Image: David Tong [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Young people could help firms with long-term social and environmental planning
New Zealand companies should include more young people on their boards to give a future-oriented perspective to business decisions, a Victoria University of Wellington academic has said.
Stephen Cummings, professor of strategy and innovation at the university’s school of management, told a public forum that young people were very focused on long-term social and environmental benefits.
Māori and Pacific Islands cultures also give NZ a “huge advantage” in developing a more sustainable economy, he said.
“The notion of a circular economy is not a new thing. It’s a very ancient thing if you’re in Aotearoa and many other countries,” he told an audience at a Sustainability Week event in Wellington.
“As this country really investigates what biculturalism means and how that can be a foundation for thinking differently, this gives us a huge advantage. It enables us to go back to look at Indigenous values.”
Cummings has published several books on management strategies, creative thinking and entrepreneurial innovation. He said the NZ government’s 2019 wellbeing budget demonstrated that it was possible to take a different approach to measuring economic benefits.
“I’m not sure anybody is clear where a wellbeing budget will take us, but we are having conversations here that other countries around the world haven’t quite found a framework for doing. That’s exciting.”
Cummings works with student entrepreneurs at the university’s business school, The Atom.
“Every one of those student companies has a sustainability goal. It might not be direct, but they will be focused to some degree on social benefits, environmental benefits,” he said.
“So I think if you look at what young people in this country are doing—and I should give a shoutout to our high school and primary school teachers who are introducing the concepts—the barriers [to sustainability] are not so much with young people, it’s often with older and more established thinking.”
He said NZ companies should include young people on their boards as part of a push for greater diversity in decision-making.
“There’s a really interesting scheme in the Netherlands they call youth councils. You can organise a youth council to advise on your business. This is a council of 11-and-12-year-olds you can meet with every year. I think it’s a really interesting dynamic where you have to explain to those 11-and-12-year-olds what your business does and why it does it.”