Luxury and Wellness, whats the connection?

"I want to thank the team at the Wellness Summit for making sustainability a theme this year. It has been rather challenging times for many in the industry these past 2 years, and that could have
led some to focus purely on the near term, rather than providing a space
for reflection on what it is we are doing and why. The location is also
refreshing. We do not have to put ourselves in concrete jungles to be
smart and serious. We are part of nature, and when we are in sight of
nature we are more relaxed and thus more creative… and the science on
that process is in.

I am here because I think wellness professionals can be leaders in the transition to a fair and sustainable world. You can be part of what I term in my latest book, The Corporate Responsibility Movement – A movement that is pursuing a transition to a fair and sustainable economy through new approaches to enterprise.

I was invited partly because of a report I researched and wrote about sustainable luxury, for the environmental group WWF. In Deeper Luxury, we mapped out the sustainability challenge, and how luxury brands perform, the commercial reasons why they can do more, and some examples
and tips for companies. The report took off around the world. I even
ended up pictured in Tatler; a dubious indicator of success for an
environmentalist perhaps.

Wellness services target the same market as many luxury brands, and many wellness services are themselves luxury brands. The luxury industry has been under an increasing spotlight on its social and environmental
performance. From the sourcing of metals and stones in jewellery, to the
working practices for models, to the use of endangered species in its
products. More and more luxury brands have made steps to improve
practice, and some luxury groups have even decided to make major
investments in buying niche ethical luxury brands, such as LVMH buying
half of Edun, which focuses on ethical clothing. The trends they are
responding to are trends that also affect wellness industries – a
growing realisation amongst people around the world of social and
environmental malaise and how our consumption affects that, and how our
choices at work matter. If you are in a business where the products and
services are highly discretionary, and where personal motivation of
staff is key to your success, then these broader public issues affect
your business, because they affect customer and staff mood.

I’m new to wellness, and I need some. Having flu at my first wellness conference maybe tells me something I need to hear. I’ve been working on sustainability for 15 years and it is a huge agenda. It can seem
complicated, with more stuff to have to think about, to check on, and so
on. But actually its quite simple. At its most basic sustainability is
about people being in harmony with nature, including our own natures. As
our societies have developed our work and ways of living have separated
us from that harmony with nature, with each other and with our true
selves. You have likely heard that before. Right now I’d like us to take
a moment to sense what restoring that harmony could feel like. You may
find it helpful if you close your eyes for the next few moments.

So, now with you eyes shut, try to recall a moment when you think you won an argument, or clinched a deal, or got promoted. Think of how it felt at the time.

Still with your eyes shut, next, try to recall a moment when you were in nature, perhaps looking at a sunset, or where you completely lost yourself in the moment of something you enjoy doing. Try to taste that
feeling.

Now contrast that feeling with the first – the feeling generated within you when you won out on something.

Consider whether that first feeling is one of self-promotion – a worldly feeling, while the second feeling comes from somewhere else, something some would call your soul.

This is a reflection recommended to us by Anthony De Mello, a Jesuit priest from India. He says the worldly feelings control us, and make us controllable, and don’t provide the nourishment and happiness from when
one contemplates nature or enjoys the company of one’s friends or one’s
work. He suggests we are weighed down by these worldly motivations for
approval, popularity, and power.

That is also a sustainability message. Because sustainability is not so much a challenge out there, but in here. It comes down to how mindful we are in our work. A sustainable wellness industry will flow from a
sustainable wellness profession of people inspired by creating
experiences that generate well-being for everyone involved, not just the
client, and restoring the biological diversity and balance of our
planet in the process.

The good news is that more and more people want that from us.

This time tomorrow you will hear from Adam Horler of LOHAS Asia, some new data on consumer attitudes to the environment and consumption, from across South East Asia. So I wont go into the data I have from last
year. The positive news is that contrary to myth, middle class urban
Asian consumers are concerned about the environment and would prefer
better options on that issue. But today, Ill share with you some
statistics on why it is so important we try to meet those consumers’
aspirations and help them turn it into behavioural change.

Since the conference opened here at 9am yesterday morning, just 24 hours ago, over 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest have been lost. Over a million tonnes of toxic waste have been released into our
environment. Since 9am yesterday, 98,000 people on our planet died of
starvation, tens of thousands of them children. In just a day, 137
species have been driven into extinction. In that time, up to 200,000
sharks have been killed, many of them endangered species, by removing
their fins to flavour our soup. Perhaps it is no wonder then that an
estimated 2 million people around the world took a day off work
yesterday due to stress or depression.

We are exposed to bad news in the media on most days, and it seems so abstract and unconnected to us. It can make us numb, partly because we don’t know what to do. But if we repress certain feelings then that can
come out in other ways, damaging ourselves and others. The numbness can
also hold us back from acting on what we know and what we care about.
There’s an American poet Drew Dellinger, who I particularly like for the
way he reaches through this numbness. Suffering with this flu, I was
bored in bed and listening to his poetry. One poem reached me in the
middle of the night. It goes something like this:

“It’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do while the earth was unravelling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing
when the animals, reptiles and birds were all dying?
Did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
What did you do?
Once you knew…”

When that touches us, even if its painful, we can be grateful for that, because we are feeling our extended self, our fuller self, expressing itself.

We are lucky we are not one of the people who suffered in the last 24 hours. We are probably lucky we are not our great great grandchildren. But we are also guilty. Not of inaction or apathy. Because we are
already active in causing the problems I’ve described, through what we
buy and what our savings get used for, who or what we work for or on.
The problems in the world are not there from an absence of human action,
but because of human action, in pursuit of profit and pride. The
building, the lights, the food, our clothes, credit cards, the works,
its all of us involved in all the difficulties I’ve just described.

