The recent increase in public awareness about climate change puts businesses under pressure to become ethical and sustainable. Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created in 2015, one of the main barriers for collaboration between business leaders, governments and NGOs was the language used. Due to the complexity of the issue, ‘sustainability’ has several different meanings. Therefore, the SDGs provide a universal framework to help bring relevant stakeholders together through setting out clear goals and targets that should be met by 2030. If the SDGs reduced the barriers for collaboration by encouraging common language and objectives, why are businesses still so reluctant to act on climate change? The book ‘Urgent Business: Five Myths Business Needs to Overcome to Save Itself and the Planet’ explores this problem by analysing the five common myths that are stopping companies from making progress.

Ian Thomson, one of the authors, is a Director of Lloyds Banking Group Centre for Responsible Business and a Convenor of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting. He is also part of the Birmingham Plastics Network which is a team of academics working on plastic pollution. The second author Dominic Bates is a Content Writer for Lloyds Banking Group and a former journalist and editor for national charities. He also freelanced for newspapers such as the Guardian. The book also received a foreword by Paul Polman, a former CEO of Unilever who helped develop the SDGs, in which he recommends the publication to anyone wishing to start their business’ sustainability journey.

So, what is the book actually about? The book provides practical and holistic steps for business and their leaders to move on from their unsustainable practices. Through the newest research, behavioural science theories and real-world examples, it ‘busts’ five common myths that hold businesses back, while linking possible ways forward to the SDGs. The myths are as follows:

• Myth 1 – A successful business is a growing and profitable one.
• Myth 2 – Only manage what you can measure.
• Myth 3 – Laser-like focus gets results.
• Myth 4 – The consumer is always right.
• Myth 5 – Irresponsible decisions are made by irresponsible leaders.

The first thing I noticed while reading the book was its structure. It was simple to follow and every chapter and sub-chapter started with a real-world example to engage the reader with the following content. After introducing examples, the authors explained what the issue of the given myth was and provided tools, linked to SDGs, to help businesses get on a right path. Simplicity is particularly important when trying to convince someone to change their usual behaviour and habits.

As someone who has studied Business and Economics, I found the book very interesting to read. It challenges the concepts I have been taught and reveals that they contain assumptions that had previously been hidden from me. It also made me realise how little I’ve been taught about responsible business and sustainable business practices, which concerns me. Current students are going to be future business leaders, and if they’re not being taught about what business-as-unusual might entail – we are future change makers.

I also enjoyed how the book uncovered SDGs in a way I never thought about before. I’ve been volunteering with Support the Goals, where I’m helping to raise awareness about SDGs, for over a year now, and I’m also a Geography student at University. I considered myself knowledgeable about the Goals and the book proved me wrong. It presented several different perspectives in which SDGs can be understood and used, for example I particularly liked the re-worded diagram showing the problems that arise if the Goals are not achieved.

Figure 1: (c) Ian Thomson & Dominic Bates, p. 35, Urgent Business: Five Myths Business Needs to Overcome to Save Itself, used with author permission



In the chapter dedicated to Myth 4 (The consumer is always right), the authors provided another example of reworded goals. This time, it’s the Goodlife Goals which are tailored towards customers (see figure 2). I always believed that the SDGs mainly targeted governments, businesses and other organisations and never realised it could be used by the general public as well.

This was my favourite chapter as I could personally relate to it, and it opened up my mind to different perspectives. For example, in this chapter there is an explanation of why palm oil isn’t always as bad as everyone says. The chapter also reassured me that I’m not the only one struggling to make sustainable choices every day and that business should be helping us as part of their responsible business practice.

Figure 2: (c) Ian Thomson & Dominic Bates, p. 37, Urgent Business: Five Myths Business Needs to Overcome to Save Itself, used with author permission



Finally, the authors conclude that making a business fully sustainable is not achievable because there’s always going to be room for improvement but it should still contribute to sustainability as best as it can. They also acknowledge that even their book and theories, studies and examples they’ve used are going to become outdated and encourage the reader to explore further and keep learning, which isn’t something many books or authors do.

There was not much that I disliked about the book. However, if I do have to be picky I would like the tools provided to be further explained as I think they lacked some clarity. The tools linked very well to SDGs but sometimes I felt that further explanation was needed about how, why and when to implement them. I also felt that the grey boxes dedicated to business dilemmas were not as engaging as the rest of the book, as they were quite irrelevant to the content of the chapters they were placed in. The only exception was the dilemma about AI technology which I found the most interesting. Furthermore, some may argue that the book seemed too idealistic, but in my opinion the real-world examples and studies proved that it is possible to have a sustainable business.

In summary, the book turned out to be slightly different than I expected. Before reading it, I thought it was going to be simple myth busting and providing tools for sustainable business practices. However, it all led to a bigger picture at the end. Every chapter represented a different pathway a business can take to start contributing to sustainability which are: responsible governance, accountability, production, consumption and leadership. The biggest message I took away from the book is that we don’t need to know with 100% certainty that something is harmful in order to change what you’re doing, which I think is the most powerful argument to encourage transformations in current business practices.

I would strongly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in sustainability in business or climate change overall. However, I think it would especially suit business leaders themselves. It is mind opening, and as Paul Polman acknowledged in his foreword, a good starting point to anyone who’s looking to begin or improve their sustainability journey.

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