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“Saving Our Economic Ass”
“Saving Our Economic Ass” by Bruce Boyers of Organic Connections
Posted on September 27, 2013
Published in Organic Connections
September-October 2013
When capitalism hit the fan in 2008, it left a lot of us thinking that there must be a better way—one that takes into account not only financial success but human values that benefit and safeguard our communities and the environment. What you may not know is that this better way is already here.
Author, economist, professor and attorney Hunter Lovins has been practicing and advocating a more harmonious version of capitalism for decades. “I think I helped invent the field,” Lovins told Organic Connections when asked how she got into sustainable economics. “The word sustainability entered the English language the year I graduated college. I had planted a tree two years before for the first Earth Day and had been working on these issues, starting in the fifties with fair housing, and the sixties with civil rights and the environmental movement. I worked with Dave Brower [first executive director of the Sierra Club and founder of Earth Island Institute] in 1968. So this is not something that I’ve just come to.”
<snip>
The Cornerstones of Sustainable Management
Lovins’ proposed cornerstones of sustainable business management are somewhat simple, yet vastly profound in their implications.
“The first is efficiency,” Lovins explained. “This means that any resources taken from the earth or borrowed from the future are used far, far more efficiently. But all this does is buy time to implement more sustainable measures.
“Then we’re going to redesign how we make and deliver all products and services, using approaches like biomimicry and Walter Stahel’s cradle-to-cradle strategy, which eliminates the concept of waste; and the circular economy, now being adopted by the Chinese as the basis of their industrial policy.” This program implements the reuse and service-life extension of goods for the prevention of waste, creation of regional jobs, and resource efficiency.
“Third, manage all institutions to be restorative of human and natural capital,” Lovins continued. This of course means that enterprises not only put back that which might be taken from the environment but contribute to and enhance the forms of capital our current system is liquidating.
....
Posted on September 27, 2013
Published in Organic Connections
September-October 2013
When capitalism hit the fan in 2008, it left a lot of us thinking that there must be a better way—one that takes into account not only financial success but human values that benefit and safeguard our communities and the environment. What you may not know is that this better way is already here.
Author, economist, professor and attorney Hunter Lovins has been practicing and advocating a more harmonious version of capitalism for decades. “I think I helped invent the field,” Lovins told Organic Connections when asked how she got into sustainable economics. “The word sustainability entered the English language the year I graduated college. I had planted a tree two years before for the first Earth Day and had been working on these issues, starting in the fifties with fair housing, and the sixties with civil rights and the environmental movement. I worked with Dave Brower [first executive director of the Sierra Club and founder of Earth Island Institute] in 1968. So this is not something that I’ve just come to.”
<snip>
The Cornerstones of Sustainable Management
Lovins’ proposed cornerstones of sustainable business management are somewhat simple, yet vastly profound in their implications.
“The first is efficiency,” Lovins explained. “This means that any resources taken from the earth or borrowed from the future are used far, far more efficiently. But all this does is buy time to implement more sustainable measures.
“Then we’re going to redesign how we make and deliver all products and services, using approaches like biomimicry and Walter Stahel’s cradle-to-cradle strategy, which eliminates the concept of waste; and the circular economy, now being adopted by the Chinese as the basis of their industrial policy.” This program implements the reuse and service-life extension of goods for the prevention of waste, creation of regional jobs, and resource efficiency.
“Third, manage all institutions to be restorative of human and natural capital,” Lovins continued. This of course means that enterprises not only put back that which might be taken from the environment but contribute to and enhance the forms of capital our current system is liquidating.
....
http://natcapsolutions.org/2013/09/27/saving-our-economic-ass-by-bruce-boyers-of-organic-connections/#more-3887
