gather data and monitor various types of pollution, habitat degradation, and natural resource exploitation. Considering the enormity of our global industrial activities and the corresponding negative effects upon life on Earth, it is fairly easy to understand how business is often viewed by the investigator as the incorrigible ecological villain. The 1984 Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India; the 1986 meltdown and explosions of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine; the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker calamity in Prince William Sound of southeastern Alaska; and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power disaster in Japan are four well-publicized examples of catastrophic industrial debacles.
For decades, environmentalists and social reformers have pushed for a strong set of state and federal environmental regulations that force businesses to reduce the contamination of air, water, and soils and to limit the exploitation of limited natural resources. As discussed earlier, this approach simply has not worked well through time for the environment or for world citizens. Even with billions of dollars spent by government and business to mitigate these problems through a labyrinth of complex environmental regulations, each year the U.S. alone still releases millions of pounds of persistent toxins and generates thousands of tons of lethal high-level nuclear waste, some of which will require secure storage for tens of thousands of years.4 A closer look also reveals that many exploitive industrial practices continue, such as the indiscriminate harvest of tropical rain forest timber, that significantly weaken a variety of natural systems upon which humans and all other life depend.
In theory, both U.S. businesses and consumers rely on our modified market-based economic system to appropriately adjust prices and demand for natural resources. Commonly, when supplies of a particular resource dwindle and the price for this resource subsequently rises, we rely on technology advancements to improve our utilization efficiency, to locate a new source for that resource, or to discover a suitable substitute for that resource, all of which cause prices to fall back to lower levels. Unfortunately, a variety of free-market system defects exist in this scenario: people other than the buyer routinely pay part of the cost of goods or services because of the pervasive externalizing effects of pollution (electric bill), certain essential commodities have no substitutes (oxygen), most essential services have no substitutes (favorable climate), legal monopolies do exist (utility companies), government does regulate certain types of commerce (banking industry), government provides billions of dollars in subsidies for certain types of resource extraction (metals and crude oil), and the value of natural capital (biodiversity) and natural services (pollination of crops) is largely unaccounted for and ignored by the market.
To further hamstring the effectiveness of our economic system, we monitor domestic financial activities using misleading indicators that do not scrutinize the long-term effects of industry on both human and natural communities. For example, our common economic indicators such as gross domestic product assume a dollar spent on our prison system provides the same value as a dollar spent on our educational system, or a dollar spent on medical treatment of an ailment provides the same value as a dollar used for preventive health care. Our gross undervaluing of the natural world, the market failures of capitalism, and our inability to recognize and monitor useful economic information have put us in a situation where we covertly pass on harmful economic, environmental, and social consequences to people distant to us in both location and time, which is nothing short of poignant intergenerational tyranny. Ironically at the same time, we routinely allow shortsighted and relatively inconsequential pop cultural issues to dominate mainstream media and public conversation while the issues of enormous repercussions described above remain on the sidelines. Consider a commercial plane full of people at 25,000 feet conversing about which drinks to order while the fuel tanks are profusely leaking their contents.
Many well-intentioned social and economic reform efforts have historically focused on relieving the symptoms of our troubles rather than on an overhaul of the underlying systemic problems. One example is the emphasis in our nation on combating illegal drug sales rather than on targeting the root causes for societal demand for such substances. Another example is government bailouts of failing industrial sectors such as the auto industry or commercial banking. These types of ill-advised policies squander billions of public dollars on symptoms without significantly affecting the core systemic issues permanently miring us in the same untoward situations. If we maintain the same type of misdirected superficial approach for our current industrial dilemma, we can expect similar results. In short, nothing changes if nothing changes.
1.5An Intelligent Beginning
Auspiciously, a fresh, systemic, solution-oriented approach has been quietly taking shape over the past couple of decades that leverages the inextricable links among business, society, and the natural world. Although this approach involves environmental themes, it is not merely a continuation of the well-intentioned but largely ineffective modern environmental movement. Rather than heavy-handed government regulators attempting to coerce business into specific actions or end results, our potent approach originates inside business itself. Instead of a bevy of regulatory requirements adding to the overall costs and complexity of doing business, this new strategy finds business, among other things, improving its economic performance. Leaders from all business sectors — extractive, processing, supply chain, manufacturing, service, and retail — and from all business sizes — sole proprietor to multinational corporations and for-profit companies to non-profit institutions — and even governmental departments have the opportunity to join their innovative and inspirational counterparts and begin the transformation of their own organization.
A word of warning to those whose interest is peaked: this movement is not about pulling the old recycling bins out of storage, turning down the office thermostat, or even meeting those governmentmandated pollution and worker safety regulations. As the coming chapters will explain, this movement involves a series of universal and sweeping changes in our approach to production and consumption of goods and services that will dramatically and positively affect the very core of business and society. Now let’s review a bit of history concerning the evolution of our current de facto production systems.
The western industrial revolution began in northern England in the late 18th century and spawned new technologies that first produced textiles and later other goods in a superior fashion to previously existing methods. This new approach gradually proved to be a significant advantage over the simpler and less efficient technologies of the past and produced lower cost goods that were then made available to a much larger market. But this revolution, led by early British industrialists, lacked a long-term comprehensive design plan; the single short-term goal was to provide British commerce a major advantage over other exporting nations. This technological revolution did achieve that goal, and Great Britain used its superior navy to firmly establish trade relationships for its manufactured items. Soon, this fresh industrial technology spread across political boundaries to continental Europe and the new fledgling United States of America.
Unfortunately, the fossil fuel energy choices, linear cradle-tograve material strategy, and unsavory working conditions combined to also deliver a legacy of pollution-induced illness, short supplies of key production materials, denuded global farmland, and Russianroulette-style global climate-change risks that we pass on to our children. Clearly, this catastrophic endowment was not part of a plan crafted by industrialists throughout the recent past. Rather, the snowballing deleterious effects resulted from a lack of thoughtful and intelligent planning early in the revolution. Had pioneering industrialists set their sights on an industrial system that could indefinitely supply humanity the goods and services for a high quality of life, we would have no present need for such a drastic and immediate change in course.
Fortunately, we now have the opportunity to reverse the devastatingly unfortunate blunder of proceeding without an inspired and intelligent design plan. Various key instigators of this new movement have begun by crafting innovation components that are intended to deliver only positive long- and short-term outcomes for all world community members. Momentum within the movement provides a growing opportunity to not only re-invent businesses into efficient, profit-driven enterprises but also to design organizations that
