Image: Getty Images/ For illustrative purposes
In the corporate and financial world, there is a tendency to see sustainability and ESG (environment, social and governance) responsibilities and achievements mainly from a valuation perspective, as the popular mantra of “doing well by doing good” succinctly expresses.
This mantra creates a risk that monetary value should be the ultimate measure of success. The current backlash against ESG is an outcome of such short-sighted approach to value. This creates a more serious risk of financialisation, where our financial markets, in pursuit of annually calculated returns, become disconnected from building a green and equitable real economy in the long term.
Therefore, the corporate world, policy makers and academia should all work together to create an appropriate set of values that inform valuation calculations in transitioning to a net-zero world and green economy.
Food in the equation
How does food come into the equation? My academic research has led me to coordinating with leading culinary and hospitality institutions in Hong Kong, Macau and Tokyo on organising events around “Food, ESG and Sustainability”. There’s a good reason for this.
Our universal food and agricultural traditions and practices – going back millennia – are reinterpreted by contemporary culinary entrepreneurs and chefs to provide us food for thought in searching for new values for the corporate world in integrating sustainability and ESG in their business models. We have held events in a range of restaurants including those with Michelin Green Star status and hotels meeting the Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria.
As one of the world’s fastest growing gastronomy capitals and a leading destination for food tourism, Dubai has an immense repository of culinary knowledge and expertise. And it’s growing fast, including 1,200 new restaurant licences across various categories and cuisines in 2024 alone. This reflects Dubai’s unique multicultural identity expressed through the culinary arts and is embedded within the deep tradition of hospitality in the Dubai and the UAE. This is a major asset.
The culinary, food and hospitality industries are naturally more disposed to discussing value and valuations because humanity’s accumulated knowledge and practices over the centuries are central to their business models and financial sustainability.
These events in East Asia have brought together the food and hospitality worlds, businesses and financial institutions to collectively re-imagine and enhance our ESG and sustainability frameworks and policies by learning from successful chefs, restaurants and hotels that have made sustainability and green practices the essence of their business models.
In my own academic research, I aim to re-define what is economically valuable in transitioning to a net-zero, socially equitable and sustainable green economy.
The United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) research demonstrates that the global human activities in producing food and engaging in agricultural practices cause some of the biggest damage to the environment.
But at the same time, these agricultural and culinary practices are a huge reservoir of human value and knowledge systems that go back millennia and define our relationship with nature.
So, how can our modern concerns and research related to ESG and sustainability learn from (and enter into a dialogue with) the traditional and modern methods and values in the culinary and hospitality sectors?
Successful contemporary culinary entrepreneurs and hospitality businesses with roots in universal traditional knowledge and values can contribute to debates in the corporate and policy worlds on changing the financialised mind-sets regarding ESG and sustainability frameworks.
More food for ESG thought?
The writer is a senior lecturer (and ex-director for Social Responsibility) at Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester.
