The story has been told many times, but it’s a good one if you’re a Brit. Thoroughly embarrassed by GB’s pathetic single-gold-medal showing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1994, Prime Minister John Major diverted National Lottery funding into British Sport. As the curtain drops on the (main) Rio Olympics 20 years later, we’ve just pushed China into third place on the medal table for the first time since the latter started competing.

Elements of the press are starting to react uncomfortably to this success, even likening it to the chest-thumpingly patriotic Eastern Bloc displays of the Cold War era. They fret particularly about GB’s decidedly Darwinian funding formula – win medals and you get a shedload more dosh to win more (which buys the best facilities, coaches and kit), lose out and you get nada. Sorry, basketball, but we spent your cash on new cycling skin suits.

My immediate reaction to this soul searching is: do you want to win or not?

If not, that’s OK, taking part is fine. But don’t complain if we can’t deliver top level sporting results with non-competitive thinking, because it’s one or the other. Personally, I’m quite enjoying the winning.

I see a strong parallel with Corporate Sustainability. All too often people who claim their organisation takes Sustainability seriously tell me that they would never ditch a supplier on Sustainability grounds, never consider axing an unsustainable product, never invest in developing new sustainable technologies. They are uncomfortable at targeting key decision makers for engagement (“we believe it’s everybody’s responsibility”), putting sustainability targets into those individual’s personal objectives (ditto) or moving them along if they’re incompatible with the strategy (ditto).

In the wider environmental movement, we often see green activists campaigning against green solutions – witness George Monbiot’s writings against the very solar feed in tariffs which are delivering a renewables revolution. I agree with Monbiot that FiTs aren’t perfectly fair (they divert cash from all bill payers into the pockets of those who can afford to invest in solar), but doing nothing is much, much worse. Anti-capitalists such as Naomi Klein claim, conveniently, that we will only tackle climate change by replacing capitalism with an vague and untried alternative which may not actually exist.

So, we can get our hands dirty delivering on Sustainability now, messy compromises and all, or we can wait indefinitely for a perfect solution, because it’s one or the other. I know which one I’m doing.

Photo: © 2012, David Jones, Creative Commons License