http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/hawken201.htm
Business GOLD IN THE SHADOW by Paul Hawken It costs more to destroy the Earth and less to maintain it. Interview by Satish Kumar from Resurgence issue 201 July/August 2000 SK: IN THE PAST twenty-five years, on the one hand there has been a huge increase in ecological awareness in the Western world, and, on the other hand, there has been a tremendous stride towards globalization, consumerism and world trade. In your view, is the environmental movement getting anywhere or are we fighting a losing battle? PH: There are so many vantage points from which to answer this question, but perhaps the least helpful vantage point is one that looks at environmentalism as a battle. In those terms, we will certainly lose, because the forces are greater for consumption and destruction than they are for frugality and restoration. The question interests me because for years, I have been asked, am I optimistic or pessimistic? I always say I am pessimistic when I look at the data, but optimistic when I look at people. I am terrified of what I see. And yet, I act and take enormous encouragement in the fact that others act too. Many, like you, have acted long before myself. When my children were growing up, we read Tolkien and the Ring trilogy - a classic tale of darkness overwhelming the world. It fascinated me that Tolkien was writing this during World War Two and was posting chapters to his son at the front. It is a tale of how something can prevail when everything is arrayed against it. I feel that what we are beginning to experience in our life is rather mythic, like the Baghavad Gita. When seen this way, then the word "battle" comes back to life in a new way. What we do know is that we are descending into a century that will be marked by incalculable and cascading losses, losses that are already grievous and inconsolably tragic. To see the momentum of loss is to want to close one's eyes. But to close one's eyes is to do the one thing that will not help us at all. I believe in rain, in odd miracles, in the intelligence that allows arctic birds to find their way across the Earth. In other words, I don't believe I know or understand the means whereby this Earth and its people will transform. I don't know how human culture will long endure. I am comforted by this ignorance, this vast possibility of what I don't know. SK: There are a number of environmental activists, such as yourself, who are working with businesses. Is there not a danger that business people will exploit your good names, carry out a greenwash, bring out some superficial changes, but, fundamentally, they will carry on their business as usual? PH: Not only is there a danger, there is the outright reality. It is nothing to fear because it is already happening. It is essential to observe and prevent. Since I have invoked mythic imagery, I think it is important to offer the idea that large multinational corporations are like cults. Some laugh, some cringe, when presented with this description, but I find it helpful. Cults are distinguished by charismatic leaders, either dead or living, borrowed language, sleep deprivation, costumes or identifying clothing, impressive buildings or temples, and deep superstitious beliefs in omniscient sayings and writings, i.e. free-market capitalist tracts. So it is unrealistic to think that this culture will change because new information is offered. Some companies are more cultish than others, but all have some traces of it if they are large and successful. The real question is whether to be outside of them, or to try to work with them whilst trying to work on everything else as well. Two schools of thought are here. One is that by working on changing business, you are co-opted and business doesn't really change. The other side is that business is the dominant institution, so you are foolish to ignore them. Along with this school of thought comes the idea that businesses are merely a reflection of who we are. I am reminded of the famous exchange oft quoted by green architect William McDonough: when Emerson asked a jailed Thoreau what he was doing "in" there, Thoreau asked Emerson back what he was doing "out" there? My question is whether there is an in or out. Working with large companies is spiritually and emotionally difficult. It is like doing exquisite flower arrangements for a soccer match. And it remains to be seen whether they can truly change or not. There are some outstanding people and companies in the world who do get it, are truly committed to ecological restoration and social equity. Either they are exceptions that prove the rule, or they represent a radical new possibility. If we believe that they do not represent a new possibility, it will be self-fulfilling. SK: There seems to be a feeling that by making efficient use of energy and technology businesses can save the environment and make profit at the same time. Can social justice, environmental sustainability and spiritual renewal be compatible with any kind of economic growth and profit? PH: There is widespread misunderstanding of the nature of the problem, and thus there is an almost Pollyannaish view of the solutions. A telling example of this is the newly drafted Global Reporting Initiatives (gri). Over one hundred transnational corporations, from Shell to Coke to General Motors, have worked with environmental ngos to come up with draft guidelines to report on environmental issues within their companies. Such reporting and the willingness to report are commendable. Yet, there is not a definition nor even a clue as to what sustainability means. Thus the draft guidelines won't even come close to achieving sustainability and are essentially a dressed-up package of business as usual. Mathis Wackernagel, of Redefining Progress, and I recently wrote a critique of these draft guidelines, a critique which was greeted with indifference. Companies feel, if you define issues, show that equity and justice and resource flow are kith and kin, that they are being "judged". We say that if you understand the principles and concepts, you can judge for yourself. The resistance to understanding the depth of the problems that have brought sustainability to the foreground creates a situation where you have companies "highly committed" to thin gruel, solutions which are palliative or perhaps remediative. Even though many know they should go upstream, they see the way blocked by costs because companies are still thinking of the environment as an externality, and ecological problems as distinct from their core businesses. As