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In the Spring Festival of 2020, a sudden epidemic broke everyone's plan. Today, the common enemy facing mankind has almost made global development press the "pause button." In the short period of three months in which humans are fighting the virus, some commercial organizations have indeed failed to withstand this sudden blow and collapsed. In the face of the impact of the epidemic and the global expansion, we have to rethink economic, social, environmental, health, well-being, and future development issues.

At present, as the future development direction, sustainable development has received extensive attention from the international community. Under the pressure of the global crisis, business organizations should think about responding to the crisis and future sustainable development issues, and use sustainable development thinking to create long-term value for the organization.

1. Sustainable development and its commercial significance

Sustainable development first originated from the concern for the environment. In the 1950s, in order to increase food production, the United States excessively used chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which caused damage and disasters to the soil, plants, animals, water and other environmental and ecological systems, as well as humans, which aroused the attention of the United States and the world to the environment. For this reason, the United States established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1969, the United Kingdom established the International Institute for Environment and Development in 1971, and the United Nations held the Human Environment Conference in 1972 and adopted the "Human Environment Declaration", and established the United Nations Environment Program. my country also established the State Council Environmental Protection Leading Group in 1974. These actions on environmental protection at the international and national levels are to institutionally ensure that economic growth is promoted without destroying the environment and depleting resources. The concept of sustainable development was formally discussed at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development published the "Our Common Future" report, which defined sustainable development as: "The development that can meet the needs of contemporary people without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." The core meaning conveyed by this definition is: the earth’s resource supply and pollution capacity are limited, and we should establish a balance and interaction between economic development, social progress and environmental protection within the limited earth resources to ensure that present and future generations The well-being.

In fact, whether it is an organization or an individual, the resources we have are limited. Therefore, for business, sustainable development means adopting appropriate strategies and actions. While meeting the current needs of enterprises and stakeholders, it must also protect, maintain and upgrade human and natural resources to meet the future development of the enterprise. need.

2. Sustainable development business thinking and value creation

Survival and prosperity, and strive to become a sustainable enterprise, should be the goal that every business organization hopes to achieve. To achieve this goal, companies must rationally use the limited resources they have, and balance the relationships among all stakeholders, different resources (including natural resources, human resources, social resources, manufacturing resources, and financial resources, etc.) and Short-term and long-term interests, strive to make the value created by oneself greater than the resources consumed. So, from the perspective of sustainable development, what business thinking can help us create long-term value for the organization? To sum up, I think the following points:

One is to create value with extreme thinking. In the real world, the thinking mode of many of our companies is the "positive feedback loop" shown on the left in Figure 1. That is to say, when there is demand in the market, we will expand our production capacity. With the expansion of production capacity, demand is also expanding, which leads to a new round of capacity expansion. Repeatedly, thus forming a self-reinforcing growth process. This kind of thinking is often based on the assumption that resources are unlimited. However, the fact is that our resources are limited. When we grow to a certain point in time, we may encounter a series of restrictive forces. These restrictive forces are sometimes enough to put the company to death. The limit thinking of sustainable development can help companies realize the self-reinforcing growth process while also taking into account the conditions, actions or processes that restrict growth, and develop the ability to see the "growth limit" and see the future clearly.

Using limit thinking, we can consider the constraints as early as possible, find alternatives through technological innovation, and solve the problem of growth constraints; we can see the risks in the growth process as early as possible, so as to control them and avoid losses; we can adjust product strategies , To avoid the constraints in the growth process, so as to create long-term value for the enterprise.

In the past two years of Huawei’s experience, I think that they are in the process of growth, and they have seen that they may be subject to the constraints of chips and operating systems. They started the research and development of HiSilicon chips and Hongmeng systems very early, so that they can bear it. Surviving the blow of the technological blockade, we moved forward steadily.

The second is to create value by systematic thinking. For a long time, most business organizations have been driven by the maximization of shareholders' interests, making them pay more attention to revenue and output. As shown in the dashed box in Figure 2, they obtain resources, produce or process them, provide products or services to the society, and obtain benefits. It is true that the wastes generated in the process of resource acquisition, manufacturing, use and final disposal of products are often ignored, as well as the self-compensation ability of these wastes to nature, environmental protection, human health and welfare, social stability and harmony and other ecosystems and social systems Impact. These effects will often cause fatal blows to enterprises. Therefore, we need to train our systematic thinking from the perspective of sustainable development, help us see the whole, see the big picture, avoid seeing only the part, not the whole, only the trees, not the forest, and only care about short-term goals and not long-term development. The use of sustainable development system thinking allows us to stop, take a step back, see the patterns behind the problem, make better pricing decisions, product decisions and strategic decisions, and create long-term value for the organization.

The third is to create value by thinking locally. The World Economic Forum's "Global Risk Report 2020" shows that climate change will be the biggest risk facing humans in the future. Reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions will help improve climate conditions. Commercial organizations, especially large multinational corporations, will inevitably produce large amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions in the course of global logistics and transportation, threatening the sustainable development of mankind. Local thinking of sustainable development advocates that enterprises integrate into localized development, use their own technology, and try to achieve the localization of raw materials, markets, and human resources. In this way, not only does it reduce carbon dioxide emissions due to the reduction of long-distance transportation of raw materials, products, etc., but also directly reduces the transportation costs of enterprises, promotes regional development, harmonious community relations, and shape corporate brands.

Fourth, vision and thinking create value. Sustainable development is an arduous and complex system engineering. It must be ambitious and have a strong sense of mission to succeed. The vision of sustainable development is to cultivate our ability to drive change with our mission, correctly face and overcome the challenges and difficulties in the process of sustainable development, lead change, and promote the long-term success of the organization and the sustainable development of personal career.