Corporations are learning that it's better to collaborate, as described in this recent www.socialfunds.com article "From Competition to Cooperation: Companies Collaborate on Social and Environmental Issues."
What you see is evidence of collaboration going on in the corporate sector led by groups such as: Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), United States Climate Action Partnership, Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP), Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG)...
Is it all green washing? Or are there real actions being taken to get us out of the mess we have created on the planet....we'll see.
Sex and Chocolate? What does that have to do with all of this? read my earlier blog entry.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Responsible Competitiveness?
I just read this all on the FSG Advisors Website:
Harvard Business Review article "Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility" has won McKinsey Award for the Best Harvard Business Review Article in 2006. These awards, judged by an independent panel of leaders in the business community, recognize outstanding works that are likely to have a major influence on the actions of business managers worldwide.
Professor Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer, Co-founders of FSG Social Impact Advisors, introduce a new approach to corporate social responsibility in Harvard Business Review's December 2006 "Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility."
Moving past generic CSR principles, Porter & Kramer see societal influence as the new frontier of competitive advantage. By integrating social dimensions into the core strategy frameworks that guide business decisions, companies can build on the interdependence between business and society, rather than being held back by the friction between them. The result is a new set of frameworks that enable companies to identify and address the specific social issues that matter most to their long-term success.
Free download of the Harvard Business Review article »
Harvard Business Review article "Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility" has won McKinsey Award for the Best Harvard Business Review Article in 2006. These awards, judged by an independent panel of leaders in the business community, recognize outstanding works that are likely to have a major influence on the actions of business managers worldwide.
Professor Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer, Co-founders of FSG Social Impact Advisors, introduce a new approach to corporate social responsibility in Harvard Business Review's December 2006 "Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility."
Moving past generic CSR principles, Porter & Kramer see societal influence as the new frontier of competitive advantage. By integrating social dimensions into the core strategy frameworks that guide business decisions, companies can build on the interdependence between business and society, rather than being held back by the friction between them. The result is a new set of frameworks that enable companies to identify and address the specific social issues that matter most to their long-term success.
Free download of the Harvard Business Review article »
Friday, January 19, 2007
What makes you feel as good as sex or chocolate?
I have been doing alot of thinking about the power of co-creating, collaborations, community economics, mimicing "the web of life" in organizational development, etc. as key factors in helping get our civilization out of the mess we have created for ourselves.
I read in the latest issue of What is Enlightenment? Mag that collaborative behavior is the hallmark of evolution in our society.
David Korten wrote "Using magnetic resonance imaging to take portraits of brain activity, scientists have found that during laboratory excercises that the experience of forming a cooperative alliance with another person produces a storng positive response in the pleasure center of the brain - rather like eating chocolate or engaging in good sex."
A New York Times Article describes the experiments in greater detail.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
It's not hard to change the world, just spend our money differently!
NY Times writer David Leonhart, makes a very good point in his latest article:
I post the entire article here...
"What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.
The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:
The war in Iraq. In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.
These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.
But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.
That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct spending.
The two best-known analyses of the war’s costs agree on this figure, but they diverge from there. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more than $2 trillion on the war. They include a number of indirect costs, like the economic stimulus that the war funds would have provided if they had been spent in this country.
Mr. Wallsten, who worked with Katrina Kosec, another economist, argues for a figure closer to $1 trillion in today’s dollars. My own estimate falls on the conservative side, largely because it focuses on the actual money that Americans would have been able to spend in the absence of a war. I didn’t even attempt to put a monetary value on the more than 3,000 American deaths in the war.
Besides the direct military spending, I’m including the gas tax that the war has effectively imposed on American families (to the benefit of oil-producing countries like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia). At the start of 2003, a barrel of oil was selling for $30. Since then, the average price has been about $50. Attributing even $5 of this difference to the conflict adds another $150 billion to the war’s price tag, Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz say.
The war has also guaranteed some big future expenses. Replacing the hardware used in Iraq and otherwise getting the United States military back into its prewar fighting shape could cost $100 billion. And if this war’s veterans receive disability payments and medical care at the same rate as veterans of the first gulf war, their health costs will add up to $250 billion. If the disability rate matches Vietnam’s, the number climbs higher. Either way, Ms. Bilmes says, “It’s like a miniature Medicare.”
In economic terms, you can think of these medical costs as the difference between how productive the soldiers would have been as, say, computer programmers or firefighters and how productive they will be as wounded veterans. In human terms, you can think of soldiers like Jason Poole, a young corporal profiled in The New York Times last year. Before the war, he had planned to be a teacher. After being hit by a roadside bomb in 2004, he spent hundreds of hours learning to walk and talk again, and he now splits his time between a community college and a hospital in Northern California.
Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.
Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.
“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”
As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.
But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.
This time, it would be nice to have that discussion before the troops reach Iraq.
leonhardt@nytimes.com"
I post the entire article here...
"What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.
The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:
The war in Iraq. In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.
These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.
But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.
That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct spending.
The two best-known analyses of the war’s costs agree on this figure, but they diverge from there. Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, put a total price tag of more than $2 trillion on the war. They include a number of indirect costs, like the economic stimulus that the war funds would have provided if they had been spent in this country.
Mr. Wallsten, who worked with Katrina Kosec, another economist, argues for a figure closer to $1 trillion in today’s dollars. My own estimate falls on the conservative side, largely because it focuses on the actual money that Americans would have been able to spend in the absence of a war. I didn’t even attempt to put a monetary value on the more than 3,000 American deaths in the war.
Besides the direct military spending, I’m including the gas tax that the war has effectively imposed on American families (to the benefit of oil-producing countries like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia). At the start of 2003, a barrel of oil was selling for $30. Since then, the average price has been about $50. Attributing even $5 of this difference to the conflict adds another $150 billion to the war’s price tag, Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz say.
