Speaker 1 (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years, and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence. Com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. With us right now. Rajiv. Rajiv, it's great to have you. You are the president and founder of, of both, Leadership Energy Consulting. And you are the CEO of Stewardship Asia Center.

Speaker 1 (00:01:21) - Now your website's our Rajiv Faria, and that's at, again, we've got the spelling of that, to our friend that's listening to our podcast right now. So you can go because we're going to be talking about your website. you're also found on the web. your company is Stewardship asia.com SG and, you're the author of the book Sustainable Sustainability, which we're going to be talking about. And I want to point this out to you, and I want to celebrate you for doing this, but you have an accompanying podcast for the book. And again, it's called Sustainable Sustainability. So to a friend is listening to a podcast right now, go ahead and search for those two terms conversations with experts on sustainable strategies and business practices guided by steward leadership. Rajiv, Thank you so much for the work you're doing, and thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2 (00:02:08) - My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:02:10) - Well, listen, I would love to maybe just kind of talk about, you know, who you are in the work and the impact that you have in the world today.

Speaker 2 (00:02:19) - Well, you know, I used to be a banker. I used to be a trader. and, somewhere down the line, I got pretty disillusioned with the fact that, when it came to leadership development, when it came to management development, $80 billion a year, I spent every year around the world on trying to create better leaders. And yet you look at any company around you and you can count good leaders, and the hands are two fingers or two hands. And then more recently, I got disillusioned with the idea that, you know, the whole world is talking about sustainability, environmental sustainability, social sustainability. yet lots of talk, but very little action. We are going towards 2.7 degrees rather than 1.5 degrees. Inequality is increasing, not decreasing. And cybercrime is now more profitable than the drug trade. So I decided to figure out what is missing in the action on sustainability.

Speaker 1 (00:03:15) - Yeah. Yeah. So. Well, what is missing?

Speaker 2 (00:03:20) - So you see, before I tell you that, it's interesting, the world is throwing 3 or 4 things at the problem of both climate change and in social inequality.

Speaker 2 (00:03:30) - a lot of money. So sustainable finance, green finance, whatever you call it, there's $43 trillion in ESG funds, but very little of that is actually going towards climate or social action. country after country is passing regulation on, reporting requirements, on, on environmental or other activities. So there's a lot of the sustainability reports are getting thicker and glossier every year. And then there's incentives, green incentives, tax incentives. And the latest fad is to link CEO compensation with the ESG markers. What are we seeing? A whole lot of greenwashing. So to answer your question, what's missing? in a nutshell, what I would say is that we are trying to solve a leadership issue with money, incentives and regulation. That's the problem.

Speaker 1 (00:04:17) - Yeah, you mentioned greenwashing. Tell me more about what that is. For someone who doesn't understand why this is problematic.

Speaker 2 (00:04:25) - So, you know, everybody's talking about sustainability these days, right? Companies want to show that they are very, very conscious towards the environment. They're doing all the right things, or rather, they're not doing all the wrong things.

Speaker 2 (00:04:35) - Now there are companies that are genuinely doing that. They are solving environmental or social issues, genuinely. And there are those who are actually profiting from today's challenges, are not doing anything to address either environment or social, but are deceiving people to say that, yes, we are doing this, we are doing that. But actually they're not. They're adding to the problem. That's called greenwashing.

Speaker 1 (00:04:58) - Yeah it is. It's very tempting because I think that you know, I think in our hearts many of us want to do the right thing. maybe sometimes that feels complicated. And yet we feel a lot of pressures, you know, pulling from, you know. Well, well, look, we need to be doing this for PR reasons. We need to be doing this for, you know, for, for many different reasons. but again, I think most of us in our hearts want to do it for the right reasons. It's just there's a lot of compelling reasons or maybe difficult challenges to doing the hard work.

