Continuing our story from FLT 2011 participants, Baptiste Raymond, Sustainable Development Manager at Lafarge, shares his thoughts on Sustainability and the program.
Baptiste...
“To me, sustainable development is about making the choice of the world we want to live in, and the contribution we want to have; a “how to” live together. The business translation of this is what Michael Porter defines as “Shared Value”: sharing value created by business enterprises with communities, in a way that is beneficial to business within its own terms. It involves both sharing the pie more equitably, and expanding it. At the same time, sustainable development seems inherently rooted in people’s beliefs and values. As such, it holds an apparent contradiction being both a systemic issue spanning across sectors and borders, and taking a different meaning for every stakeholder.
There are three main reasons I joined the Future Leaders Team. First, it is crucial for Lafarge to work with other leading companies committed to sustainable development. As our CEO, Bruno Lafont, puts it: “I am convinced that our approach to sustainable development can be shared and that it can be mutually enriched with the experience of other industry participants”. The dynamic of the FLT 2011 is synchronic to Lafarge’s corporate strategic and operational ambitions: in designing and implementing the next generation of its sustainability ambitions. For that matter, engaging suppliers in sustainability discussions, and defining appropriate methods and guidelines is an endeavour to which Lafarge is entirely committed.
Secondly, the WBCSD has a unique ability to convene very diverse stakeholders together, to address sustainability challenges in a genuinely precompetitive manner. The FLT gives its participants serious opportunities to engage with other industry sectors, competitors, NGOs, government officials or the scientific community. It is very successful at creating a safe space for driven people from various horizons to meet and interact, at the technical level, as well as at the strategic and policy levels.
Finally, the FLT is an unparalleled learning experience, as well as an opportunity to contribute beyond business-as-usual, without conflicting with our daily business practice. Learning with peers, while building a solid network, has had the greatest impact for me so far. It enabled me to develop a system-thinking approach to sustainability issues, by integrating concerns from companies down our value chain, or operating in other sectors with sometimes strikingly similar issues as Lafarge. I was also able to integrate other cultural perspectives into my work – thanks to constructive comments during group project sessions – which will surely prove a success factor to drive sustainable development within a worldwide company such as Lafarge. Through this experience, I improved my understanding of the levers at my disposal to make a difference within my company and beyond, as well as how to translate sustainability issues that concern us all, into specific business terms within Lafarge or in our value chain.
People, participants, invitees and organizers are the greatest reward of being part of the Future Leaders Team. Ultimately, beyond our own limits of all kinds, as an individual (preconceived ideas, fears…) or as a company (competition issues, market constraints…), I believe that people are who we work for, and sustainable development is how we do it. “