The war has also guaranteed some big future expenses. Replacing the hardware used in Iraq and otherwise getting the United States military back into its prewar fighting shape could cost $100 billion. And if this war’s veterans receive disability payments and medical care at the same rate as veterans of the first gulf war, their health costs will add up to $250 billion. If the disability rate matches Vietnam’s, the number climbs higher. Either way, Ms. Bilmes says, “It’s like a miniature Medicare.”
In economic terms, you can think of these medical costs as the difference between how productive the soldiers would have been as, say, computer programmers or firefighters and how productive they will be as wounded veterans. In human terms, you can think of soldiers like Jason Poole, a young corporal profiled in The New York Times last year. Before the war, he had planned to be a teacher. After being hit by a roadside bomb in 2004, he spent hundreds of hours learning to walk and talk again, and he now splits his time between a community college and a hospital in Northern California.
Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.
Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.
“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”
As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.
But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.
This time, it would be nice to have that discussion before the troops reach Iraq.
leonhardt@nytimes.com"
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Wealth of growing your own food!
| This video demonstrates a means for families to grow food in their own homes! | |
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Wealth of Community
Josh Mailman is a founder of the Social Venture Network, Business for Social Responsibility, Threshold Foundation, and a founding investor in Grameen Phone, Stoneyfield Farms, Seventh Generation, Utne Magazine, Stirling Energy Systems, Global Telesystems, Wayfinder Systems, A.B., Motivano, Econergy International plc., the Fund for Global Human Rights, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, U.K., the Joshua Mailman Foundation, and an advisor to the Pema Fund.
To say the least, he's been busy!
He's certainly one of the leaders of the movement and I found the following quote from him in Kenny Ausubel's book "Bioneers" :
"I'm much more sanguine about the impact that we've been able to have, but I don't want to discount the small acts. We have a need for small acts, and I consider the things I have done small acts, hopefully compassionate acts. To the extent that I've been able to make a contribution, it's been out of a desire to build community, realizing that I'm no more important - and I think in many ways less so - than some local activist. The real leaders are the people that are in there day after day, slugging it out, who have chosen something other than monetary gain, who are there because they are fed by the experience of community that they have."
A recently published book "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom" speaks to this truth, in the context of the internet and our economy...
The book is available onine CLICK HERE.
Our community is our greatest wealth, I would add.
As I reflect on my life, I see that my life depends on a vast network of people 99% who I don't event know, literally. Just think of the number of people it took for you to have your daily cup of tea or coffee, or piece of toast, or oatmeal, or electricity... and that's just people. Add layers of animals, plants, earth, energy, air and water, and the community you live in expands exponentially!
To say the least, he's been busy!
He's certainly one of the leaders of the movement and I found the following quote from him in Kenny Ausubel's book "Bioneers" :
"I'm much more sanguine about the impact that we've been able to have, but I don't want to discount the small acts. We have a need for small acts, and I consider the things I have done small acts, hopefully compassionate acts. To the extent that I've been able to make a contribution, it's been out of a desire to build community, realizing that I'm no more important - and I think in many ways less so - than some local activist. The real leaders are the people that are in there day after day, slugging it out, who have chosen something other than monetary gain, who are there because they are fed by the experience of community that they have."
A recently published book "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom" speaks to this truth, in the context of the internet and our economy...
The book is available onine CLICK HERE.
Our community is our greatest wealth, I would add.
As I reflect on my life, I see that my life depends on a vast network of people 99% who I don't event know, literally. Just think of the number of people it took for you to have your daily cup of tea or coffee, or piece of toast, or oatmeal, or electricity... and that's just people. Add layers of animals, plants, earth, energy, air and water, and the community you live in expands exponentially!
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Wealth of Finding your purpose
Gratitude
Community
Service to others
Family
Meaning
Lynne Twist on Money:
"Q. In conclusion, what is the message about money you most want to convey?
LYNNE TWIST: When the use of money is consistent with our core values, it strengthens the quality of our commitment and our accountability for it. It has a powerful impact on our ethical and moral fiber. We can begin by turning our attention to making a conscious effort to use our money with life-affirming purpose, to nurture those people, organizations, projects and products that represent our most soulful interests. And we can stop the flow of money toward those that debilitate or demean life, or drag us down. We can be more financially generous with organizations and individuals doing good work that we want to support. Some of us may devote ourselves to public service or become advocates for socially responsible public spending on health, education, safety and government. The mindset of scarcity and the longing for “more” will begin to lose its grip when we begin to make different choices. We each have the power to arrange life to take a stand with our money and our life. Every moment of every day we can bring this consciousness to our choices about our money, our time and our talents to take a stand for what we believe in. We have the capacity for much greater lives than just “getting and “having.” I invite you to take a stand. I invite you to separate yourself from the prevailing winds of scarcity, greed and accumulation and use the opportunity that we each have to explore sufficiency and enough – - the true portal to prosperity . I invite you to deepen your values and to live in a new freedom and power in your relationship with money and life."
Community
Service to others
Family
Meaning
Lynne Twist on Money:
"Q. In conclusion, what is the message about money you most want to convey?
LYNNE TWIST: When the use of money is consistent with our core values, it strengthens the quality of our commitment and our accountability for it. It has a powerful impact on our ethical and moral fiber. We can begin by turning our attention to making a conscious effort to use our money with life-affirming purpose, to nurture those people, organizations, projects and products that represent our most soulful interests. And we can stop the flow of money toward those that debilitate or demean life, or drag us down. We can be more financially generous with organizations and individuals doing good work that we want to support. Some of us may devote ourselves to public service or become advocates for socially responsible public spending on health, education, safety and government. The mindset of scarcity and the longing for “more” will begin to lose its grip when we begin to make different choices. We each have the power to arrange life to take a stand with our money and our life. Every moment of every day we can bring this consciousness to our choices about our money, our time and our talents to take a stand for what we believe in. We have the capacity for much greater lives than just “getting and “having.” I invite you to take a stand. I invite you to separate yourself from the prevailing winds of scarcity, greed and accumulation and use the opportunity that we each have to explore sufficiency and enough – - the true portal to prosperity . I invite you to deepen your values and to live in a new freedom and power in your relationship with money and life."