Speaker 1 (00:05:38) - you know, that that maybe have us feel like we're just kind of checking boxes and, you know, let's try to make hay of it or, you know, qualify for some incentive and, you know, and maybe there's not enough oversight. I don't know, it does. It feels like a very confounding world to me, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (00:05:58) - Well, you know, here's the thing. If we don't address issues related to climate change with great urgency, there will be no planet left in 20 years. And those who say that, you know, sustainability is a cost or a or a regulatory compliance problem, well, and that it eats into your profits. Well, if you don't have markets left, who are you going to sell to and what profits are you going to make? Yeah. So if we see we see sort of a spectrum of response. So on the one hand you have the greenwash, those who are wilfully deceiving and profiting from today's challenges, Then you have the window dressers who say, oh, everybody's talking about sustainability.

Speaker 2 (00:06:33) - Let me also do something. Dress up the window, put up a nice mannequin, look good. It's all form, no substance. Then you have the deniers. What climate change, what inequality. And even if these things do exist, it's not my problem. Then you have the box checkers. What you just mentioned, right? let me do what the law says and no more. And there's a huge problem with that which we can come back to if you want to talk about it. And then there is the real steward, leaders who see themselves as stewards of planet Earth and humanity. They are finding profitable solutions to today's problems. So on the right hand side are people who are finding profitable solutions to today's challenges. On the left hand side, people who are profiting from today's challenges.

Speaker 1 (00:07:13) - Yeah. So let's talk specifically about your book, Sustainable Sustainability. It's available everywhere. but and I should point out, like Rajeev, you've written several, very well respected books in the kind of the business leader community.

Speaker 1 (00:07:32) - it's published by Penguin. tell me about sustainable sustainability, why ESG is not enough. What is your hope for transformation with this book? Who should read it and what would you hope that the impact would have on the reader?

Speaker 2 (00:07:48) - Well, the bigger reason for writing the book was that we all, for our own sakes, need to save Mother Earth. It's the only home we have. And if inequality continues to widen, it's not going to be safe for anybody. And you know, with AI, we don't even know yet. net net, is it going to make life better or is it going to make life worse? So we need to address these issues for our own sake. For humanity's sake. The reason I wrote this book is because, as I mentioned earlier, the world is throwing money, regulation and incentives as solutions to these problems. And it's not working. You look at any of those things, it's not working right. so what is the real solution is what we wanted to find.

Speaker 2 (00:08:26) - We said, let's talk to companies that are actually doing well by doing good. What that means is they're actually making, you know, superior shareholder returns by addressing the very challenges that are threatening us today. So we spoke to and researched 100 such companies around the world. You know, the Patagonia's of the world, the Tatas in India, the Ayala's in the Philippines, the Faber Castell in Germany. These companies have existed for long, long periods of time, and their ethos is let's make money by addressing the very challenges of social challenge or environmental challenge. So we asked 100 such companies to detailed, why do you do it and how do you do it? And from there we developed that. These companies have something in common. It's called the steward leadership. They not only see themselves as stewards of planet Earth and humanity, they lead with something called steward leadership. So if you want, I can give you more detail about what steward leadership is. But that's the playbook that sustainable sustainability is if you want to make money, if you want to do well by doing good in your business, then that's the playbook.

Speaker 1 (00:09:31) - Who are some leaders that you think are, are are enabling or embodying steward leadership? Well, today?

Speaker 2 (00:09:39) - Plenty. today. Yesterday, day before yesterday. Lots of leaders. I'll give you two examples of long lasting companies. Okay. the Tata group in India, for example. All right. There are 155 year old conglomerate, but touching almost 400 billion in, in value today. They're into every kind of business you can think of, from steel to software to hospitality to airlines. you know, back in the 1850s or 1860s, when the founder, Jamshid G. Tata, was putting up his first steel plant in rural India, before the factory was put, was completed, he built hospitals, he built schools, he built community parks, he built temples, mosques and churches. Why not? Because he was a philanthropist, but because he realized that the more he builds a township around the steel plant, the more families would come and live there. More engineers would want to move their kids here without schools, without hospitals.

