Paul Hawken responds

Paul Hawken spurred a dynamic dialogue at Sustainable Industries’ recent Economic Forums in Portland and San Francisco (If you missed the events, watch them online at www.sustainableindustries.com/forums). The audience had more good questions than we had time for at the events so we asked Hawken to continue the conversation offline. Read on to find out what he has to say about the role of government in sustainable business, the way in which business leaders can use IT to their—and the environment’s—advantage, and how to stay on target when fear gets in the way of progress.  

Plus, don't miss Hawken at the Sustainable Industries Economic Forums in San Francisco and Santa Monica.

Are the many groups identified in “Blessed Unrest” scaling up fast enough to make a difference?
—Lyndon “Tuck” Wilson, attorney, Portland

PH: The joy of researching the world of civil society was like discovering a new social continent that is collectively unseen. But discovering it is far different than knowing it. To answer your question, no one has a clue as to what is going on within it. There are more than 10 million organizations and perhaps as many as 2 million fall within the category of the environment and social justice. Bear in mind that scale alone does not necessarily make a difference. Difference makes a difference, and that comes in all sizes.

How is real change initiated in a corporation when the “rank and file” support sustainable initiatives but management does not?
—Bill Siend, Art Institute of Portland

PH: Generally, change is skewed and pot bound if leaders of an institution are not literate, supportive, and committed to sustainability. At the same time, change often begins at the grassroots. This plays out differently in every company depending on the culture, the turnover at the top, the awareness or lack thereof in the boardroom, external pressures and the type of business it is in. In other words, generalizations are not particularly useful here. We are talking culture, and culture is raw, living, dynamic and ever-changing.

You mention the relationship between “doomers” and designers. Do you see a similar working relationship between government and business?
—Aaron Berg, Founder and President, Blue Tree Strategies, Portland

PH: I see the relationship between government and business in the Jane Jacobs sense: Governments and commerce are two different moral systems, or maybe more like syndromes. Government performs the guardian role; it is protective, aware of boundaries and conservative in the original sense of the word. It arose in hunting societies, which are territorial, suspicious of others, tradition bound and hierarchical. Business arose from trading cultures, which calls for more trust of outsiders as well as more cooperation; it favors innovation, change, collaboration and forward thinking.

Government enforces standards; commerce reinvents society. You need both, and both can work well unless one system tries to be the other, and then it breaks down. When government runs business it is a bad idea, and when business, through corruption and money, tries to run government, it is an equally bad idea. The working relationship between government and business depends on mutual independence and the ability to fulfill the roles that are proper to each arena.

Please share ideas you have regarding transforming the “demand reduction” discussion from one of deprivation and sacrifice to one of a joyful future.
—Dawn Lesley, GreenSteps Program Leader, Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, Portland

PH: The proposition that less is more is a difficult argument to make in a materialistic society that feels anxious, empty and let down in many ways. The effective way to put the premise forward is by embodiment. Like Wendell Berry said, “be joyful though you know all the facts.” Joy is infectious and we have pretty good joy meters that tell us when someone is happy and when they are faking it. We move toward the former.

We know information and communications technologies can have a positive impact on the demand side by transforming industries to be more energy-efficient. Do you have advice for the IT industry on driving this change more effectively?
—Lorie Wigle, General Manager, Eco-Technology Program Office, and President, Climate Savers Computing Initiative, Intel, Portland

PH: What IT does best is facilitate real time feedback. The problems we face ecologically, economically and socially are systems problems. Citizens, academics, scientists, economists, companies and NGOs don’t really know what is going on because the world has become surpassingly complex.

Change is occurring so rapidly that the cumulative effect of our activities within the system is not perceivable or predictable. If we can break down our activity into packets of intelligence that aggregate to larger systems awareness, we can see and make connections that will change our knowledge and behavior.

We collectively operate an economic system that tells us that it is more profitable to destroy the earth in real time than to conserve and restore it. That is contrary to common sense and what we know as individuals, and demonstrates the pitfall of operating large, complex systems without feedback. When economies were simpler and regional, problems were human scale. In a $60 trillion economy, we need IT in order to exercise our innate intelligence.

Have you tried to bring directly to President Obama the message you shared today? Specifically, the idea of a Green Transportation Council, etc.?
—Beth Stanton, Sustainable Interiors, Portland

PH: No, I wasn’t asked for my thoughts by the new administration. I am one of those people who need to be asked. I am not effective at getting my ideas into the whirlpool of the beltway.

Do you have any ideas to help avoid the politicization that often derails innovation and collaboration on these issues?
—Thomas Doherty, Sustainable Self, Seattle

PH: I think the politicization of issues, and I think by that you may mean the polarization of issues, arises from fear. Fear rises from lack of knowledge, lack of trust and insecurity among other reasons. I have no prescription for fear. It does seem that pathologies are coming to the fore in all media, but especially TV and the Internet, behavior that is feeding our fears instead of our aspirations, the politics of hate and scapegoating as contrasted to a politics of hope and change.

When do you see the price of oil equaling the price of renewable energy?
—Anonymous

PH: I have no idea. If you count externalities, the cost of renewables is already less expensive than oil, but price is different than cost. Oil producing nations will continue to do everything possible to be the low cost BTU provider. Our survival depends on that not being the case.

China and India are building new coal-powered power plants at the rate of about one per week, and this rate is expected for the next 30 years. How do U.S. businesses stay true to sustainable goals and compete globally—particularly with China and India, massive growing energy consumers?
—Anonymous

PH: The question implies that China and India will have less expensive energy, and thus have a competitive advantage. Putting aside the suicidal consequences of this massive increase in coal combustion, I do not believe this gives either country an advantage. Every piece of data I see shows demand exceeding supply for both oil and coal in the coming decade, meaning that the real cost of energy will rise significantly.

This favors countries that use energy efficiently, such as Germany (still the largest exporter in the world and the nation with the highest installed base of solar energy), Japan and the United States over China and India. At the same time, it must be said that China is moving more rapidly to renewables than is the United States. And India is installing a far more ambitious plan for solar energy than is the United States.

In the shift to local economies, and building on the concept “we can’t manage what we can’t measure,” what would you suggest as the critical benchmarks to establish?
—Amy Tucker, Creator, Co-Founder and CEO, Xeco, Seattle

PH: The most important metrics will be social and resource ones. On the social side, you need true measures of well-being. On the resource side, you need input/output models for cities and regions: What is coming into a geographical area, where is it coming from, and what is going out. It is a map, a regional representation of societal metabolism that shows the flows of capital— financial, manufactured and natural. This kind of mapping reveals how communities are leaking their money and resources, and it shows where it can close the loops, reduce costs, create jobs and increase resiliency.