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SUSTAINABILITY AND FUTURE TRENDS

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The 70th session of the General Assembly has opened with a towering achievement: the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, including 17 inspiring Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs.

Our aim is clear. Our mission is possible. And our destination is in our sights: an end to extreme poverty by 2030; a life of peace and dignity for all.

What counts now is translating promises on paper into change on the ground.

We owe this and much more to the vulnerable, the oppressed, the displaced and the forgotten people in our world.

We owe this to a world where inequality is growing, trust is fading, and impatience with leadership can be seen and felt far and wide.

We owe this to 'succeeding generations', in the memorable words the Charter.

In this year in which we mark the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, we must heed the call of the Charter, and hear the voices of 'we the peoples.' That is how we can overcome the grim realities of the present and seize the remarkable opportunities of our era.

The Millennium Development Goals made poverty history for hundreds of millions of people.

Now we are poised to continue the job while reaching higher, broader and deeper.

The new framework does not just add goals. It weaves the goals together, with human rights, the rule of law and women's empowerment as crucial parts of an integrated whole.

The global goals are universal.

You, the world's leaders, have committed to leave no one behind and to reach those farthest behind, first. We can build on the momentum this December in Paris with a robust agreement on climate change.

Remarkable changes are under way to reduce harmful greenhouse emissions. I have seen and visited vast solar power installations bringing a new energy future into being. There is wind in the sails of climate action.

Yet it is clear that the national targets submitted by the member states will not be enough. We face a choice: either raise ambition or risk raising temperatures above the degree Celsius threshold, which science tells us we must not cross.

Reaching our sustainable development goals means organizing ourselves better. Let there be no more walls or boxes; no more ministries or agencies working at cross purposes. Let us move from silos to synergy, supported by data, long term planning and a will to do things differently.

Source: Excerpt from speech by Ban Ki-moon at 70th UN General Assembly, 28 September, 2015. Available at http://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/70/70_SG_en.pdf.

As highlighted in the speech of Secretary Ban Ki-moon, sustainability is a global goal, encompassing several different areas: environment protection, climate change, social inequality, human rights, poverty and nutrition.

In the first part of this Chapter, the definitions of sustainability and sustainable development are introduced, and the major issues related to the imperative of nutrition are presented; in the second part of the Chapter, the impact of some mega-trends on these phenomena is underlined, and the main pay-offs and reasons why governments, institutions and companies are required to focus on sustainable objectives are pointed out. This Chapter aims at providing the general picture in which the main topics covered in this book - operations and supply chain management - have to be framed in the light of sustainability.

1.2 SUSTAINABILITY BEFORE SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

To speak of sustainability, even from the specific perspective of Operations and Supply Chain Management, means confronting the question of how to pursue the objectives of the present - whether they are those of a company, an institution or a wider socio-economic system - while ensuring that adequate standards of development are also guaranteed in the future.

The subject of sustainability is therefore intrinsically connected to a vision of the future that postulates intergenerational equity and it is for this reason that we have decided to start our discussion with an analysis - albeit brief - of several scenarios that, most probably, will form the backdrop for the choices to be made by those that must make governance decisions, such as managers, entrepreneurs or heads of government. The socio-economic context in which future generations will live and companies and institutions will operate will largely be the result of the decisions made today and, in particular, of the actions to be taken due to these decisions. It is in the knowledge of this great responsibility, therefore, that it seems appropriate to rethink management choices, placing attention on a more extensive, complex, objective function than the one that traditionally characterises company operations, which is often summarised in the objective of value creation for shareholders. It involves, in fact, devising decision-making processes based on the values of responsibility, ethics and sustainability, within a time frame that is consistent with the ability of the system to generate and regenerate adequate resources for sustaining its development. The subject is complex and has both micro- and macroeconomic implications. It transcends the boundaries of a single discipline, encompassing aspects connected to the economy, management, economic policy, sociology, demographics and so on.

It therefore seems appropriate, right from the very beginning, to clearly define the specific perimeter in which the considerations contained in this work will be developed. This book focuses on some of the most important managerial processes - Operations and Supply Chain Management - and in this regard we have decided to examine the subject of corporate sustainability as systematically as possible. Indeed, it is not the intention of this study to thoroughly analyse the subject of corporate sustainability as a whole, which is why reference is made to many of the literature contributions (Benn et al., 2014; Tencati and Perini, 2011; Craig Smith and Lenssen, 2009), but rather to limit our analysis to the organisation and management of operations and supply chain processes, examined from a broad perspective (Cooper et al., 1997), and their interaction with the imperative of sustainability.

It may appear strange to start the discussion that will lead us to the subject area of this book, namely the topic of Sustainable Operations and Supply Chain Management, by looking at two factors considered to be available commodities today, at least in one part - the most fortunate part - of our planet: food and water.

The decision to dwell upon the growing scarcity of food and water, which are essential for survival, is based on a threefold consideration:

• First, because, however much it may appear obvious, these are two factors that are essential for the survival of the planet, the scarcity and unfair distribution of which already require an urgent response today in terms of global policies that guarantee the access and the availability of them to an increasing number of people.
• Second, because these two elements, food and water, are intrinsically dependent on one another: to produce food, a large quantity of water is consumed, and therefore raising the quality and quantity of food offered to those who need it, given current technology and lifestyles, will lead to an rapid shortage of water resources.
• Third, because the solutions that may be advised today to deal effectively with these problems concern the productivity of the agro-food system, the technology required for increasing the aforesaid productivity, the fight against waste and the responsible management of the connected supply chains - the main topics of this work.

We will attempt to develop these three points briefly next.

The global food system today is capable of producing 2800 calories per day per person compared to an average daily requirement of approximately 2550 calories. This means that today the planet would be capable of feeding its population of approximate 7 billion and, according to some studies, of sustaining 9 and even 11 billion people (Stuart, 2009; Hanley, 2014).

Nevertheless, about 2.5 billion people today live on less than $2 a day; the poorest families spend more than 70% of the their income on food (WB, 2010); 36 million people die every year due to malnutrition and undernourishment; about 870 million people are hit by malnutrition, 852 million of whom live in developing countries; and approximately 1.1 billion people are undernourished (FAO, 2012). At the same time, in a dramatic food paradox, more than 1.5 billion people are obese or overweight, a problem that is increasingly widespread, and almost 30 million people die each year from diseases linked to excess food (BCFN, 2012).

According to reliable projections (UNPD, 2015), demographic growth will drive the current 7.3 billion inhabitants on Earth to 8.5 billion by 2030 and more than 9.5 billion by 20501, meaning an increase of 30% in thirty-five years, who will have to be fed by extending agro-food production. Agriculture, however, is responsible today for 70-80% of the water consumption destined for food production and 33% of the global production of greenhouse gases - the main factors at the crux of climate change. Within the same time frame,...