I was arrested with 47 others because we refused to obey an order to move from the “picture postcard” section of the sidewalk in front of the White House.  I was arrested during a protest of an oil pipeline. I was arrested because the President’s decision of whether or not to allow the construction of this pipeline affects Canadians and Americans that I know and deeply love. I was arrested because this decision is an important one for hundreds and thousands and millions of people all over the world.

This pipeline would pump bitumen from Alberta strip mines (that cover an area the size of England) to refineries along the Gulf Coast. This pipeline would be a $13 billion loss in the transition to clean energy.  This pipeline would deliver the carbon that gets us to a “game over” climate change scenario.  This pipeline is another desperate tie to our fossil fuel habit.  This pipeline bisects our chance to create a new story for ourselves.

Here’s how GASLAND filmmaker Josh Fox puts it:

This arrest was something new for me.  My role as a sustainability consultant is to help guide the future, not dwell in the past.    I’ve never fancied myself as an activist, and I’m not a fan of yelling.  And maybe that’s what attracted me to take the action we took – the whole tone of the civil disobedience action was respectful, reverential, somber and loving.  The day was focused, well organized and professional.

I always prefer finding common ground, shared intents and collaborative outcomes.  I dislike making either-or choices because when we do it means that communication has broken down to the simplest and least-productive terms.  But yesterday was about posing a black-and-white question: is the President of the United States with us right now?  Is he willing to make change he promised?  This is a line in the Tar Sands.  Yes.  Or.  No.

There are points in history when these decisions must be made.  There are points in history where the use of civil disobedience is both justified and necessary.  I was arrested yesterday because this is one of those moments.  This is just the beginning of a new time for us. This is when things change.  Right now.

You, too, can join in this action. Protests and arrests are continuing through September 3 (except for a day of rest to honor the dedication of the memorial to the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior).  It is likely that more than 1,000 people will be arrested peacefully.  And it will not stop there.

Change is ahead.

Let’s make it happen.

I can emphatically recommend this book. And as a student of Carol’s, I can personally attest to the capabilities and power within her work. 

The Responsible Business provides a clear road map for making ALL business practices authentically healthy, regenerative and simply GOOD. It is an enlightening, instructive and inspiring book and it is also incredibly accessible – Carol illustrates new paradigms with the use of clear, concise and compelling case studies from her 35 years of consulting experience.

Here are just a few examples of some of the the results she shares:

• As apartheid was coming to an end in South Africa, Stelios Tzesos, who had partnered with Carol in Europe, led Colgate-Palmolive.  Tzesos courageously initiated a community-building process both inside and outside the company and actively engaged with workers in their communities, and encouraged service in Nelson Mandela’s newly established township councils.  Workforce strikes, which were universal in South African factories at the time, never occurred at Colgate’s plants. And in the span of six months, the company leadership changed its racial consistency from majority white to 98 percent black. Within the three-year effort, the profitability of the business doubled.   Twice.

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• Early in his tenure as a maintenance manager, Chad Holliday was attracted to working with the technology outlined in The Responsible Business, as it offered more authenticity in communication on all levels. So, after 25 years, when he eventually worked his way up to CEO of DuPont, he became a champion of transparency and stakeholder education for the business as a whole.  He set up advisory boards for a number of DuPont businesses and actively recruited a diverse group of scientists, ethicists, environmentalists and medical experts to join them at the table simply because “it makes the company better.”  On a global scale, Holliday even helped to design the UN Global Compact – a voluntary initiative for multinational corporations that required all participants were to communicate annually on their progress with regard to human rights and environmental responsibility.  As a result, Chad Holliday’s efforts drastically transformed the field of corporate governance.

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• Even though Seventh Generation had begun as a producer of environmentally responsible consumer products, the business ironically still had a significant ecological footprint as a result of their operations. Drawing from the leadership of Jeffrey Hollender and others in the business, they turned their focus away from reducing the harm of their products and instead began asking how they could “do something that is genuinely healthy and healing.” As a result, they eliminated the use of synthetic fragrances and replaced them with organic essential oils – a change that was safer for their workers and supported small specialty farmers and businesses and advanced their position in the markets they served.  The company had achieved fundamental changes in their work simply by changing their focus and the questions they asked themselves.

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This last story from Seventh Generation illustrates maybe the most important and compelling part of Carol’s work and writing.  Within the book she demonstrates that businesses can be GOOD, not just LESS BAD.

Most “green” and “sustainability” efforts are focused on the first half of the work by looking at how to make a business, municipality or organization LESS BAD by:

• Curbing carbon emissions.
• Removing toxins.
• Generating less waste.
• Disturbing fewer forests and wetlands.
• Subjecting employees and communities to less harm and hazard.

