Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, was recently asked by a charitable organization to give back a hefty speaking fee — $20,000 — after the event he spoke at took a loss. Not surprisingly, the dispute quickly became (and perhaps even started as) a political dustup.

Should Trudeau return the money, as he now says he will do? Should he have accepted it in the first place?

My first thought, upon hearing this story, was that it’s a great example of the close linkage between good ethics and good business practice. There would be no ethical question here if everyone involved had used good business judgment in advance. What kind of decision-making leads a charity into a situation in which it ends up feeling the need to reneg on a $20,000 contract? Did Trudeau do his due diligence in accepting such a large fee from a small organization that wouldn’t be able to absorb the expense if the event went poorly? Good business sense isn’t the same as good ethics, but sound business decisions are a pretty good start at avoiding ethical conflicts and dilemmas.

The question most people have focused on is whether Trudeau should have accepted such a speaking fee from a charity in the first place. Setting aside, for now, the fact that Trudeau is an elected official, we cannot reasonably assert that prominent persons generally should not take speaking fees from charities. Charities are businesses, and in the normal course of things they hire people, purchase goods and services, and pay bills. They don’t normally expect things for free, and charitable status doesn’t imply that an organization is off-limits as a business partner in the traditional sense.

And besides, to say that you can’t charge a charity a fee would be to limit the speakers to which charities have access, and thereby harm the interests of organizations that regularly make use of prominent speakers as a way of raising money. Anyone who does much public speaking (and I do a good deal of it myself) is liable to use a sliding scale. Well-heeled organizations may get charged more, and charitable organizations may get charged less or even nothing. But every speaker’s time is limited, and so not every charity can get things for free, and certainly not every time.

What about returning the money, as Mr Trudeau has now offered to do? This question reminds us of the important distinction between doing your duty, on one hand, and going above and beyond your duty, on the other. Often, we discuss ethics more starkly in terms of “doing the right thing.” But that implicitly binary way of talking blurs the gradations of “goodness,” if you will. It’s entirely coherent for us to think that returning the money would be a good thing to do, even if we don’t think he’s obligated to do so.

Finally, this kind of case highlights the fact that ethics is best thought of from the point of view of systems and institutions. While individuals may be the ones who struggle with particular ethical dilemmas, it is not necessarily at that level that structured thought about ethics can be the most helpful. Ethical problems are most tractable when they are of the form, “What kinds of rules should we follow?” “What would be an effective way of allaying this kind of worry in the future?” And so while we can squabble about just what Justin Trudeau should or should not do, our effort is much better spent thinking about the question one level up, as some commentators have already begun doing. Should sitting Members of Parliament like Mr Trudeau accept paid speaking engagements? If so, under what conditions and with what safeguards? Do paid speaking engagements risk jeopardizing the integrity of political decision-making? Worse, do they erode our confidence in particular decision-makers, or in political decision-making altogether?

Those sorts of questions are much more interesting and useful than questions about whether a particular politician should accept paid speaking engagements, and certainly more important than the borderline silly question of whether money that was accepted in good faith ought to be paid back.

Pair sensors on grapevines with a web app, and science meets the art of winemaking. This startup is helping to grow finer grapes and conserve water.

The 99-year old global electronics and hydraulics manufacturer adapts to change through sustainable innovation.

Rob Cameron, Executive Director, SustainAbility will be speaking at the 7th Global Dairy Congress, 19 – 20 June 2013 in Lucerne, Switzerland on a ‘global approach to sustainability’. He will be presenting some the work that SustainAbility has done with the Global Dairy Platform to develop a dairy sustainability framework.

Hammer? Check. Nails? Check. Straw bale? Cob? Natural paints? Passive solar? Deep Energy Retrofit? Increasingly, homeowners are integrating homes into the natural landscape, building with natural materials or boosting the energy efficiency of an older house as a way to tread lightly on the environment and live more comfortably. Books for Green Builders: On Sale [...]

Want to improve procurement? Start with what you can measure. Here are key insights from pilot projects with AT&T, Best Buy and Dell.

Companies need to make major carbon cuts to keep global temperatures down, and the CDP and WWF show it can be done while profiting.

Here's a look at managing growing water risks beyond the UN's 2015 Millennium Development Goals.

Here are early clues that the Affordable Care Act will favor health care facilities that value sustainability.

With more than 200 projects under way, the French company focuses on fixing infrastructure first.

Changing Tack is the final output of The Regeneration Roadmap. The project seized 2012’s major sustainability milestones – particularly the Rio+20 summit in Brazil – as an opportunity to assess progress on sustainable development, to examine the evolution of the role of business in delivering this agenda to date, and to consider what and how might be done, particularly by the private sector, to accelerate and scale progress in the urgent manner required. The Regeneration Roadmap team conducted interviews with pioneers in this field, held dialogues with thought leaders around the world, and undertook extensive research including multiple surveys testing expert, public and consumer attitudes and expectations regarding sustainable development.

While optimistic about what is possible to achieve, Changing Tack finds sustainability challenges to be great and growing, and that solutions are not yet proliferating at the speed and scale needed to avert widespread environmental, social and economic disruptions. It finds low expectations that governments alone will provide the leadership needed to change course and looks to other institutions, particularly business, to fill the gap.

While recognizing and encouraging proliferation of existing sustainability best practice from business, the policy realm and civil society, Changing Tack argues the need for shifting both the focus and degree of effort applied—a change of tack—in order to integrate sustainability considerations into the global economic system.

The report suggests that the private sector has both the capability and reason to play a catalytic leadership role where collective action and change to underlying system conditions are required. This will demand that businesses improve and evolve their own strategies and practices, as well as stimulate and support the shifts in policy, capital markets and consumption that will be required to achieve sustainable development.

Impacts on capitals and the role they play in human well-being determine an organization’s real performance. 

Here's how you can turn protests against your brand into positive change. For starters, don't call the police.

Green building proponents are insisting that mayoral hopefuls build on Bloomberg's energy-efficiency wins. As a result, the clout of green buildings could grow in other cities.

When working with metrics, there's no such thing as a simple answer. Entire systems need to be taken into account.

Research predicts market for smart meters and appliances will top $70 billion a year by the end of the decade.

Dynamic glass that responds to glare and heat can make buildings smarter, and Sage is ready to produce millions of square feet of it.

Our latest review of the big news in corporate sustainability includes how EVs are now cost-competitive with gas cars.

A landmark study by WWF and CDP aims to change the conversation in business about addressing climate change — primarily by showing how profitable it can be to do so.

Here’s the scenario: You decide to start selling the goods from your farm so that your community can enjoy fresh, unprocessed food from a local source. Somehow, the government finds out. How do they respond? Do they… A)  Applaud you for your entrepreneurial spirit? B)  Ask you to help them spread the word about other cow shares [...]