by only a healthy and prolific natural environment, such as oxygen production, climate stabilization, water purification, flood control, soil fertility, materials for our products, and esthetic beauty. Anyone having difficulty grasping this concept could consider the single source of the oxygen in that last breath of air just inhaled: green plants.
When asked to describe our community, loosely defined as where we routinely get our needs met, we might include our town, neighborhood, or section of city where we work and live, but rarely do we consider the surrounding natural world in this context. Particularly for those of us living in urban settings, nature is commonly viewed as a peripheral and non-essential part of our existence that we occasionally visit, sometimes only out of necessity to get to a destination, other times by choice for some type of outdoor recreational activity such as camping, hiking, or boating. In the late 1940s, the exceptional visionary Aldo Leopold wrote in the last chapter of his book A Sand County Almanac that the natural course for humanity is to expand our concept of community (and ethics) to include “… soils, waters, plants, and animals ….” Our continuing failure to recognize the significance and value of a healthy natural world in our personal life and in business is myopic and dangerous. Since we tend to take care of only those things we value, our extended legacy of natural world destruction is not particularly surprising. Unfortunately, this prolonged oversight has placed future humanity in a seriously compromised situation.
Perhaps just as important, in addition to the lack of appreciation of the natural world by the average citizen, many environmental advocates have failed to recognize the importance of a vibrant and durable business sector to provide a high quality of life and a heritage of opportunity for future human generations. Aggravating the situation is the preponderance of business managers today who pursue the myopic quest to increase short-term profits, much to the detriment of longterm economic health and stability. A far too speculative mortgage market or the corporate takeover and subsequent dismantling of successful businesses are examples of this sort of near-sighted, self-centered behavior. For the past several decades, U.S. manufacturing companies have continually increased the amount of foreign-made components in order to reduce production costs, and consumers consistently chase down low-priced foreign goods at corporate “big box” retail stores with little or no consideration of the comprehensive effects this purchasing pattern has on their communities.
When more local dollars for goods and services leave a region than come into that region, the result is an insidiously negative trade deficit. When we patronize corporate restaurants, food producers, banks, fast-food chains, or clothing stores, we send much of our money to distant supply chains and profits to worldwide stockholders. This methodical loss of wealth sucks the lifeblood of jobs and financial capital from regions throughout the country. We unwittingly allow an economic pattern to continue where locally generated wealth continually exits in a region, unnecessarily. A better community-supporting option is to seek out the outstanding locally owned businesses within your community and patronize them frequently. In addition to enjoying establishments of unique local character, product, and personal service, more of your money spent at these businesses stays in your community to re-circulate. Studies suggest that out of every $100 spent at locally owned businesses, at least $25 more remains in the local economy when compared to businesses that are not locally owned.2
One of the easiest ways to begin to support local businesses while improving the value received is to patronize the variety of local restaurants available in a community. Often an interesting and ethnically diverse collection of eateries offers more appealing food, service, and total dining experience when compared to the chain establishments. Another option is to browse the local farmers markets and food cooperatives that are popping up all over the U.S. Similar opportunities to support local businesses exist in many communities for entertainment, business services, grocery, real estate, and retail clothing. Remember, too, that a marketplace with many small businesses encourages fair competition, innovation, and the best value for the consumer’s dollars.
City, county, and even state governments have the opportunity to enact policies that support local and regional businesses and discourage the loss of local jobs and wealth. Unfortunately, many of our current economic policymakers still do not recognize the long-term value provided by a locally owned and anchored regional business sector. Often foreign-owned companies are seen by the government as the brass ring to snare, and officials use huge tax breaks and public infrastructure improvements to try and lure these international facilities while upping the ante for other U.S. cities hoping to attract overseas businesses. However, the short-term political and social benefits of a new foreign facility are more than negated by the lack of tax revenues for the local school systems and the eventual loss of jobs from the corporation pulling up stakes when they find another location that offers them more favorable tax, wage, and infrastructure concessions. This scenario, with its not-so-happy ending, has played out countless times in recent decades in the U.S., and still, headline-chasing politicians continue to concentrate limited economic development dollars on foreign industry rather than on local community efforts. This dogchasing-its-tail strategy is not part of the sustainable business movement. The role of the government in advancing a transition to healthy and stable local economies is extensively discussed in Chapter 6.
1.3Early Visionaries and the Resistance to Change
A number of astute authors as early as the mid-20th century, including Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, published works that identify parts of the unsettling trend previously described and suggest systemic changes in our approach toward business, community, and the environment. Other “outside-the-box” thinkers such as California economist Garret Hardin, in addition to acknowledging portions of the aforementioned problems, expressed serious pessimism about the possibility for significantly changing our course.3 In 1993, author Paul Hawken published the strikingly influential book The Ecology of Commerce in which he not only identifies industry as culpable in our dire state of affairs but also, more importantly, recognizes the unique opportunity and power of business to lead a meaningful long-term recovery rather than governments or non-profit organizations. Hawken deftly points out that our problems are entrenched throughout commerce and that a consequential solution involves a fundamental redesign by business itself. Later, we will also discuss the original contributions to this movement from other visionaries such as Janine Benyus, Amory and Hunter Lovins, Sandra Steingraber, Michael Shuman, William McDonough, and Michael Braungart.
The unconventional nature of the strategies covered in these chapters require considerable thought and time to process and integrate into our paradigm. On a personal level, many find the requisite professional self-examination particularly challenging in a number of ways. First, those who are professionally and personally successful are not always inclined to seriously reconsider basic components of their core belief system. The necessary open-minded self-scrutinizing re-examination is difficult and often unpleasant, and so many of us avoid it. Second, after acquiring a basic understanding of the natural world and the adverse effects of business as usual upon it and ourselves, we often have difficulty accepting complicity of our own professional activities. We may discover an internal dilemma in admitting that we have spent a good portion of our lives indirectly weakening future prospects for the natural world and our grandchildren.
The final requirement of a paradigm shift involves one’s own personal time and effort, a most precious commodity. Most Americans lead quite busy lives integrating family, job, friends, and personal interests. Simply finding the time to read this book may be difficult for you, let alone finding the time to consider the far-reaching ramifications of its tenets and to apply them in your life. However, we do attend to the things that are most important to us, and you may find that the most onerous option will be to not follow your intuition and heart down this unsettled road of change. At any rate, we will fix only what we know to be broken, so let’s go a bit deeper into humankind’s situation.
1.4Do Current Free-Market Mechanisms Help?
Today environmental scientists around the world
