Falling into the Blame Game Is Counter-Productive for all in the Value Chain

Another finding is this: "The interconnecting costs of the transition towards a low-impact and ultimately regenerative sector are unevenly distributed across the value chain." But costs can never be even, because the impacts are not even and capacities are not the same either. Comments, please.
Martin Su: The acute challenge remains that equal distribution of costs is a utopia because impacts and capacities vary. A lack of equal power between the value chain leads to an uneven distribution of the costs and risks associated with transitioning to a low-impact sector. This unequal distribution can hinder positive action and progress due to concerns over feasibility, short-term profitability, and long-term viability. We believe that new innovations could be developed inclusively and collaboratively, integrating diverse perspectives from across the value chain. Acquiring this approach can share and mitigate risks, uncovering opportunities for impact and business benefit. It also calls for a mindset shift towards viewing suppliers—we prefer to call ourselves producers or supply chain partners—as equal stakeholders with valuable technical skillsets and insights, capable of driving the change. 

There's a lot of blame game, and also passing the buck around. For example, activists blame brands and retailers, brands blame policymakers, manufacturers blame brands. The debate itself seems to be going around in circles. How do you react to that?
Martin Su: It might be easy to fall into the blame game. It makes all of us in the value chain counterproductive. When us stakeholders are focused on assigning blame, we are less likely to invest in finding solutions. The tendency to blame others reveals a systemic issue within our industry—the complexity of the value chain, with its many interconnected actors, makes it easy for us stakeholders to feel that the problems are beyond our control or that others are primarily responsible. The blame game often stems from a lack of a shared vision and goals. If us stakeholders do not agree on what we are trying to achieve, it's difficult to work together effectively, and blame becomes a way of expressing frustration or disagreement

However, to move forward, what needs to happen is for actions to start, just like this co-initiated and co-created ESCF programme space that enabled us to start somewhere. Someone needs to take the lead to start some actions. We would try our best to do so as a manufacturer, and hopefully find partners who would react to our actions and start some changes to break the blame game. Creating a mechanism for sharing costs and responsibilities more equitably is also crucial. The idea is that we all have a role to play, and we should all act at some point on shared costs and risks. For us, we would be the one to start, we can take the lead

Conversations are obviously needed to sort things out. But don't you think conversations have been going on for a while, and there's already too much of that? There are too many initiatives, associations, etc. Comments, please. 
Martin Su: To this day, talking about sustainability is still more lucrative than doing sustainability, thus there are more conversations about it than actions. What needs to happen is to have a system that rewards actions not words. Markets react to money and it can only change when we put a price on carbon to start making people want to act on sustainability issues. 

Anett Soti: There's also a paradox here. On one hand, dialogue and collaboration are essential for addressing complex challenges. On the other hand, the sheer volume of conversations and initiatives can lead to "initiative fatigue" and a lack of focus. Many conversations and initiatives may be happening in parallel without a unifying purpose or direction, and some may be excluding key voices or failing to address the issues that matter most to those most affected. While conversations are necessary, they are not sufficient on their own.

To overcome this challenge, we can prioritise collaboration over proliferation—to be more specific, prioritise horizontal collaboration dynamics between institutions, organisations and collective of brands and producers together. Instead of creating more and newer initiatives, we could have a greater focus on enhancing the collaboration dynamics and coordination climate across the already running ones. This can help to avoid duplication of systemic effort initiated by institutions and organisations which brands and producers join in, advance co-validity in interconnectedness, and create a more unified front. 

There's a need for one global platform and one global policy. Otherwise, this cannot work. What would your suggestions be towards achieving this? Frankly, is this even possible? 
Martin Su: Science can be a great tool. It can create a unified voice of what needs to be done, and the world should work on it based on their capabilities. It then can be measured on a yearly basis to see the progress of the actions. The idea is to have a common goal with trackable information. 

Anett Soti: Unified standards, greater efficiency, and reduced fragmentation could be the shared goal of the future for the industry. However, achieving this would be incredibly challenging; hence tailoring solutions to specific contexts while ensuring coherence and interoperability across different regions is the way forward. Alternative approaches might be more feasible and effective, such as co-designing and co-developing shared flexible frameworks and flexible standards using the already existing standard creation mechanism platforms. This could provide a common ground without necessarily imposing a single global policy.