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This is LESS BAD work.  And while it’s vital and important, it’s not enough. This LESS BAD work is only the first half of the sustainability equation.  When we are simply “solving problems” in the way we are used to, we are really only working on one piece of the puzzle at a time.  Working with just one piece at a time will never get us to workable solutions.

This is why this book is so important.  Carol has shown us how we can work with the whole of a business or community to be GOOD:

• We can enable healthy experiences for our customers.
• We can advance the wellbeing of those we work with.
• We can positively contribute to the health of the Earth.
• We can support the health of the communities we’re a part of; and
• We can generate financial wealth for investors while doing so.

All of this is possible.  And it can be done at once. (Really.) This is the work of being GOOD.  When we are working on being GOOD in the way that Carol illustrates, we gain the ability to see the entire puzzle.  We also gain the ability to work together in a way that draws on the core essence and unique characteristics of each business in order to change the whole damn puzzle (and not just the pieces).

Please.  Pick up this book and give it a read.

And when you do, be sure to be ready for a change in the way you see business in the world.

BTH now offers two groundbreaking Master’s programmes. These programmes come with the great opportunity of being free for all EU/EEA and Swiss citizens, and compared to tuition in the US, the international fees are very reasonable (around $10,000 per year).
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The network of graduates from this program is out in the field, all over the world, doing incredible things to move society towards sustainability.  We’re a tight-knit group, actively supporting each other in our work, and there are few places in the world that I can’t find a place to stay through the alumni network.

Anyone interested in sustainability, who is ready to take a leap and bring their leadership to the next level should absolutely apply to one of these programs.  Applications close 17th January 2011. The process is straight-forward and online: www.bth.se/sustainability

BTH is a top ranked sustainability research and education institution currently recruiting bright, early – mid career professionals for their cutting-edge Master’s programmes.  The Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) and the Master’s in Sustainable Product Service System Innovation (MSPI) are underpinned by the science-based Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (widely known as The Natural Step Framework), spearheaded by Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, a global sustainability leader and programme co-founder.
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MSLS explores the baseline science of strategic sustainable development coupled with the skills required for organizational change. The programme produces graduates who can deliver organizational leadership for strategic change towards sustainability.  MSPI enables students to design and innovate for positive socio-ecological impacts of products, services, and product-service systems throughout their life-cycles. This programme produces graduates who can deliver outcomes that meet user needs while generating competitive advantages in the expanding sustainability-driven market.

The Swedish state kindly pays for tuition fees for these Master’s programmes for European students and courses are taught in English. BTH is located in the beautiful coastal city of Karlskrona, a UNESCO world heritage site on the southeast coast of Sweden.
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Again, applications close 17th January 2011.
Please see www.bth.se/sustainability for more information and APPLY TODAY!!

Within this context, we took a moment in this Stepping Stones newsletter from The Natural Step to consider water from the perspectives of regional planning, building design, industry and academia.

Click here to read on.

Below is a direct quote:

“The oughts were in many ways a decade of fear, having begun with the Y2K hysteria, buoyed along by the duct tape defense mentality, and winding to a close amid the H1N1 vaccine frenzy.  Fear can certainly be a great motivator; political leaders and marketing executives have taken full advantage of that fact.  But there’s a fundamental problem with making the focal point of the dialogue an undesirable outcome, rather than that which we wish to see transpire.  It’s awfully hard to imagine, much less build, a better world when you’re overcome by fear.”

“Then what of the teens?  Perhaps it’s time to try a new motivator.”

“It’ll have to be something powerfully compelling, something intensely alluring – dynamic enough to hold humanity in its spell, to hold each and every one of us to a higher standard of moral conduct.  It’s tempting to think that it will be some new idea or trend or even technology.  But more likely it will be something that’s been here all along, something enduring, if not eternal – something we call fall in love with all over again, unleashing in us a level of devotion we never thought possible.  The world as we know it, the one we appear to be hellbent on destroying, seems full of possibility in this regard.  Consider sunsets; great blue herons; spurts of laughter so overwhelming they end in tears of joy; a child’s sense of wonder; the Crab nebula; skinny-dipping by moonlight…”

“Is the beauty of the Earth enough to save humanity from itself?  Or are human beings so inherently dualistic that we can go on loving the world while concurrently ensuring its, or at least our, destruction?  One way or another, the answers to these questions will become clearer in the coming decade.”

Thank you to Orion for taking the big picture view and putting things back in the basic context that we must face:

“It’s time to let truth, thoughtfulness, justice, and beauty capture our hearts and minds; time to stop living in fear that things will go wrong and start making sure that things go right.  It’s time to change the way we live.”