Eco-Catalyst: A Capital Idea

As I've been combing thru articles and skimming books that I'd like to spend much more time absorbing, I have recently come to this: the answer to sustainability is in true cost accounting. Well, at least if we approach it from that perspective and with that goal in mind – the ability to understand, acknowledge, and account for all the forms of capital responsible for our success, for our very existence – we will be able to achieve a level of sustainability.

This means we must rethink our current values and business practices, even our living practices. It means we must adjust to our new state of being, just as the industrial revolution and conventional capitalism were a response to the state of being in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. And isn’t it about time? Our new state of being requires that we understand our interdependence with natural capital and its limits (and therefore our own) within a global setting. We must change the fact that our current definition of economic growth does not adequately account for the cost of natural capital and values all expenditures based on $s spent regardless of whether society benefits or loses, whether the cause and effect are positive or negative. Too often the effect of consuming natural capital and the waste that is deposited into the ecosystem as part of that consumption, are not accounted for.

The challenge is large, but begins with some very attainable steps and goals:

Employ Systems Thinking

• assess entire system of your business: inputs & outputs (as well as their source and destination), resources, waste, available technologies
• establish value for resources that can't always be expressed in $s (human and natural capital)

Engage All Stakeholders

• identify all stakeholders and understand their role within your ecosystem
• apply systematic ways to capture and act on stakeholder input, feedback, and ideas
• employ strategies to address stakeholder concerns
• establish new systems of recognition and reward

Enable Innovation

• collaborate internally & externally
• partner with other businesses to expand your joint capabilities
• consider all ideas, however radical or simple
• look for quick wins, but make sustainability a long-term commitment

To survive - and ultimately to thrive - in the coming years and generations, we must address the need to redefine cost and value to include natural capital in our evaluation of 'growth', progress, and prosperity.

Influences for this post include:
Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
Presentation by Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, at the University of Denver on 11/09/2009