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Price list for polluting - the economics of regulating Carbon Dioxide
A recent article in NY Times discusses issues around Climate Change and regulating carbon dioxide....
The article touches on a very important factor - we must quantify and measure the financial costs of polluting. Money is the driving archetypal language of our current industrial civilization, so when we talk about the perils of pollution as it relates to money, it gets people's attention.
The old adage "money talks" strangely applies in many contexts.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
"Price List for Polluting
'Setting a real price on carbon emissions is the single most important policy step to take,' said Robert N. Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard University. 'Pricing is the way you get both the short-term gains through efficiency and the longer-term gains from investments in research and switching to cleaner fuels.'
Some academics see an analogy between a global warming policy and the pursuit of national security in the cold war. In the late 1950s, American military spending reached as high as 10 percent of the gross domestic product and averaged about 4 percent, far higher than in any previous peacetime era. A Soviet nuclear attack was a danger but hardly a certainty, just as the predicted catastrophes from global warming are threats but not certainties.
'The issues are similar in that you pay now so things are less risky in the future — it’s an insurance policy,' said Richard Cooper, a Harvard economist. 'And in the cold war, we taxed ourselves fairly highly to mitigate that threat.' "Read the whole article on NY TIMES here.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
BALLE - Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
BALLE is a network of networks of locally owned businesses around the country inspired, in part, by the ideas of David Korten. http://www.davidkorten.org/
Their website is www.livingeconomies.org
"BALLE is a growing alliance of businesspeople around the US and Canada, who join local BALLE networks dedicated to building local living economies. BALLE comprises 37 such business networks with more than 11,000 business members overall. It is our mission to catalyze, strengthen, and connect these local business networks. "
Their website is www.livingeconomies.org
"BALLE is a growing alliance of businesspeople around the US and Canada, who join local BALLE networks dedicated to building local living economies. BALLE comprises 37 such business networks with more than 11,000 business members overall. It is our mission to catalyze, strengthen, and connect these local business networks. "
Saturday, November 25, 2006
New Book: The Great Turning from Empire to Earth Community
I had the pleasure of meeting David Korten at the SRI in the Rockies conference in Colorado. He spoke about his new book "The Great Turning" Here is a website organized by the community around the book. http://thegreatturning.net/
He spoke about the grand challenge the world faces right now - to continue to manage our affairs along the lines of "empire" through domination or through "earth community" partnership with eachother and other beings in nature.
The outcome of our choice will lead to either the "great unraveling" of our world based on the centuries of organizing our affairs "Empire" or the "great turning" a return to a more integrated and sustainable way of living on planet earth.
He writes:
"Empire organizes by domination at all levels, from relations among nations to relations among family members. Empire brings fortune to the few, condemns the majority to misery and servitude, suppresses the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of human societies to maintain the institutions of domination."
"Earth Community, by contrast, organizes by partnership, unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human way before Empire; we must make a choice to re-learn how to live by its principles."
He elaborates in an article based on the book:
http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=1463
David points to the grand moment we are in, and the opportunity we all have to change the course of our time through telling new stories of ourselves, our world, our history and our relationships to eachother and other living beings on the Earth.
He emphasizes that this turning need happen in our politics, our culture and our economy:
"Cultural Turning
The Great Turning begins with a cultural and spiritual awakening—a turning in cultural values from money and material excess to life and spiritual fulfillment, from a belief in our limitations to a belief in our possibilities, and from fearing our differences to rejoicing in our diversity. It requires reframing the cultural stories by which we define our human nature, purpose, and possibilities.
Economic Turning
The values shift of the cultural turning leads us to redefine wealth—to measure it by the health of our families, communities, and natural environment. It leads us from policies that raise those at the top to policies that raise those at the bottom, from hoarding to sharing, from concentrated to distributed ownership, and from the rights of ownership to the responsibilities of stewardship.
Political Turning
The economic turning creates the necessary conditions for a turn from a one-dollar, one-vote democracy to a one-person, one-vote democracy, from passive to active citizenship, from competition for individual advantage to cooperation for mutual advantage, from retributive justice to restorative justice, and from social order by coercion to social order by mutual responsibility and accountability."
At the Socially Responsible Investment Conference he spoke to us in financial side of the equation about the importance of recognizing the problem of our economy dominated by the unhealthy model of centrally run publicly traded mega-corporations, which are disconnected from it's employees, environment and communities. ( he wrote about this at great length in his prior book "When Corporations Rule the World.")
He emphasized that we must not only reform, and eventually replace what he calls the "death economy" but also must focus on the creation of a "living economy" based on local and regional commercial relationships of businesses based locally and large corporations which are responsive to welfare of the environment, workers and the community.
He spoke about the grand challenge the world faces right now - to continue to manage our affairs along the lines of "empire" through domination or through "earth community" partnership with eachother and other beings in nature.
The outcome of our choice will lead to either the "great unraveling" of our world based on the centuries of organizing our affairs "Empire" or the "great turning" a return to a more integrated and sustainable way of living on planet earth.
He writes:
"Empire organizes by domination at all levels, from relations among nations to relations among family members. Empire brings fortune to the few, condemns the majority to misery and servitude, suppresses the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of human societies to maintain the institutions of domination."
"Earth Community, by contrast, organizes by partnership, unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human way before Empire; we must make a choice to re-learn how to live by its principles."
He elaborates in an article based on the book:
http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=1463
David points to the grand moment we are in, and the opportunity we all have to change the course of our time through telling new stories of ourselves, our world, our history and our relationships to eachother and other living beings on the Earth.
He emphasizes that this turning need happen in our politics, our culture and our economy:
"Cultural Turning
The Great Turning begins with a cultural and spiritual awakening—a turning in cultural values from money and material excess to life and spiritual fulfillment, from a belief in our limitations to a belief in our possibilities, and from fearing our differences to rejoicing in our diversity. It requires reframing the cultural stories by which we define our human nature, purpose, and possibilities.
