So this week I’ve attended meetings examining my division’s, Hanson Building Products, business and team sustainability aspirations, attainments, goals and initiatives.  One of our main objectives was to clearly articulate our essential purpose, position and passion on the subject.

Tick in the box!  Job done.  We met our objective and here it is:

Building on the past.  Restoring the balance.  Creating the future.

Brilliant, perfect, not created by me, but developed through a thought process and series of exercises from a cross divisional, cross functional and cross geographical group of my North American team, who are passionate about our world, our company and the people around them.  “Odd” you may say when you read it.  What’s that got to do with sustainability?  Well, think about it.

Building on the past, the first point:  Prior to the industrial revolution in the 19^th century there was no need to consider many aspects of sustainability.  No emissions, no VOC’s, no plastics, no steel and glass skyscrapers.  Our infrastructure was put together using naturally created materials and products that were strong, durable, long lasting and practical – Sustainable.  Anyone doubt that statement?  OK – take a trip to Egypt and look at the pyramids, built 4,500 years ago.  On the way back call in to Rome and look at the 2,000-year-old buildings still standing today.  Some of the earliest brick structures as still standing.  The Ishtar Gate, entrance to the city of Babylon, was constructed from brick 2,500 years ago and is still standing.  Looking to much more modern times, one of the most beautiful brick buildings in the world is Hampton Court Palace near London, England and completed by King Henry VIII in 1514 is still revered as one of the finest examples of brick architecture ever created.  So that’s why we refer to the past in our sustainability vision.  Put bluntly, our forefathers got it right, we got it wrong.

Restoring the balance, the second point:  OK, if we accept the comments on the past then we need to look at what’s gone wrong in more recent times.  We’ve messed up our world in the name of progress, greed and generally being too clever for our own good in the last 150 years or so, that’s all.  Progress for the sake of progress.  Architects designing with unsustainable materials.  You don’t agree?  Well you obviously weren’t around in the 1960s!  Ask someone who was and get them to describe some of the buildings we were erecting then.  It’s in our nature to progress but we need to balance that momentum with the sustainability experience that we have learned from the past.  From as long ago as 4,000 years before the “clever” innovators created the need for sustainability by systematically destroying our world over the relatively short 150 years to date.  So it’s that balance that needs to be restored.

Creating the future, the last point:  This is very simple, by assessing past practices, designs, materials, products and concepts and balancing that with our ever increasing knowledge we can build a better, more durable and above all more sustainable infrastructure for our future generations.  

I am proud to be the President of a company with such vision and conviction regarding sustainability.  I’m even more proud of the fact that the statement was not derived from on high.  It wasn’t made up by some third party or passed down from the head office.  The statement was born out of the hearts and minds of our team, who regard themselves as part of our company and who believe in themselves, their company and their past, present and future world and generations – enough to come up with a statement, a vision, a mantra that demonstrates a passion for the true, down to earth, real concept of sustainability.

Building on the past.  Restoring the balance.  Creating the Future.