我们只有一个地球，却像是生活在1.75个地球上一样。

更准确地说，人类目前使用自然资源的速度是地球生态系统再生能力的1.75倍。我们正在疯狂地消耗着自然资本。

由此产生出的诸多问题在一些重要的报告中都有详细地描述。我们可以把生态资源的过度使用看作财务上的过度支出，但两者之间有一个显著区别：金融债务总是能够被抹去，而生态资源是我们从一个无法讨价还价的系统中借来的。与此同时，社会压力也在上升：实时、透明的数字化世界能够凸显出那些不公平或不道德的行为，并在一夜之间让人声誉扫地。

为获得经营许可，企业实现可持续发展的努力正在各个方面逐渐取得成效。但相对于严峻的现实依然不够。战略可持续性必须为任何怀有长远抱负的企业提供指引，其价值主张必须是解决我们只有一个（而不是1.75个）地球的现实问题。

战略可持续性的框架可以由一些简单明了的问题来描述：我的企业能够帮助人类在这个星球上取得成功吗？我的供应链是否有助于挽救气候变化？我的公司是不是更多地以造福世界为目标？

如果你对这些问题的回答中有任何一个是否定的，那么你的市场就可能会萎缩。

虽然金融分析师一直在用少数几个关键指标来评估公司的健康状况，但现在围绕“人类的资源安全和社会进步”两条轴线来评估“一个地球”兼容性的指标也应该被考虑进来。企业的业绩越好，就越有可能保持增长、运营和资产的弹性、对员工的吸引力，以及较高的社会认可度。

生态足迹核算（由马西斯领导的组织Global Footprint Network负责）能够将物质需求与自然的再生进行比较，是评估“一个地球”兼容性的核心。基于联合国数据的评估显示，人类从20世纪70年代初就开始面临生态赤字，而且从那以后生态赤字几乎每年都会变大。今年1月1日至7月29日，人类对生物资源的需求就超过了地球生态系统全年的再生能力。这使得7月29日成了今年的“地球生态超载日”，较2000年时提前了将近两个月。

显而易见：为了维护和平以及维持人类已经取得的成就，人类需要逆转这种趋势，将每年“地球生态超载日”的日期推迟到12月31日或之后。这是我们实现“一个地球”繁荣发展的最低条件。而仅有的另一种选择是陷入“一个地球”的困局：资源不安全性会导致整个经济遭到破坏和国家之间的对立，加剧不平等性。

好消息是，这种趋势有可能被逆转。“一个地球”兼容性不仅有可能实现，而且是个战略罗盘，将极大地提高企业获得长期成功的机会。随着生态赤字的影响越来越严重，习惯了旧模式中资源无限丰富的商品和服务市场必然会萎缩；与此同时，采用节约的商业模式并注意保护资源安全的公司将扩大市场。

当然，成功实现“一个地球”兼容性并非易事。但对其置之不理绝非明智选择。

市场正在发生变化，环境和资源风险意识不断增强。在过去五年中，世界经济论坛每年确定的全球五大风险都包括资源或环境威胁。当这些风险显现出来时，以符合自然规律的实际情况为基础来制定战略的公司更有可能经受住市场波动的风暴。

让人类活动与地球再生的节奏恢复平衡是一种极大的设计挑战，需要有大胆的想象力、创造性的智慧，以及摆脱常规的自由冒险精神。我们已经有两个基本的“导航点”来指引这一冒险：寻求生物资源的弹性和安全，同时改善所有人的福祉。在能源、流动性、食品和农业、城市规划和发展、教育和妇女赋权等各个领域中，已经有大量解决方案。

通过适当的策略能够释放工程人才、设计师和商业专家的才华，为市场带来与“一个地球”背景相符合的技术、产品和服务，这些都必将成为促进企业长期成功的因素。（财富中文网）

赵国华（Jean-Pascal Tricoire）是跨国电力公司施耐德电气的首席执行官兼董事长。马西斯·瓦克纳格尔是可持续发展组织Global Footprint Network的创始人和总裁。

译者：艾伦

审校：夏林

We live on 1.75 Earths, yet we just have one.

More precisely, humanity’s current demand on Earth is 1.75 times what our planet’s ecosystems regenerate each year. We are depleting our natural capital at a frantic pace.

Symptoms are numerous and well-depicted in stark reports. Think of ecological overuse as you would financial overspending, but with a significant difference: Financial debt can always be wiped away, while ecological resources are borrowed from a system we cannot bargain with. Meanwhile, social pressures also are rising: Real-time transparency enabled by our digitized world can highlight unfair or unethical practices and ruin reputations overnight.

Corporate sustainability efforts that show incremental improvements on all fronts in order to secure a license to operate can suffice no more. Strategic sustainability must become the compass of any business with long-term ambitions, with a value proposition that addresses our one-planet (rather than 1.75 planets) reality.

Its framework is provided by these straightforward questions: Does my business help humanity succeed on this one planet? Is my supply chain helping remediate climate change? Does more of my company benefit the world?

If any of your answers to these questions is no, your markets may shrivel.

While financial analysts have used a handful of key metrics for assessing the health of companies, the time has come to also rely on metrics that evaluate one-planet compatibility along two axes: humanity’s resource security and social progress. The higher a business performs, the more likely it is to sustain growth, resiliency of operations and assets, desirability for employees, and high societal acceptance.

Ecological Footprint accounting (conducted by Mathis’s organization, the Global Footprint Network) is central to evaluating one-planet compatibility. It allows for the comparison of material demand against nature’s regeneration. Those assessments, based on UN data, reveal that humanity started running an ecological deficit in the early 1970s and has been digging it deeper almost every year since. Between Jan. 1 and July 29 this year, humanity’s demand for biological resources exceeded what Earth’s ecosystems can renew in the entire year. This makes July 29 this year’s Earth Overshoot Day, almost two months earlier than it was in 2000.

The implication is clear: To preserve peace and sustain human achievements, humanity needs to reverse the trend and push that date back to Dec. 31 and beyond. This is the minimum condition for one-planet prosperity. The only alternative is one-planet misery, where resource insecurity undermines whole economies and pits nation against nation, accelerating inequalities.

The good news is that reversing the trend is possible. One-planet compatibility is not only within reach, but it is the strategic compass that will significantly enhance a business’s chance at long-term success. As the impacts of the ecological deficit grow worse, markets for goods and services that are steeped in the old paradigm of limitless resource abundance are bound to shrink; meanwhile, those companies whose frugal business models align with resource security will see their markets expand.

Granted, successfully implementing one-planet compatibility is no easy feat. But inaction is not a viable option.

The market is moving. Awareness of environmental and resource risks is growing. Over the last five years, the top five global risks identified each year by the World Economic Forum have included resource or environmental threats. Companies whose strategies are informed by those physical realities will have a much higher likelihood to withstand the storms of market volatility when those risks become manifest.

Bringing human activity back in balance with the regenerative rhythm of the Earth is an outstanding design challenge that is going to require bold imagination, creative ingenuity, and free-spirited venturing off the beaten track. We already have two essential navigation points to guide us on that adventure: seeking biological resource resilience and security, while improving well-being for all. Solutions already abound in sectors as diverse as energy, mobility, food and farming, urban planning and development, education, and women’s empowerment.

Through the appropriate strategy, the brilliance of engineering minds, designers, and business experts can be unleashed to bring to market the technologies, products, and services that are aligned with our one-planet context. These are the ones that are bound to enhance the long-term success of businesses.

Jean-Pascal Tricoire is the CEO and chairman of the multinational electricity company Schneider Electric. Mathis Wackernagel is the founder and president of the sustainability organization Global Footprint Network.