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Gmail Peter Burgess
A possible business tipping point for your consideration
matthew Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 10:10 AM
To: LIST
All:
As I phase out of active New Jersey-focused involvement (with a few exceptions) after Tuesday’s meeting at NJDEP on their Sustainable Business Initiative, I’ve had a chance to step back, catch up on some articles (and one job posting, of all places), and may have noticed the beginning of a tipping point I wanted to pass on.
While it’s still so common to hear the more typical business story (such as another bonus going to the CEO of a company which just paid fines for regulatory infractions like JPMorgan Chase, or the Koch brothers), there now seems to be a growing number (if you look in the right places) of companies beginning to do and think about going way beyond the “changing the light bulbs” stage, or doing a little sustainability because it helps the bottom line. It isn’t just Interface and Ben & Jerry’s anymore.
We’re now seeing a job ad calling for applicants to have read some of the seminal sustainability writers; companies waking up to climate change-caused threats to their supply chains, and therefore taking unprecedented actions; the terms: “net positive” and “transformative change“ being seriously discussed, along with the “circular economy”; businesses coming together to positively affect public policy; new forms of co-coopetition; business recognition that they can’t be successful if the larger society of which they’re a part is failing; even (if you look really hard) redefining the very purpose of business. The articles below show these.
Meadows wrote that the best way to change the overall system is through paradigm change, although Kuhn wrote about just how hard that is. Maybe…it’s started, but is just hard to recognize.
Comments? Am I way off on this?
Matt
· Davenport, Coral. Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/science/earth/threat-to-bottom-line-spurs-action-on-climate.html
· Etsy job posting for a Sustainability Director. http://www.etsy.com/careers/job/om6lYfwv
· Lindsay, Tim. Businesses Cannot Be Successful If the Society Around Them Fails. Sustainable Brands. http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/marketing_comms/tim_lindsay/businesses_cannot_be_successful_if_society_around_them_fa
· Sustainable Brands. Top 10 Ways Brands Used Their Power to Create a More Sustainable World in 2013. http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/collaboration/sustainable-brands/top-10-ways-brands-used-their-power-create-more-sust
· Reynolds, Mark. How Can a Business Succeed by Giving Back More Than It Takes? Sustainable Brands. http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/waste_not/mark_reynolds/how_can_business_succeed_giving_back_more_it_takes?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=innovation&utm_campaign=jan29&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRons6XBZKXonjHpfsX56eorWaeylMI/0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DSMNiI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFTrTBMbVxyLgOXxk%3D
· Confino, Jo. Exclusive: The B Team Asks Business to Drive Sustainable Inclusive Prosperity. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/b-team-business-responsibility-inclusive-prosperity
· Rusli, Evelyn. Salesforce CEO Benioff on How to Fix San Francisco. The Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/30/salesforce-ceo-benioff-on-how-to-fix-san-francisco/
· Makower, Joel. Can the Beef Industry Collaborate its Way to Sustainability? GreenBiz.com. http://greenbiz.com/print/55701
· Whisnant, Ryan. Wanted: Truly Innovative Sustainable Business Models. Sustainability.com. http://www.sustainability.com/blog/wanted-truly-innovative-sustainable-business-models#.Uu5NTLmx6P8
· Elks, Jennifer. Seventh Gen, Annie’s, Eileen Fisher Among Companies Pushing Congress for Better Chemicals Policy. Sustainable Brands. http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/collaboration/jennifer-elks/seventh-gen-annie%E2%80%99s-eileen-fisher-among-companies-pushing
Gmail Peter Burgess
A possible business tipping point for your consideration
Bendell, Jem
Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 5:16 PM
To: LIST
Good to see some progress in the discourse Matt.
I no longer think the shift you describe will make a significant difference, in terms of overall trends, unless we address core issues of economic governance, and redesign capitalism itself.
Although necessary to try, asking for change within existing power structures that have captured the political process and the political imagination of the majority, and disciplined our intellectuals into irrelevant routines (research for A journals) and reduced our decent professionals (in any sector) into janitors for others’ excesses, will be unlikely to produce a change.
I think our underlying fear of what that insight might lead us to consider, stops us from exploring what it might lead to.
In my case, it led to a focus on disruptive innovation to our monetary systems. The reason and the method I describe in my chapter with Tom Greco, called Currencies of Transition, and explore more in my new book, Healing Capitalism. The first of those is free.
Our work on this has caught the mood recently, become world news, due to the popularity/notoriety of Bitcoin.