Am I making you feel well? The sustainability agenda must make us question what we mean by wellness.

Some may cynically surmise that such malaise may mean a growth in demand for wellness services. But wellness seems to be more than health, moments of happiness and thin veil of calm. Rather, wellness is a form
of contentment and balance, a way of being where one is both healer and
whole. Providing people opportunities to awaken to their higher selves
can be part of the wellness agenda. It might be unsettling, but
ultimately can be deeply affirming. In any case, new evidence confirms
that personal wellness and well-being is often affected by collective
wellness and well-being.

Personal and collective wellness are connected in two key ways – environmental and social. A US government study published last month found a strong, consistent correlation between adult diabetes and
particulate air pollution. There are also scientific studies published
this year that correlate levels of air pollution, such as nitrous
oxides, with levels of personal happiness. Studies also correlate more
traffic congestion with less sense of well-being. We probably didn’t
need scientists to work that one out.

Our proximity to nature also matters. Studies have found that post-operation patients housed in rooms with views of nature require less time in hospital and require fewer pain killers. In a study by the
University of Illinois “those who lived in housing units with no
immediate view of or access to nature reported a greater number of
aggressive conflicts with partners or children than their peers who
lived near trees and grass.” Our natural world is our common well-being.

The second way that personal and collective wellness is connected is through social factors. One study reported this year finds that if you are not in a good relationship, your injuries will take twice as long to
heal, than if you are in a positive and nurturing relationship. Studies
show correlations between unemployment, or poverty or economic
inequality, with higher rates of crime. It is not surprising then that
one study found that in the most economically unequal of states of the
USA, 35 to 40 percent of the population feel they cannot trust other
people, compared to only 10 percent in the more equal states. Not
trusting each other, and being anxious of our rank in society, and what
will happen if we slip back, is one explanation for why growing GDP has
not correlated with growing levels of happiness, beyond a fairly low
threshold. Even UN studies report more unequal societies are more
unhappy, top to bottom.

Can one be well when many are not? Apparently not.

There are two major implications for the wellness industry from recognising this connection between personal and collective wellness, or from now on, between personal and global wellness. First, are
implications for the relationship with the client. Second, the
relationship with everyone else involved, and the environment.

Let’s consider the client. Instead of retreat many people seek reconnection. Jeorg DeMeuth, who runs Organic Spa and who you heard from yesterday, told me that he finds more “people are looking for a
holistic experience, where they experience soul, mind and body. The new
Spa is a kind of dreamland for new ideas and life concepts”. For those
clients who don’t yet have this awareness, as professionals with access
to the latest science on the relation between personal and global
wellness do we have a responsibility to help lead more people towards
that thinking, as it is in their own interests? Serving people by
proposing something they don’t yet know they want is an old challenge.
Henry Ford knew it well when he famously said, “If I asked my customers
what they wanted, they’d tell me a faster horse.” We can serve customers
by seeking to lead them.

How to lead customers in this way is an important questions. I want to learn about that, and am looking for examples to include in my next book, on sustainable luxury, so Id welcome chatting after, if you have
tried it. I think one subtle way of leading consumers is to communicate
how you are providing your services in more responsible ways.
Demonstrating a practical manifestation of values can be a good teacher.
This also connects to the the second main implication of the connection
between personal and global wellness – unless you are supporting
collective wellness through the actual operations of your wellness
business, you are not really helping your clients’ individual wellness.
If the products you use have no contaminants but their manufacture
polluted the air we breath, rising our rates of diabetes, destabilising
our climate, then that’s not so ‘well’.

I hear that there are many companies embracing this agenda, and some of them we are hearing about at this conference.

There are a variety of initiatives bringing people together to make this happen, such as The Campaign for Greener Healthcare, The Green Occupational Therapy Network, The Green Yoga Association and the
Authentic Luxury Network which I launched with some people in the luxury
world. There are also initiatives such as Green Globe’s standard for
environmental management of Spas, which the luxury resort chain Six
Senses developed with them. What is exciting is that we do not have to
only focus on making less impact on the planet and people, but we can
create products and services that make a positive impact on people and
nature. For example, I’m an advisor to The UN’s Biotrade initiative,
which is working with skincare and fragrance companies to develop
product lines that create new revenues to pay for the conservation of
species and their ecosystems. One participant is the Swiss fragrance
firm Firmenich, who worked with the NGO Care International, to improve
the lives of Vanilla farmers in Uganda, and incorporate that into the
brand proposition for a new perfume by Estee Lauder and Donna Karan,
called PureDKNY.

This is not about companies offering charity. It is about upgrading normal business operations. The sustainable wellness agenda is about how you make your money not how you give it away. It may seem complex but
you can start anywhere, for instance by empowering your staff to become
aware of issues and how they relate to their values and their healing
practices, and then together discover ways of reducing negative impacts
and making more positive contributions. You can look for guidelines and
standards, and you can take lots of notes during Jeorg’s skills
development session tomorrow.

In summary, I think wellness professions are important to sustainability and vice versa. It will soon be impossible to separate personal wellness from working on collective or global wellness. We will
only integrate these properly if we have a heartfelt intention to serve
all life through our work. That is an intention most of us share, but
it gets covered up with all the stresses and strivings of everyday life.
The reflection from Anthony de Mello at the start, helps us see that
our world needs from us simply what we deeply need for ourselves. To be
authentic, soulful and purposeful. We don’t have to be whole to heal –
we just have to be on the way. Thank you.

[References to the data mentioned will appear in my forthcoming book, “Higher Ends”. Thanks to Lifeworth's Hanniah Tariq and Sara Walcott for research assistance, and comments from Matthew Slater and Ian Doyle on
an earlier version. A video of the talk will appear soon].