Hostages of sustainability: or lack of business focus?
December 14, 2008
In a recent interview in NRC Handelsblad the two entrepreneurs behind this concept gave their view. I don’t know these gentlemen, but they make a few harsh comments about their experience with sustainability. They say it is a lie that sustainability is not expensive, even the collection of garbage and the training of their staff was costly. The costs of this plan were so high that they became “hostages of sustainability”.
It is of course very sad if a business you believe in doesn’t make it. But to blame the sustainability drive is a bit silly to me. A few comments:
Firstly one can ask some questions about the idea behind a sustainable dance club. Typically something that will look good on paper. If you ask young people whether they will like it, everybody will say yes. It is like Santa Claus, you can not be against it. However, this does not necessarily mean that they are willing to pay for this. Is sustainability really a feature that will decide the choice of the party goers?
Let’s assume that some features will be appreciated: especially the energy generating dance floor. Why didn’t the entrepreneurs start with this? Why did they decide to become a 100% sustainable? (What is the rationale behind a sustainable dance club anyway? Hardly any impact and a pretty expensive way to “raise awareness”.) It wouldn’t surprise me if idealism has blurred the business focus. They didn’t become a hostage of sustainability, they were starting to see themselves as swinging Al Gore’s. The entrepreneurs were overtaken by the idea to create the first sustainable dance club and forgot about the necessary financial returns to keep the music in the air. This is a common problem in sustainability business: look at the problems that “fair trade” had to deal with and the “happy shrimp farm” is another sad example. We advice our clients to think big, start small and scale up when successful. Stick your neck out, keep your head in the air, but your feet firmly on the ground. In these examples one has thought big, started big and failed massively. So ultimately the nice idea of a sustainable dance floor, resulted in a club of hot air.
Don’t blame sustainability, blame your lack of business focus. If you lose that, the music will stop and there is no more dancing. Now the tax payer has stepped in; I never recognised him as much of a dancer ever before…..
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