My discussion of what crypto currency means for the environment is on sea change radio, and I document the discussions I had at Davos recently about Bitcoin at www.jembendell.com
We have launched a Certificate on this, that can be studied in one week delivery.
The paradigm shift here is key. It comes from understanding the nature of currency and how destructive and undemocratic the current system is.
This is what I think I learned after 19 years in CSR and sustainable business work. Currently I wonder whether people in the CSR and sustainable business space – and the environmental NGO world - have too much invested (personally & professionally) in good yet systemically insufficient activity for a sufficient number to be able to engage in the approach I describe above. As I have connections and some audience in those fields Ive expressed my ideas a bit, for instance by those two publications I mentioned above. Or for those with no time to read… a video.
I’m finally in the US at the end of March, for the Harvard leadership course. I’d be delighted to discuss these ideas with those of you near Boston, and maybe squeeze a trip to New York City, if anyone is organising anything where I might be relevant.
Thx, Jem
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Gmail Peter Burgess
A possible business tipping point for your consideration
Larry Furman
Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 10:19 PM
To: 'Bendell, Jem'
CC LIST
Good luck, Matt,
As I see it, the problem isn't 'Captialism' as much as it's economics - neoclassical economics with a focus on consumption, a lack of regulation, and growth as an end to itself. The worst examples of this are, I think, atmospheric carbon dioxide at 400 ppm and climbing, systemic disbelief in the scientific method, at least here in the US, and in China, environmental degradation.
China: 650,000 deaths from air pollution in 2006 and 1.2 million in 2010. My back-of-the-envelope extrapolation from those data points suggests 1.9 million to 2.6 million in 2015, and 12.7 to 14.2 million cumulative deaths from 2005 to 2015. (See 'China Air Pollution: The Bitter Years Return,' popularlogistics.com/2013/07/china-bitter-years-returning/
You could argue that China has embraced state capitalism, so the problem is 'capitalism,' and the variation of capitalism that is also known as fascism. However, it's not just contemporary China. An estimated 15 to 43 million people died when Mao was calling the shots, in the 'Bitter Years,' from 1958 and 1962.
It seems to me that it's the neoclassical economics. We need to shift to ecological economics. We need to embed an understanding of what are currently called externalities into economic events, distinguish between 'economic goods,' like money spent on pharmaceuticals to treat disease, from 'economic bads,' like money spent on pharmaceuticals that result in tragic deaths from overdose. Or energy from solar, wind, geothermal, and other systems from energy from non-renewable fuel resources, which create waste.
And it also seems to me that some of this is starting.
In Dec., 2012, I began an experiment in 'Climate Capitalism.' I invested $16 hyptothetical Million in 16 energy companies, $1 hypothetical million in each, 8 in the sustainable spaces, 8 in the fossil fuel space.
The results, after 13 months, are that the Sustainable Energy portfolio is up 167.4%, the Fossil Fuel portfolio is up 8.92%.
http://popularlogistics.com/2014/01/energy-portfolios-13-months/
Thanks,
Larry
--
Larry Furman
732-580-0024 - lfurman97@gmail.com
LIST A
