"The heavy liability includes a bad reputation that will haunt the organisation for a long time," Robins said. Another liability is self-delusion, she said, stating that sometimes an organisation believes that it has the competence, which in reality it does not have.
"When we have a delusion, we tend to avoid transformation," Robins pointed out, adding that a viable external brand really requires internal competence.
A couple of eyebrows were raised in the audience, following Robins' 'sincere' declaration that she has never met a corporate leader who says he or she is interested more in doing good than in making money. Robins also said the branding for good concept often brings some form of scepticism in many people's minds.
"Does being good means being sustainable? I am not sure. Many people don't want anything to do with sustainability because they believe it is complex and does not have a nice feel. Sustainability will be around until we fully integrate into our culture.
"But, let me tell you that it is not complicated. If Martin Luther King said: 'I have a nightmare', nobody would have remembered him'. We must take sustainability seriously, and making it strategic would require some choices. The first choice is risk getting dumped."
She explained: "Risk getting dumped means complying with some legal responsibilities to stay alive. The second is staying afloat - meaning reducing costs and saving money whenever we can."
The third choice is surfing the waves, which she said was about differentiating one's product from the others on the basis of environmental obligations. The fourth and last - creating the waves - described as the most radical, consists of stopping the broader society to stop doing what you are doing.
Furthermore, Robins told delegates that an organisation must strive to build competence for sustainability if it aspires to stay afloat. She cited optimisation, governance, connectivity (the way a company speaks to the stakeholders and engages them), and competency as part and parcel of staying afloat.
The University of Cape Town and Yale University-educated strategist said the components of surfing the waves include, among others, innovation and engagement (deep dialogue and learning from sharing experiences).
"Creating waves consists of transformation or the creation new models," the Incite strategist, who has over 20 years of experience working on sustainability projects, said. "These things help to compete in a volatile situation and to have a resilient position against volatility," she noted, adding that these competencies are the ones that build intangible assets-based in an organisation.
Lastly, Robins provided what she called 'thoughts on the branding journey', urging delegates to contemplate the contradiction of consumption and not to gush on green in the face of disparity. "If we don't address disparities here and abroad, we might not be able to address anything. Sustainability is about consciousness, about the soul," she concluded.
The conference ends today, Thursday 14 October.
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