Economic Turning
The values shift of the cultural turning leads us to redefine wealth—to measure it by the health of our families, communities, and natural environment. It leads us from policies that raise those at the top to policies that raise those at the bottom, from hoarding to sharing, from concentrated to distributed ownership, and from the rights of ownership to the responsibilities of stewardship.
Political Turning
The economic turning creates the necessary conditions for a turn from a one-dollar, one-vote democracy to a one-person, one-vote democracy, from passive to active citizenship, from competition for individual advantage to cooperation for mutual advantage, from retributive justice to restorative justice, and from social order by coercion to social order by mutual responsibility and accountability."
At the Socially Responsible Investment Conference he spoke to us in financial side of the equation about the importance of recognizing the problem of our economy dominated by the unhealthy model of centrally run publicly traded mega-corporations, which are disconnected from it's employees, environment and communities. ( he wrote about this at great length in his prior book "When Corporations Rule the World.")
He emphasized that we must not only reform, and eventually replace what he calls the "death economy" but also must focus on the creation of a "living economy" based on local and regional commercial relationships of businesses based locally and large corporations which are responsive to welfare of the environment, workers and the community.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Xigi.Net and Springfield Open Exchange a storm of ideas for a new economy and new capital
Three of my friends (and heroes) have created very cool things around new forms of capitalism
New ideas, networks and collaborative brainstorming are some of the most important tasks at hand to create the underpinnnings of the new economy.
I'll let them speak for themselves:
One is http://www.xigi.net/
"xigi is a new kind of research tool for the market that invests in good.
What's unique about xigi is that it interlinks a database of structured information about the organizations, players, and deals in this market with an unstructured conversation (a group blog) about them. It's now in Beta test phase."
and the other is Springfield
http://www.csrwire.com/springfield
New ideas, networks and collaborative brainstorming are some of the most important tasks at hand to create the underpinnnings of the new economy.
I'll let them speak for themselves:
One is http://www.xigi.net/
"xigi is a new kind of research tool for the market that invests in good.
What's unique about xigi is that it interlinks a database of structured information about the organizations, players, and deals in this market with an unstructured conversation (a group blog) about them. It's now in Beta test phase."
and the other is Springfield
http://www.csrwire.com/springfield
The Springfield Open Exchange
The Springfield Open Exchange was inspired by a chemically contaminated, abandoned street in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States of America, where the need was felt to give value, to that which had been abandoned.
Further inspiration is the collaboration by millions of people to develop computer software for free use and distribution - the 'Open Source' software phenomena. The fundamentals of this collaboration will be used for The Springfield Open Exchange.
The Springfield Open Exchange will be a place to introduce, create, explore and collaborate on innovative and evolving financing mechanisms and economic models. The core of these mechanisms is the principles of triple bottom line returns and complete transparency throughout all business activities.
If we all agreed to give greater value to economic models that improved our lives - we could. Some of the models and experiments being contemplated include:
- Employee Stock Ownership
- Cooperatives
- Green Business Development
- Local Living Economies
- Bottom of the Pyramid Commerce
- Private Stock Exchange
- Mirco Loan Connection
- Alternative Currencies
- Patient Capital Connection
- Sovereign Nation Stock Exchange
- Traditional Financing Instruments
- General Agreements
In the event you are interested in any of these models or are interested in introducing another, please contact us. This part of the site is under development and will be ready soon.
call us at +1.802.251.0110
or by e-mail at help@csrwire.com"
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Making conservation profitable... from less harm to restoration
To say that we need to reduce pollution, or slow the damage to the world's climate and ecosystems is akin to saying to a child abuser "you must beat your children less."
Simply put, less harm is not good enough. We have to restore ecosystems!
For our economic endeavors, the pioneering work is being done to actually figure out ways to make money while restoring and conserving ecosystems.
In order to do so, we have to define measures to actually show the economic benefits of natural systems and define ways to profit from their protection and restoration.
A group at the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford is developing the field of Conservation finance which integrates biology, business, economics, engineering, law, and a good dose of real world practicality into the design of conservation investments.
Here's excerpts from a review on her sight:
Here's an article I found on and the company he formed. Althought it is no longer in business, the sites he was operating are now healthy wildlife sanctuaries - thus he accomplished a degree of restoration.
Simply put, less harm is not good enough. We have to restore ecosystems!
For our economic endeavors, the pioneering work is being done to actually figure out ways to make money while restoring and conserving ecosystems.
In order to do so, we have to define measures to actually show the economic benefits of natural systems and define ways to profit from their protection and restoration.
A group at the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford is developing the field of Conservation finance which integrates biology, business, economics, engineering, law, and a good dose of real world practicality into the design of conservation investments.
Gretchen Daily and other researchers at CCB are creating a framework for conservation finance, in order to how to accomplish two primary outcomes:
- increasing the flow of resources into conservation
- allocating that flow most efficiently.
Here's excerpts from a review on her sight:
"Through engaging stories from around the world, the authors introduce readers to a diverse group of people who are pioneering new approaches to conservation. Daily and Ellison describe the dynamic interplay of science, economics, business, and politics that is involved in establishing these new approaches and examine what will be needed to create successful models and lasting institutions for conservation.
Dan Janzen, a biologist working in Costa Rica who devised a controversial plan to sell a conservation area's natural waste-disposal services to a local orange juice producer.
We meet Adam Davis, an American business executive who dreams of establishing a market for buying and selling shares in environmental services such as water purification by forests and flood protection by wetlands.
There's also John Wamsley, a former math professor in Australia who has found a way to play the stock market and protect native species at the same time."Here's an article I found on and the company he formed. Althought it is no longer in business, the sites he was operating are now healthy wildlife sanctuaries - thus he accomplished a degree of restoration.
http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/summer03-04/polsumm0304-3.htm
"Private efforts to conserve native species, on the other hand, have proven highly successful. One sterling example is Earth Sanctuaries, Ltd. (ESL), a company which has had some dazzling successes bringing back species from the brink of extinction and changing the way that both conservationists and governments think about endangered species protection in Australia.