Robert Taylor , 'lwinters@fdu.edu' , 'claire@kayakmedia.com' , 'jcloud@fdu.edu' , 'jwirtenberg@optonline.net' , 'JHarmon444@aol.com' , 'gfarias@fdu.edu' , 'dtwomey@fdu.edu' , 'kent@fdu.edu' , 'wgrussell@prodigy.net' , 'anna@earthpeopleco.com' , 'mcohen@adm.njit.edu' , 'rcast@fdu.edu' , 'ira@greentrack.com' , 'jspolsky@gmail.com' , 'blarkey1@msn.com' , 'jaimie@cloudinstitute.org' , 'solomonr@tcnj.edu' , 'athena.sarafides@dep.state.nj.us' , 'koann@sustainablelifemedia.com' , 'kimmlatham@gmail.com' , 'rhoda.schermer@verizon.net' , 'vasishth@ramapo.edu' , 'rosemary@copyrose.com' , 'harriet@climatemama.com' , 'dawn@hornandhardartcoffee.com' , Joseph Robertson , 'robert.benjamin@greenwords.net' , 'ky.asral@dep.state.nj.us' , Alan AtKisson , 'allan@nj-green.org' , Andy Smith , 'ebangood@bard.edu' , Bob Bzik , 'dai@debraitaliano.com' , 'kathrin.winkler@emc.com' , Gus Escher , 'peterbnyc@gmail.com' , 'hoeffler12@gmail.com' , Global Learning , 'laura.knipmeyer@gmail.com' , 'lfurman97@gmail.com' , 'greeninspiresnj@gmail.com' , 'rlmarch@ix.netcom.com' , 'jcdernbach@widener.edu' , John Zindar , 'laura@knipmeyer.net' , 'lmalizzi@matrixneworld.com' , Pam Mount , 'mhozer@msn.com' , 'daronson@raritanval.edu' , 'sustainmorristown@yahoo.com' , 'grayrussell07043@yahoo.com' , 'jem.bendell@cumbria.ac.uk'
LIST B
To: matthew , Robert Taylor , 'lwinters@fdu.edu' , 'claire@kayakmedia.com' ,
'jcloud@fdu.edu' , 'jwirtenberg@optonline.net' , 'JHarmon444@aol.com' , 'gfarias@fdu.edu' ,
'dtwomey@fdu.edu' , 'kent@fdu.edu' , 'wgrussell@prodigy.net' , 'anna@earthpeopleco.com' ,
'mcohen@adm.njit.edu' , 'rcast@fdu.edu' , 'ira@greentrack.com' , 'jspolsky@gmail.com' ,
'blarkey1@msn.com' , 'jaimie@cloudinstitute.org' , 'solomonr@tcnj.edu' ,
'athena.sarafides@dep.state.nj.us' , 'koann@sustainablelifemedia.com' ,
'kimmlatham@gmail.com' , 'rhoda.schermer@verizon.net' , 'vasishth@ramapo.edu' ,
'rosemary@copyrose.com' , 'harriet@climatemama.com' , 'dawn@hornandhardartcoffee.com' ,
Joseph Robertson , 'robert.benjamin@greenwords.net' , 'ky.asral@dep.state.nj.us' ,
Alan AtKisson , 'allan@nj-green.org' , Andy Smith , 'ebangood@bard.edu' ,
Bob Bzik , 'dai@debraitaliano.com' , 'kathrin.winkler@emc.com' , Gus Escher ,
'peterbnyc@gmail.com' , 'hoeffler12@gmail.com' , Global Learning ,
'laura.knipmeyer@gmail.com' , 'lfurman97@gmail.com' , 'greeninspiresnj@gmail.com' ,
'rlmarch@ix.netcom.com' , 'jcdernbach@widener.edu' , John Zindar , 'laura@knipmeyer.net' , 'lmalizzi@matrixneworld.com' , Pam Mount , 'mhozer@msn.com' , 'daronson@raritanval.edu' , 'sustainmorristown@yahoo.com' , 'grayrussell07043@yahoo.com'
Cc: 'DRJBENDELL@GMAIL.COM'
LIST C
Cc: matthew , Robert Taylor , 'lwinters@fdu.edu' , 'claire@kayakmedia.com' ,
'jcloud@fdu.edu' , 'jwirtenberg@optonline.net' , 'JHarmon444@aol.com' , 'gfarias@fdu.edu' ,
'dtwomey@fdu.edu' , 'kent@fdu.edu' , 'wgrussell@prodigy.net' , 'anna@earthpeopleco.com' ,
'mcohen@adm.njit.edu' , 'rcast@fdu.edu' , 'ira@greentrack.com' , 'jspolsky@gmail.com' ,
'blarkey1@msn.com' , 'jaimie@cloudinstitute.org' , 'solomonr@tcnj.edu' ,
'athena.sarafides@dep.state.nj.us' , 'koann@sustainablelifemedia.com' ,
'kimmlatham@gmail.com' , 'rhoda.schermer@verizon.net' , 'vasishth@ramapo.edu' ,
'rosemary@copyrose.com' , 'harriet@climatemama.com' , 'dawn@hornandhardartcoffee.com' ,
Joseph Robertson , 'robert.benjamin@greenwords.net' , 'ky.asral@dep.state.nj.us' ,
Alan AtKisson , 'allan@nj-green.org' , Andy Smith , 'ebangood@bard.edu' ,
Bob Bzik , 'dai@debraitaliano.com' , 'kathrin.winkler@emc.com' , Gus Escher ,
'peterbnyc@gmail.com' , 'hoeffler12@gmail.com' , Global Learning ,
'laura.knipmeyer@gmail.com' , 'greeninspiresnj@gmail.com' ,
'rlmarch@ix.netcom.com' , 'jcdernbach@widener.edu' , John Zindar , 'laura@knipmeyer.net' , 'lmalizzi@matrixneworld.com' , Pam Mount , 'mhozer@msn.com' , 'daronson@raritanval.edu' , 'sustainmorristown@yahoo.com' , 'grayrussell07043@yahoo.com' , 'DRJBENDELL@GMAIL.COM'
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