We now face a sobering dilemma in the redesign process for commerce that most of us did not see coming. What guides do movement leaders use to ensure our best chance for success in this monumental planning process? Taking this question one step further and keeping in mind the track record of humanity in the last few centuries, we ask ourselves if our best interests are served by assuming that we have the ability to successfully transition to a thriving and sustainable society? The feel-good answer may well be “yes,” but is it the thoughtful and rational response? The best and brightest minds of the first industrial revolution have brought us to our current situation, so do we reasonably expect drastically different results this next time around? Any delay in hammering out and implementing our best possible approach could further jeopardize our chance for success.
An existing model of flourishing long-term industrial achievement would be exceedingly useful for us to emulate, but is such a prospect available? If we are able to set aside our hubris in favor of open-mindedness, we have an opportunity for all businesses to emulate an amazingly successfully production system that has incorporated all the necessary strategies required for continuous prosperity. We will now turn our attention to a surprising source of invaluable guidance for every step of business and societal reformation.
Guide Point 1: Our conventional approaches for producing goods and services routinely include unnecessarily insidious and tragic consequences for future generations of all life.
2See Cunningham, Houston, and Sheppard (2004).
3See Hardin (1968) for a harsh but convincing pessimistic argument.
4See Walker, Hopkin, Sibly, and Peakall (2006) for this and other numerous pertinent pollution statistics.
5See Costanza, et al. (1997) for a detailed accounting.
Chapter 2
Selecting a Design Consultant
A daunting challenge ahead of us is the redesign of our commercial systems in a manner that simultaneously provides profitable businesses and enhances the natural and human communities throughout time. Bringing such a bold set of intentions to fruition transports modern man into entirely uncharted waters and requires comprehensive, outside-the-box innovation. In the past, we have operated as if the earth held unlimited resources and a boundless capacity to absorb our potent array of debilitating pollutants. To this point, the focus of business endeavors has been overwhelmingly opportunistic with relatively short planning horizons that focus mostly on near-term financial gain. A sustainable business evolution involves a radical departure from conventionality and necessitates interdisciplinary challenges that were previously never considered.
A number of ideas in this book are outside traditional thought and, as yet, are not common topics of discussion around the proverbial water cooler. Recalling the earlier appeal for open-mindedness, you might find that our next point of discussion will push that request to its limit. I ask that you seriously consider the following proposition, even if it’s out of your comfort zone. Another option is to file it in the “maybe” category for future consideration, keeping in mind that many movement supporters have found it helpful and elucidating.
2.1The Problem with Stewardship
The design task at hand would be less overwhelming if our efforts merely relied on tweaking conventional business theory, adding to current bodies of knowledge, and using our collective human ingenuity. But that formula has been mankind’s approach for advancement in the last several millennia. An examination of the overall results of our “business-as-usual approach” has exposed many serious systemic problems, and therefore, a reconsideration of certain core pivotal concepts is essential. Using the same basic premises and assumptions that have landed us in our current predicament would obviously prove unsuccessful. Our objective to produce extraordinary results requires us to use an extraordinary approach.
At this point, let’s reconsider a key component of the Judeo-Christian ethic that is prevalent throughout the Western society. Many Americans and Europeans believe that the proper environmental role of man is as a wise steward for all biota and regions of the natural world. Our superior intelligence and natural dominance, so the familiar ethic implies, place us in this position of control to skillfully supervise all planetary wildlands and waters. Among other things, this ethic elevates humans above all other species and positions other life forms as part of a provisioning support structure for humanity. The idea of man as a superior and benevolent species wisely managing God’s creation in respectful ways has indeed been embedded and reinforced in the Western society. The message in the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament seems quite clear: God created the world in six days for humans and rested on the seventh day.
Not surprisingly, Western environmentalists have adopted this theme of natural world stewardship as a basic tenet. This position offers an opportunity, perhaps even suggests a duty, for humans to take charge and decide the strategy to remedy the substantial global environmental degradation. This stewardship role has engaged many people, particularly in the past 100 years, in what is thought of as enlightened management of the natural world and no doubt involves many well-intentioned participants today. I suspect numerous readers of this book may subscribe to this belief.
Let’s now review the context of our situation and consider the application of emulating nature’s genius in the sustainable business movement.
2.2Naturally Our Best Foot Forward
Man’s legacy of environmental and social troubles across the globe stemming from past technological choices has been well documented. Our predilection for fossil fuels, landfill-bound materials, natural resource exploitation, soil degradation, and persistent toxic waste is among the deepest failures. Considering our past performance, the expectation of our own cleverness to remedy our systemic industrial problems may not be in our best interests. Relying on our wit and ingenuity alone has produced baleful long-term results in the last few centuries, so expectations for a markedly different outcome of the present-day industrial and social reforms from a similar approach are simply not judicious.
A refreshingly ingenious alternative methodology has been suggested and popularized by the biologist Janine Benyus in her groundbreaking 1997 book, Biomimicry — Innovation Inspired by Nature. Benyus and other biomimics propose the idea that people emulate the genius of the natural world when growing food, harnessing energy, constructing things, conducting business, healing ourselves, processing information, and designing communities. Benyus believes it is in our best interest to “quiet our cleverness” and explore the dominant industry on the planet — nature’s industry — for reliable methods of provisioning for our species. Benyus points out that the natural world has over 3.5 billion years of successful design experience in building durable and diverse life-supporting communities in a wide variety of environmental conditions. She notes that all other life forms on Earth take a very different approach to energy, food, and material production and consumption and to community than humans. She reminds us that past species out of step with natural world process are now present only as cryptic fossils.
For most species, adapting to changing environmental conditions is accomplished by the occasional and random genetic changes in the cellular information of an organism. The acquisition of both genetically enabled physiological changes or genetically driven instinctive behavior can, in rare occasions, benefit subsequent generations of the organism. Humankind, on the other hand, has relied more heavily upon reflective behavioral adaptations during most of our tenure to improve the chances of survival. The development of farming is an example of an enormously significant behavioral adaptation of man. Agriculture emerged within human culture approximately 10,000 years ago and
