decades, we’ve learned that impact & sustainability are also a better way to do business and by that, create not only value for people and our planet but also create good and profitable businesses. 

Creating positive impact on people's lives can be achieved in many ways. One of the most effective ways to influence positively is by building businesses that create solutions addressing social and environmental challenges, and mostly by creating technology-based solutions for those. The scalability of a business and particularly a technology product is immense and will result in much bigger impact than any other type of activity. Here are some examples: (1) Enabling affordable and accessible on-demand public transit can improve social mobility and access to opportunities (2) Tech products helping us protect ourselves from the risks of extreme weather events have the potential to save lives. (3) Tracking and monitoring of chronic diseases helps healthcare systems deliver better health outcomes for patients. 

Looking at business operations, there is tremendous potential in building companies in a diverse and inclusive way, and in paying attention to issues such as carbon emissions. Such companies not only provide equal opportunities for people to be engaged in the workforce and benefit from all diversity-related advantages, but also contribute to the prevention of the destruction of our planet which in itself has safety and health outcomes.

So here’s the first paradigm shift needed — if until today, you thought about impact & sustainability as a means to do good outside of your business or work focus — think again. Creating and managing companies that are attentive to society's needs and conscious of our planetary boundaries can achieve both the aim to do good and be profitable all at the same time. 

1. Review fundamentals

At the core, the most important things in life are universal - being healthy, safe, and able to sustain ourselves. Just to name a few, we can probably all agree on the need of being healthy and safe, thus needing clean air and water, safe sources of energy, access to shelter, healthy food etc. Some will mention access to equal opportunities as being fundamental, reflected in the ability to sustain themselves financially, have access to jobs, education, healthcare etc. Fundamentals are culture- and community-related but we are all humans and have many similar needs. 

Thinking about these basic needs and translating them into products and services are the essence behind creating impactful companies. People need products to address their fundamental needs. Identifying those is what creates business opportunities. Simply put - addressing people’s fundamental needs can impact them positively. Hence the importance of integrating social & environmental considerations to business and in parallel applying a business lens to making impact.

During tough periods, people will always prioritize their fundamental needs and will relinquish any kind of “nice to have” product or service. By providing solutions to people's fundamental needs, companies can build a real connection with their customers, who will remain loyal even in tough times, adding resilience to the business

1. Time

Times of crisis remind us that our time is precious and goes by (too) fast. For example, the urgency to address issues like climate change is now, we cannot afford to wait. The time to act in order to reduce the harmful effects of climate change is now, we don’t have time to wait. This realization results in a call for immediate action, materializing all ideas addressing climate change now. The same is true for all other fundamental issues we care about that are essential to leading good lives. 

So when thinking about a good time to act, especially while coming out of a crisis, I recommend considering now.

In conclusion, Fundamental needs become most apparent during crises and are shared by most people. These needs can be translated into business opportunities, provided that we relinquish the paradigm that business and impact are not related. Tying both together can be translated into providing necessary solutions to fundamental needs, addressing large markets and hence creating real business opportunities. This, in turn, can result in integrating  the business and impact outcomes together where the more business we make, the more impact is created and vice-versa. 

Most importantly, the time to act is now and we don’t have a second to lose. 

Colliding the necessary paradigm shift with the urgency of the present moment is the best use of crisis to build a sustainable future - for ourselves and generations to come.