Earth Sanctuaries, Ltd. (ESL) was incorporated in January 1988. Revenues would be generated by attracting visitors and through consulting work. The goal of the company would be 'to ensure the survival of remaining Australian native flora and fauna within a commercial environment, [and] to maximize the returns to shareholders.'
As of 2002, ESL had successfully reintroduced 25 mammal species to their former range and eradicated feral cats, foxes, rabbits, and goats from more than 10,000 hectares.At its peak of land ownership in 2001, ESL owned 10 sanctuaries covering more than 90,000 hectares Since restructuring in 2002, ESL has sold most of these properties, but they remain wildlife sanctuaries of note.
Warrawong remained ESL's most popular and lucrative site, featuring tent-style accommodations (local planners would not permit permanent lodgings), a restaurant, gift shop, native plant nursery, and dawn and dusk nature walks. It has won numerous tourism awards, including runner up in the Conde Nast Travelers Choice Awards in 1997. In 2001, about 50,000 people visited Warrawong."
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Robert Kennedy Sr. on the limitations of our way of measuring national well being: GNP
Consider this beautiful message from the late Robert Kennedy (father of leading activist Robert Kennedy, Jr.) :
"The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear out highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and nuclear warheads... and if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend.
"It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. it is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials... GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
"The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear out highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and nuclear warheads... and if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend.
"It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. it is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials... GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Have you actually read, or even heard of, the UN Millenium Development Goals?
Many of us are attuned to the idea of "you have to have specific goals to achieve what you want" or new movies like "The Secret"( http://thesecret.tv/home.html )to help align us with the alchemy of manifestation...
Well, as a community of human beings all around the world, we are to gain by having specific goals to increase well being of our human family. And by putting our mind to these goals as a human family, they can be achieved!
Along those lines, global leaders gathered at the UN in September 2000 to set goals for a better life for our brothers and sisters around the world.
The Millenium Development Goals are a set of goals made for a just and sustainable civilization on this planet.
They stated it is our "collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human
dignity, equality and equity at the global level."
I would agree. Who wouldn't? Many don't.
Let's hold this vision for a better world by envisioning and learning more about how we can support the attainment of these goals:
1- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2 - Achieve universal primary education.
3 - Promote gender equality and empower women.
4 - Reduce child mortality.
5 - Improve Maternal health.
6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases.
7 - Ensure Environmental Sustainability.
8 - Develop a global partnership for development.
The goals target dates are 2015
Learn more:
Detailed Progress report 2006 : http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
Well, as a community of human beings all around the world, we are to gain by having specific goals to increase well being of our human family. And by putting our mind to these goals as a human family, they can be achieved!
Along those lines, global leaders gathered at the UN in September 2000 to set goals for a better life for our brothers and sisters around the world.
The Millenium Development Goals are a set of goals made for a just and sustainable civilization on this planet.
They stated it is our "collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human
dignity, equality and equity at the global level."
I would agree. Who wouldn't? Many don't.
Let's hold this vision for a better world by envisioning and learning more about how we can support the attainment of these goals:
1- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2 - Achieve universal primary education.
3 - Promote gender equality and empower women.
4 - Reduce child mortality.
5 - Improve Maternal health.
6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases.
7 - Ensure Environmental Sustainability.
8 - Develop a global partnership for development.
The goals target dates are 2015
Learn more:
Detailed Progress report 2006 : http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Evolve? Or learn to Be Evolution?
YOU are the edge of evolution.
What does evolution have to do with Wealth? Sustainability? Happiness? Quality of Life?
A close friend of mine just sent me some clues in an article by great thinker Tom Atlee who is founder of The Co-Intelligence Institute.
I'll give you a hint of my thinking from Tom's article below "flourishing." Now think about it, isn't the aim to flourish is at the heart of much of our striving?
Hmmm.... read below, and the article in the following link, and I'll let you decide for yourself....
Tom's article is titled "Learning to Be Evolution" enjoy!
What does evolution have to do with Wealth? Sustainability? Happiness? Quality of Life?
A close friend of mine just sent me some clues in an article by great thinker Tom Atlee who is founder of The Co-Intelligence Institute.
I'll give you a hint of my thinking from Tom's article below "flourishing." Now think about it, isn't the aim to flourish is at the heart of much of our striving?
Hmmm.... read below, and the article in the following link, and I'll let you decide for yourself....
Tom's article is titled "Learning to Be Evolution" enjoy!
"Learning from evolution how to be evolution
Lessons from our long evolutionary journey offer rich sources of guidance about how to consciously participate in the evolutionary process. Taking this guidance seriously can help us transform ourselves, our consciousness, our social systems and cultures, and our technologies in ways that serve our long-term collective flourishing as part of a flourishing Earth.
Here are just a few of the evolutionary dynamics and opportunities we can explore and use, which are described further at the end of this article. A major project of the Co-Intelligence Institute now is researching more of them, and how to best apply them all, and spreading that new old knowledge.
1. LOVE AT THE CORE. Our common past makes us kin, and deep inside we know it. We are wholeness enroute to new wholeness. This deep truth can be called forth to help us resonate with each other. Much of what we need to do next taps into this powerful fact of life.
2. A NEW DANCE OF COOPERATION AND COMPETITION. Evolution has evolved with cooperation enhancing competitiveness. As we become a global society, competition will necessarily evolve to support cooperation.
3. SYNERGY BETWEEN SELF AND WHOLE. Life on earth finds novel ways for self-interest and the whole to serve each other. We are called to create new ways to design this dynamic into complex 21st century societies.
4. HIGHER LEARNING. Evolution is, itself, a vast learning enterprise -- and emergence is its learning edge. That edge involves new forms of ongoing collective intelligence and wisdom, and reframing education to meet the challenges of conscious collective evolution. By its nature, learning on the edge requires a growing capacity to embrace the unknown.
