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Social Dimensions of Sustainability: Reflections onOver three hundred people from across the US and Canada gathered in Atlanta October 5-7 for the Fifth Annual US Conference of the Natural Step. The conference focused on the fourth condition of sustainability, the social dimension. How can we satisfy human needs equitably and efficiently while reducing the use of natural resources? The process centered on dialogue in small groups and in the plenaries. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of the Natural Step, set the tone, stating, “Destruction of the environment is not a natural catastrophe. It’s us.” The first day provided a contrast between corporate models of implementing the Natural Step. Mats Lederhausen, Senior Vice President of Strategy for McDonalds, and formerly head of McDonalds in Sweden, described the measures that company is taking, particularly in Sweden. For him, the Natural Step is the right thing to do because companies are important institutions and good companies do good business. From energy use to packaging to architectural design, McDonalds in Sweden has set an example of what one company can do. For Lederhausen, it’s a great company to work for. Filled with nothing but glowing reports of company actions, I wondered what he wasn’t telling us and how much of what he said applied equally to McDonalds in locations other than Sweden. Ray Anderson, the founder, Chairman and CEO of Interface, told how the company had lost most of the value of its stock over a short period of time because of a 60% market decline fueled by spending of customers on Y2K, and competition with Dupont and another large competitor. In a confessional mode, he reveled the mistakes he had made in turning over day-to-day control of the company to managers whose philosophy was my way or the highway. Many top employees left. Morale was low. Arrogance doesn’t work. When social equity is denied, the company suffers. He took control of the company once again and developed a new management team. “Social equity begins at home with our own people.” For Anderson, instituting a culture of caring for people is key to implementing sustainability as the core value of the company. “Sustainability is not a coat of paint. It’s the leaven in the bread.” He is committed, no matter what it takes, to make his company sustainable. Sarah Severn, Director of Corporate Responsibility Development at Nike, followed Anderson. In total contrast she never mentioned the major problems the company has had with labor practices of contract employees in Asia. Instead she gave a litany of justification about what the company is doing to implement the Natural Step, including showing a short public relations film. I wondered if the world she lived in did not include recognition of boycotts as part of the social fabric. Diane Dillon Ridgley, representative of the World YWCA at the United Nations and a board member of the Natural Step, asked the question, “Who is not in this room and why are they not here?” Few people of color or poor people were present. “Sustainability is the 21st Century Agenda to complete the promise of democracy,” she said. In the third world the social movements are not separate but are part of the progress of humanity. What a contrast to the US Africa provides with only 17% having the capacity for telephones and more Internet access in the borough of Manhattan than on the entire continent of Africa. Betty Sue Flowers, a professor at the University of
Texas, reminded us of the myths, which provide the central cultural identity
of our societies. The
future is created by the stories we tell about who we are and where we are
going. We can tell
different stories about the same events.
It’s not just the facts. She
sees both barriers and doorways to a sustainable future in the economic myth
we are presently living. “There’s
no handbook for what we are embarked on,” she stated, “only a way of
being.”
Steve Viederman, former president of the Noyes Foundation, raised a question that no one else wanted to address. Sustainability is not a product, it’s a process and power is an essential element of the process. A fundamental flaw in most of our discussions is that it’s a discussion of elites. Viederman asserted that in the absence of significant sharing of power all other system conditions are subject to degradation. Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life , put forth the proposition that a reigning myth is that we need money to meet human needs. Money is not the economy but the economy is meeting human needs. Without human needs there is no economy. Money is a lien against the natural resources of the earth, not created or authorized by the natural world. We need to purge the urge to splurge and meet human needs creatively, fully, equitably, cooperatively and within the limits of nature. Gaining control of the reign of money in our lives is a necessary part of building a sustainable future. Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry, provided stories and pictures of nature, suggesting that we need to consider that 99.9% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct and nothing prevents humans from joining the list, particularly if we do not adapt ourselves as part of the living system of the earth. Nature is a model, a mentor of 3.8 billion years’ experience, and a measure. Nature provides several guidelines for social organization. Successful organisms run on current sunlight. They tune themselves to place. They organize themselves in community, and they provide for future generations. Benyus set forth another way of viewing and valuing nature, one that is essential for changing the course of the earth toward sustainability. What will happen with the energy and knowledge gained
from this conference? Only the
future will tell but in an instant poll taken in the final plenary, over 80%
of the attendees had high or very high energy for involvement in local and
other projects to support the objectives of the Natural Step.
How we need to go forward was eloquently summed up by a woman in a
Portuguese folk tune, sung first in her native tongue and then in English: “A
dream that you dream alone is just a dream alone, but a dream that we dream
together is reality.”
October 13, 2000
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