The Link between Trust and Sustainability
Results of a recent survey of 283 Swedish Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) professionals indicate that many companies are focusing on sustainability primarily as a way to gain trust within the marketplace and secondly to ‘future-proof’ their businesses. While not explicitly stated, the creation and maintenance of trust between people, businesses, governments and society at large, can be one of the most beneficial and important side effects of creating strategic plans for sustainability.
This relationship between trust and sustainability has been a focus for Kaj Török, a Senior Advisor with The Natural Step and a Trust Trainer with Franklin Covey Radical Change in Sweden. More information about the trust framework that Kaj uses can be found here.
Research shows that high levels of trust within communities can help to stimulate creativity, peace, happiness, democracy, international cooperation, personal health and organisational effectiveness. Trust is even one of the basic supports for political leadership.
On the other hand, low levels of trust within society will create huge barriers for individuals as they try to satisfy their own needs. To help us define and work towards ‘social sustainability’, The Natural Step Framework uses a list of nine fundamental human needs that was developed by a team led by Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef. The illustration below shows strong links between our ability to meet our individual human needs with the benefits of trust within society, as defined by Barbara Misztal, author of Trust in Post Modern Societies.
While it is clear that the linkage between sustainability and trust has not been fully explored, there are major links between the social elements of trust and sustainability. Only by using a holistic definition of sustainability can we understand and apply those relationships to our own work. We will continue to study how to build trust in a conscious and systematic way in our work to create lasting value for businesses and communities. For more information, please contact Kaj Török.