5. SELF-ORGANIZATION AND EMERGENCE. Evolution starts simple and brings forth increasing complexity. At the same time, it creates remarkable ways for life to self-organize without top-down direction. Our social and technological complexity is now calling forth new forms of creative, conscious human self-organization.
6. EVOLVING CONSCIOUSNESS. Consciousness shapes social systems and culture -- and social systems and culture shape consciousness. This insight, combined with new and ancient methods of expanding consciousness, offer tremendous leverage for humanity's conscious evolution.
7. THE JUICE OF OUR DIFFERENCES. A major driver of evolution is the creative use of diversity, conflict, crisis and dissonance. And our uniqueness -- our individual specialness -- is a vast nascent resource for the world. These insights challenge us, in times of collective trauma, to move beyond peacemaking and crisis management to catalyzing inclusive evolutionary breakthroughs.
8. IT'S ABOUT PROCESS. The essence of evolution is the emergence of outcomes from powerful interactive processes. But it isn't about being attached to particular outcomes, since they, too, will change and evolve. If we want to become evolution, we would be wise to learn how to let go and focus on manifesting powerfully interactive, life-serving processes."
I strongly encourage you to read the entire article and more here at Tom's website:
http://www.co-intelligence.org/Evolution-Learning2BEvol.html
Monday, September 25, 2006
A for-profit non profit? Google.org blurs the lines...
Google's choice to make it's foundation www.google.org a for-profit entity is the latest example of a new trend: mission driven business.
I'll let you read all about it by simply "googling" news on "google.org" and also go to www.google.org
While the idea that making money while doing good is not novel, the idea of creating a charity designed to engage in business ventures to achieve a non-monetary end is novel.
This is not in conflict with the model of business, but it is a very new approach toward actually engaging in game where everyone else is playing to MAKE MONEY, and google.org is playing to DO GOOD.
This points toward the underlying issue, yet again, their message appears to be "IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY PEOPLE!"
I would tend to agree, more money or profits doesn't necessarily end up with more wealth (true wealth) and quality of life for the participants in the business game.
Kudos to Google for breaking new ground.
Mr Formenski has some interesting points in discussing the google model as a "not for loss" moniker model as opposed to "for profit" vs "non-profit" (he also discusses one of my favorite business models in mentioning Grameen bank)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=120
For more on Mission Driven Business:
I recommend Mal Warwick's and Ben Cohen's book "Values Driven Business"
http://www.amazon.com/Values-Driven-Business-Social-Venture-Network/dp/1576753581
and Jeff Hollander's "What Matter's Most"
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/about_us/company/what_matters_most.html
I'll let you read all about it by simply "googling" news on "google.org" and also go to www.google.org
While the idea that making money while doing good is not novel, the idea of creating a charity designed to engage in business ventures to achieve a non-monetary end is novel.
This is not in conflict with the model of business, but it is a very new approach toward actually engaging in game where everyone else is playing to MAKE MONEY, and google.org is playing to DO GOOD.
This points toward the underlying issue, yet again, their message appears to be "IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY PEOPLE!"
I would tend to agree, more money or profits doesn't necessarily end up with more wealth (true wealth) and quality of life for the participants in the business game.
Kudos to Google for breaking new ground.
Mr Formenski has some interesting points in discussing the google model as a "not for loss" moniker model as opposed to "for profit" vs "non-profit" (he also discusses one of my favorite business models in mentioning Grameen bank)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=120
For more on Mission Driven Business:
I recommend Mal Warwick's and Ben Cohen's book "Values Driven Business"
http://www.amazon.com/Values-Driven-Business-Social-Venture-Network/dp/1576753581
and Jeff Hollander's "What Matter's Most"
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/about_us/company/what_matters_most.html
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of (Gross National) Happiness
The Buddhist government of Bhutan has been set on pursuing the goal of "gross national happiness" instead of pure GNP (gross national product). This goal was announced by the king of Bhutan when he took the throne in 1972, and in the last 20 years the government has been incorporating the philosophy in development and economic policy.
Naturally, I think they are right on track and completely in line with the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators which I wrote about in an earlier post
http://sustainablewealth.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-is-quality-of-life.html
http://www.calvert-henderson.com/
"The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators are a contribution to the worldwide effort to develop comprehensive statistics of national well-being that go beyond traditional macroeconomic indicators. A systems approach is used to illustrate the dynamic state of our social, economic and environmental quality of life. The dimensions of life examined include: education, employment, energy, environment, health, human rights, income, infrastructure, national security, public safety, re-creation and shelter."
The term Gross National Happiness was first expressed by the King of Bhutan His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck.
Now, one can argue this is not a case of separation of "church and state" since Bhutan is a Buddhist monarch- but if you think about the Founding Father's vision of "pursuit of happiness" as a cornerstone of our society, the Bhutanese view is not far off, and we can gain from it.
This all underscores how much our modern economic system of measures and definition of "progress" has taken a big detour from the basic well being of individual citizens in our country.
Since we base the measure of quality of life based on what material goods we produce and consume, the oversights and ills of this country are a natural result, you get what you focus on...
I suggest further reading on any of these sites:
http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=3257
Gross International Happiness - a website of an organization wanting to take this philosophy global: http://www.grossinternationalhappiness.org/gnh.html
http://travelbhutan.tripod.com/druk.html
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Rescuing A Planet Under Stress... rethinking and retooling our commerce
Lester Strong of the World Resources institute wrote an article in The Futurist magazine at the beginning of July with a clear statement of the severe challenges our overconsumptive industrial society faces at this time.
I want to focus on the upshot of what he's writing - that we have a grand opportunity to re-orient our economic and capital thinking to create new businesses, new industries by first recognizing the problems that we face. Once we embrace the reality of the current situtation, despair or denial are not necessary, but inspired engagement in new ways of operating our businesses and our lives.