Speaker 2 (00:10:33) - Why would anybody come? In other words, sustainability was not an afterthought. It was an integral part of his business plan. And the Tata group, for the last 155 years, every single business of theirs, they think it's a society first. They think environment first. Now let's go over to the rest. Faber Castell, you know, the pencil makers? They've been in Germany. Yeah. They've been around for 270 years. And by the way, over 200 plus years ago, they started providing employee benefits like housing, health insurance, etc., to their employees a full 40 years before such things became the law in Germany. In fact, what they did paved the way to becoming the law in Germany. And for 270 years, they've been doing this. Patagonia is another example in the US. Now, I could go on with many examples, but when you ask these people, how have you been so successful for so long? They all give the same answer because we think society first, because we think environment first.

Speaker 3 (00:11:36) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:11:38) - so let's, share just a bit. Obviously we talked about your book, Sustainable Sustainability. you have an accompanying podcast who tell me who you're, having conversations with, on. And again, it's a brand new podcast. So, you know, I imagine there's a lot yet to come, but, what's the purpose of of your podcast again? It's called sustainable sustainability.

Speaker 2 (00:12:00) - Yeah. So we talked to leaders like the ones I just described, people who are doing well by doing good, who are making, superior shareholder returns, by addressing the very challenges that are threatening us today. They're not looking at sustainability as a cost problem or a regulatory compliance problem. They're looking at it as an opportunity. So we've recorded about 15 episodes already. We've just released the first one. And so we'll be doing this on an ongoing basis going forward. Why are we doing it? We're doing it to bring these stories to people so others can get inspired. we cannot neglect environment or society. B we need to change the narrative away from it being a cost problem or a reporting problem to an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (00:12:41) - Get this the World Economic Forum says that climate change alone provides $10.1 trillion of annual new business opportunities for the next three decades and 395 new million new job, million new jobs. So if you can think about sustainability as a, as a, as a opportunity rather than as a risk or a cost problem, you've changed the entire narrative. And now, not only will we save the planet and ourselves with it, but we will also make decent profits.

Speaker 1 (00:13:10) - You're absolutely right. And, you know, not only are there, you know, financial incentives, obviously, you know, not only are we, you know, making the world a better place. And, you know, when we think about the world that we leave behind for our children, consumers want this. They they're looking for this. They want to know that you are being a a steward of the planet, right? They consumers demand this. so it's not yeah, it's not optional today. And in fact, if you're not participating with your heart and not demonstrating, you know, that leadership and that example to others, then you know, there's a percentage of the population that's just going to they're going to look elsewhere because they they vote with their dollars.

Speaker 2 (00:13:57) - And their feet. You're absolutely right. If there is a choice, the consumer will go somewhere else. Now, you know these sorts of stupid leaders who are making money by doing the right thing, doing well, by doing good. We found that they had a few things in common they believe in for very specific values. they believe in the value of interdependence, which means that the more I help you succeed, the more I am going to succeed. My success is intertwined with yours. They believe in long term view. Then the short term there may be some pain, but in the long term I'm going to be around forever if I do this. They believe in taking ownership. Environmental and social sustainability is my problem and I am going to take ownership for it. And most importantly, they believe in creative resilience, which means we are going to have to solve these problems with innovation. And innovation means we fail eight out of ten times. But I'm not going to give up creative resilience. So those four things they had in common and then they actually, declare declared a purpose for their organization or for themselves.

Speaker 2 (00:14:56) - We're going to create a better future, but not just for me or my shareholder. We're going to create a collective, better future that's at the essence of what steward leadership is.

Speaker 1 (00:15:05) - I love it, Rajeev. Again, you're the author of four books, including your latest, which again is called Sustainable Sustainability. It's available on Kindle. It's available on paperback. you are also, again, the CEO of Stewardship Asia Center, and you're the president of Leadership Energy Consulting, which I wish we would have had more time to talk more about the work that you do in the world. but your website is Rajiv. And also, it's Stewardship asia.com.org, which to our friend that's listening. Please go support the work that Rajeev and folks within this network are doing. Rajeev, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for the work you're doing. You're doing, and thank you so much for the conversation.

Speaker 2 (00:15:55) - My pleasure. Thank you.

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