James Hillman said, "the gold is in the shadow." If companies would actually delve deeply into the world problematique of the loss of living and cultural systems, they would find truly radical ideas and solutions; solutions that in most cases would cost them and the world less. I do not mean to imply by this that there is a free lunch waiting out there. What I am referring to is the fact that the industrial system is getting more and more inefficient and unfair and the overwhelming rate of metabolic impact (and loss) means that there are real breakthrough ideas out there waiting for those who dig deep. But as it stands now, you have companies like Coca-Cola defining sustainability for their peers. This is foolish. SK: If business is to respond to the ecological crisis of our time in a serious and sincere way, then what kinds of economic idea will they have to adopt? PH: The issue is not economic, but legal: What are corporations' obligations to society? This is an issue that few want to touch. In corporate circles, it is treated as heretical. But outside that circle, the concept of recasting the legal responsibilities and liabilities of corporate entities is gaining momentum. Led by people like David Korten, Jerry Mander and Richard Grossman, we are beginning to remember here in the US that our country was created in resistance to corporate abuse. Now we have become what we hated and feared, a plutocratic society run by a corporate oligarchy. The problem is becoming worse, in no small part due to the globalization of finance which instantly rewards and punishes leaders or laggards in growth and earnings. As the feedback loops have closed tighter, the margin for error and corporate experimentation has shrunk. We need a far more responsible corporate body than we have today. We need to reverse the underlying assumptions that inform gatt, wto, nafta, and other trade agreements and organizations which essentially destroy sovereignty. For the world to move towards long-term sustainability and restoration, there needs to be the restoration and respect for cultural diversity, a reinstitution of local and regional sovereignty, something we are unwilling to do. Transnational trade agreements have bred an unholy alliance of crony corporate capitalism that is pathological and erosive to all that we hold sacred. Corporations need to have the opposite sorts of guidelines than they presently seek. They need to be locally responsive, not globally unrestricted. In this way, the companies that thrive will be diverse themselves. The idea that we need to build financial autobahns to smooth the invasion of corporations into developing nations in order for economic development to occur is, at its heart, a corrupt argument. We should do the opposite: corporate charters must be made revocable. SK: Does this politicize the corporation? PH: Absolutely. It is essential to make corporations responsible to the body politic. This is the long-term interest of the corporations, society, and the ecosystem. Quelling feedback does not make a system more intelligent. Then we need to realize that we are talking about political rights. We have created a world where we have granted rights to money, rights which supersede human dignity, even human life. We have forsaken our democratic rights in favour of aristocratic ideas of monetary supremacy. A lot of words about democracy, but we only have democracies in concept. You can destroy forests and the atmosphere and become wealthy, but if you destroy money, you can be prosecuted and jailed. This is just another way of pointing out how capital became divine, replacing the divine right of kings. And, of course, we also need an accounting system that has a minus sign, one that actually gives us a true sum of our losses and gains. As long as we run our economy without a balance sheet and the illusion of endless supplies of natural capital, we can be profligate and think we are being rational and constructive. Without true understanding of our national and regional accounts, we are acting in a vacuum. And this accounting must be extended to prices on an everyday level, something that can be accomplished by ecological tax reform or tax shifts. With ecological tax shifts, people will get better information with respect to the prices of goods. This is a profound reaffirmation of core economic principles. If someone sees that double-glazing the atmosphere with their oil furnace is a lot more expensive than double-glazing their windows, installing insulation, and using renewable energy, they will change behaviour. This is true with forest products, fibres, food, transportation, materials, reactive vs. enzymatic chemicals, and so on. It costs more to destroy the Earth in clock time and less to maintain it in perpetuity. Yet every signal we get from our pricing system and stock-markets tells us the opposite. In this sense, our pricing system is toxic to the nervous system of society. An analogy is that of herbicides. Most kill weeds by overstimulating their rate of growth, not by suppressing growth. And then the weed outstrips its capacity to take up nutrients and dies. Similarly, our pricing system is overstimulating our "growth" and thus outstripping our capacity to take up natural capital and ecosystem services. Should we continue on this path, we will suffer accordingly. In the act of marrying costs more closely with price, in a fair, non-regressive fashion to protect the poor, we would do more for the champions of corporate sustainability than in any other single act. And then there are issues of scale, which Leopold Kohr and E. F. Schumacher addressed many years ago. In the argument over genetically modified food, we should also bear in mind, even if gmos were benign and safe as milk, which I do not believe, whose idea was it to have companies like Monsanto, Du Pont and Novartis, whose origins go back to cancer-causing saccharine, gunpowder and toxic aniline dyes respectively, strive to control the seed plasm that provides the world with 90 per cent of its caloric intake? I don't remember anyone making such an utterly daft proposition. There was no commission, no referendum, no plebiscite. It is the very opposite of the biological diversity which is at the heart of the ecosystem's resilience and sustainability. Paul Hawken is co-author with Hunter and Amory Lovins of Natural Capitalism published by Earthscan (London) and Little Brown (New York). His previous books include The Ecology of Commerce (Harper). from Resurgence issue 201 ------------------------ Yahoo! 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