He writes:
"The key to building a global economy that can sustain economic progress is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. The market is an incredible institution, allocating resources with an efficiency that no central planning body can match. It easily balances supply and demand, and it sets prices that readily reflect both scarcity and abundance."
"Accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty corporate accounting systems that leave costs off the books have driven some of the world’s largest corporations into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, our faulty global economic accounting system has potentially far more serious consequences. Our modern economic prosperity is achieved in part by running up ecological deficits, costs that do not show up on the books but that someone will eventually pay."
"Once we calculate the indirect costs of a product or service, we can incorporate them into market prices in the form of a tax, offsetting them with income tax reductions. If we can get the market to tell the truth, then we can avoid being blindsided by faulty accounting systems that lead to bankruptcy."
"As Øystein Dahle, former vice president of Exxon forNorway and the North Sea , has pointed out,
'Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.' "
"We are entering a new world. Of that there can be little doubt. What we do not know is whether it will be a world of decline and collapse or a world of environmental restoration and economic progress. Can the world mobilize quickly enough? Where will the wake-up calls come from? What form will they take? Will we hear them?"
"Participating in the construction of this enduring new economy is exhilarating. So is the quality of life it promises. We will be able to breathe clean air. Our cities will be less congested, less noisy, and less polluted. The prospect of living in a world where population has stabilized, forests are expanding, and carbon emissions are falling is an exciting one. It should inspire us to make the difficult but necessary decisions ahead."
Dive in and read the entire article here: http://www.energybulletin.net/17779.html
I want to focus on the upshot of what he's writing - that we have a grand opportunity to re-orient our economic and capital thinking to create new businesses, new industries by first recognizing the problems that we face. Once we embrace the reality of the current situtation, despair or denial are not necessary, but inspired engagement in new ways of operating our businesses and our lives.
He writes:
"The key to building a global economy that can sustain economic progress is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. The market is an incredible institution, allocating resources with an efficiency that no central planning body can match. It easily balances supply and demand, and it sets prices that readily reflect both scarcity and abundance."
"Accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty corporate accounting systems that leave costs off the books have driven some of the world’s largest corporations into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, our faulty global economic accounting system has potentially far more serious consequences. Our modern economic prosperity is achieved in part by running up ecological deficits, costs that do not show up on the books but that someone will eventually pay."
"Once we calculate the indirect costs of a product or service, we can incorporate them into market prices in the form of a tax, offsetting them with income tax reductions. If we can get the market to tell the truth, then we can avoid being blindsided by faulty accounting systems that lead to bankruptcy."
"As Øystein Dahle, former vice president of Exxon for
'Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.' "
"We are entering a new world. Of that there can be little doubt. What we do not know is whether it will be a world of decline and collapse or a world of environmental restoration and economic progress. Can the world mobilize quickly enough? Where will the wake-up calls come from? What form will they take? Will we hear them?"
"Participating in the construction of this enduring new economy is exhilarating. So is the quality of life it promises. We will be able to breathe clean air. Our cities will be less congested, less noisy, and less polluted. The prospect of living in a world where population has stabilized, forests are expanding, and carbon emissions are falling is an exciting one. It should inspire us to make the difficult but necessary decisions ahead."
Dive in and read the entire article here: http://www.energybulletin.net/17779.html
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The Rainforest and your well being...
Over the holiday weekend, I participated in a symposium entitled"Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" hosted by Lynne Twist who wrote the book Soul of Money.
( http://www.soulofmoney.org/ BTW - I recommend this book all the time to friends and clients - I'll revisit other material in this book in future comments.)
The workshop is an outgrowth of the work that of a group that Lynne created called The Pachamama Alliance. The Pachamama Alliance has a twofold mission :
"To preserve the tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.
To contribute to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all."
The experience of the day was transforming for many of the participants and I recommend it VERY HIGHLY to anyone reading this column. You can learn more at http://www.pachamama.org/atd/
The workshop is based on many generations of indigenous wisdom, born out of deep relationship with the earth. The material in the workshop is a clarion-call from the ancestral wisdom to our modern civilization to restore our balance with the planet we live on.
What does the workshop and the rainforest have to do with sustainable wealth?
I found a part of the answer when I "randomly" cracked open Lynne's book today, seeking the answer
Here's what I found - it speaks for itself!
Chapter 4 "Sufficiency"
She writes - "When you let go of trying to get more of what you don't really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands."
In the chapter Lynne speaks of her encounter with the Achuar people in the Ecuadorian rainforest in the early nineties. She refers to them as "naturally prosperous" since they hadn't "won some economic game to be prosperous"
She continues by saying
"With no money, no accumulation of goods, and none of the conveniences of our Western lifestyle, still there was no suggestion of scarcity; no lack and no fear that there wouldn't be enough of what they needed. There was no chase for more, no resignation or belief that they were living lives of less-than."
"They lived (and still do) in the experience and expression of enough, or what I call sufficiency. Instead of seeking more, they treasure and steward thoughtfully what is already there."
"for the Achuar, wealth means being present to the fullness and richness of the moment and sharing that with one another."
Naturally, we don't have to live in a rainforest to experience the same state of being.
These ideas point me to an innate fullness of being that is right here and always available to us.
They are a reminder that we don't need to live in the rainforest in order to return to the natural state of abundance-consciousness which we can share with eachother so fully.
Obviously, we can embrace the state of sufficiency and express throughout our relationships no matter where we live - to me this is true wealth and the hallmark of well being.
( http://www.soulofmoney.org/ BTW - I recommend this book all the time to friends and clients - I'll revisit other material in this book in future comments.)
The workshop is an outgrowth of the work that of a group that Lynne created called The Pachamama Alliance. The Pachamama Alliance has a twofold mission :
"To preserve the tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.
To contribute to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all."
The experience of the day was transforming for many of the participants and I recommend it VERY HIGHLY to anyone reading this column. You can learn more at http://www.pachamama.org/atd/
The workshop is based on many generations of indigenous wisdom, born out of deep relationship with the earth. The material in the workshop is a clarion-call from the ancestral wisdom to our modern civilization to restore our balance with the planet we live on.
What does the workshop and the rainforest have to do with sustainable wealth?
I found a part of the answer when I "randomly" cracked open Lynne's book today, seeking the answer
Here's what I found - it speaks for itself!
Chapter 4 "Sufficiency"
She writes - "When you let go of trying to get more of what you don't really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands."
In the chapter Lynne speaks of her encounter with the Achuar people in the Ecuadorian rainforest in the early nineties. She refers to them as "naturally prosperous" since they hadn't "won some economic game to be prosperous"
She continues by saying
"With no money, no accumulation of goods, and none of the conveniences of our Western lifestyle, still there was no suggestion of scarcity; no lack and no fear that there wouldn't be enough of what they needed. There was no chase for more, no resignation or belief that they were living lives of less-than."
"They lived (and still do) in the experience and expression of enough, or what I call sufficiency. Instead of seeking more, they treasure and steward thoughtfully what is already there."
"for the Achuar, wealth means being present to the fullness and richness of the moment and sharing that with one another."
Naturally, we don't have to live in a rainforest to experience the same state of being.
These ideas point me to an innate fullness of being that is right here and always available to us.
They are a reminder that we don't need to live in the rainforest in order to return to the natural state of abundance-consciousness which we can share with eachother so fully.
Obviously, we can embrace the state of sufficiency and express throughout our relationships no matter where we live - to me this is true wealth and the hallmark of well being.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Ecological Economics and Creole Cooking...
I came across a wonderful group called "Earth Economics" today that is doing amazing work in a number of areas relating to the areas of understanding ecosystems and how the proper interaction with them can create long term economic benefit and/or avoid serious economic loss.
Since it was just a year ago this week that we saw the destruction of New Orleans, I thought I'd report on the topic of how the application of ecological economics could have benefited the home of Dixieland Jazz and Creole Cooking. (incidentally, New Orleans is the birthplace of my paternal Grandparents - my Grandpa was born in the French Quarter in the famous building with rod iron balconies...)
Case in point is the management (or lack thereof) of the vast watershed and wetland system in the Mississippi delta. Had it been managed better, the enormous costs of building levees, etc. would have been reduced and also the damage to the city could have been reduced dramatically. This is real money we're talking about (of course if FEMA would actually spend it, but that is another matter!)
Here's what they Earth Economics wrote on their website about the matter and the work that they are doing in New Orleans:
"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it is clear that flooding, storm damage and loss of life in Mississippi and Louisiana could have been less severe. Decades of damage to wetlands in the region had damaged the natural storm buffering capacity of barrier islands and local ecosystems.
In the New Orleans theme, I'll also report on the work that they are doing to analyze and maintain what will hopefully become one of the first fully sustainable shrimp fisheries.
Shrimp harvesting is considered to be more environmentally detrimental....and important part of creole... keeping with the theme:
Here's what they're doing in the area of shrimp
Their website also has a great list of "key concepts" which are very much worth a read, if you're interested.
See below:
http://www.eartheconomics.org/ecolecon/ee_centralconcepts.html
From time to time, I'll elaborate on some of these ideas.
Since it was just a year ago this week that we saw the destruction of New Orleans, I thought I'd report on the topic of how the application of ecological economics could have benefited the home of Dixieland Jazz and Creole Cooking. (incidentally, New Orleans is the birthplace of my paternal Grandparents - my Grandpa was born in the French Quarter in the famous building with rod iron balconies...)
Case in point is the management (or lack thereof) of the vast watershed and wetland system in the Mississippi delta. Had it been managed better, the enormous costs of building levees, etc. would have been reduced and also the damage to the city could have been reduced dramatically. This is real money we're talking about (of course if FEMA would actually spend it, but that is another matter!)
Here's what they Earth Economics wrote on their website about the matter and the work that they are doing in New Orleans:
"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it is clear that flooding, storm damage and loss of life in Mississippi and Louisiana could have been less severe. Decades of damage to wetlands in the region had damaged the natural storm buffering capacity of barrier islands and local ecosystems.
Earth Economics is working with a team of scientists from Louisiana and around the nation to research Hurricane Katrina using tools from ecological economics.
- New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will be more vulnerable to hurricanes with warmer Gulf of Mexico waters, sea level rise and subsidence. This threatens the ecosystems, communities, economy and lives of people in coastal Louisiana.
- If the fresh water and sediment of the Mississippi River were diverted back into the wetlands they would clearly expand and provide storm buffering.
- Earth Economics is examining the dollar value of storm protection, carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services provided by the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta.
- Protection and restoration of wetlands with smaller levees is more economically efficient in providing hurricane protection than levee construction alone."
In the New Orleans theme, I'll also report on the work that they are doing to analyze and maintain what will hopefully become one of the first fully sustainable shrimp fisheries.
Shrimp harvesting is considered to be more environmentally detrimental....and important part of creole... keeping with the theme:
Here's what they're doing in the area of shrimp
"Our current efforts focus on the spot prawn fishery. Shrimp, harvested in the wild or produced via aquaculture, are one of the most unsustainable seafoods, involving vast amounts of bycatch, habitat destruction, mangrove deforestation, and dislocation of coastal communities.
Earth Economics has brought together a coalition of spot prawn fishers, NGOs, and government agencies from California to Alaska in creating and implementing a strategy for sustainable spot prawn production. This coalition aims to certify the spot prawn as the first sustainably-harvested shrimp fishery in the world."
Earth Economics is doing other work in the areas of forestry, toxics, reforming finance and trade, and education of business, government and policymakers.Their website also has a great list of "key concepts" which are very much worth a read, if you're interested.
See below:
http://www.eartheconomics.org/ecolecon/ee_centralconcepts.html
From time to time, I'll elaborate on some of these ideas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)