Ethics for a Green Company - are They Different?
Written by Kathryn AlexanderEthics
The point of the triple bottom line is to provide a framework for thinking about sustainability. Is sustainability inherently ethical? I do believe we think so, at least to some degree, or the FTC wouldn't be so concerned about greenwashing. When a company claims it is green, then we make an assessment of its ethics - intentinal or not.
I believe that there is much more to this. At Ethical Impact L3C we see sustainability as following the Earth's Prime Directive - always create the conditions that support Life. For us this is a moral imperitive. Framed in this way the ethical considerations become more clear - and so do the management issues.
Usual Ethical Considerations
Normaly we expect companies to be honest, refrain from cheating and stealing, and treat both employees and the public fairly. In practice we have killed the messenger when employees have told the truth (hence whistleblowing laws and the fiasco at HP between Patricia Dunn and Tom Perkins), lauded abrasive behavior ("you're fired!"), admired a lier (John Browne of BP) and tolerated a President who worked to bankrupt a country (George W. Bush).
We seem to get caught in illusions like being legal makes it ethical, that position gets to have allowances made for bad behavior, trust in 'old boy' networks, and the idealism that important people can do no wrong. Ethics takes the hindmost.
Sustainable Ethics
The move toward sustainability, on the other hand, showcases a concern for others and even the planet. I see people struggling to get a firm handle on what it really means to care for the planet and I wonder how likely folks are to be inconcienenced personally, if the planet would suffer from their actions. That said, there does seem to be some consensus that sustainable actions have an ethical context, even if there is little clarity about what this means.
The Prime Directive forms the heart of the Sustainable Values Set™ and forms the context for ethical action with some clarity. The Seven Deadly Sins are always with us, but the Values Set helps create a directional path that provides for clarity in decision-making that is focused on living within natural laws.
Are Ethics Different?
The upshot is yes, we expect more from companies pursuing a sustainable path. That's the good news. The truth is that ALL companies should follow this approach to ethics - the rewards are more than monetary.
We are moving into a new time that requires new leadership skills. In my last Enlightened Business radio show I talked about Feminine Leadership, what it is, why it’s different and how it compliments masculine leadership. The quest to mimic nature by business has one key piece that is very different from any other shift in business practices that have happened in the past 15-20 years.
Sustainable leadership uses Sustainable Intelligence to address pressing business issues with planet in mind, using natures values, laws and processes to bring resilience and innovation to the organization.
The “Prime Directive” of nature is that she always creates the conditions that support life! Always! This is what business must also do and to be effective at that you must care. This is heart work. It’s not soft and it’s not optional. We need to care about the planet and all the life that is on it. We need to care about each other and ourselves. If we do not want to have our species disappear, then we also need to care about Life.
At its core sustainability is all about relationships; internal to the company and external to the company. Understanding those relationships and being able to respond to the subtle nuances in each of them is something that women are particularly good at. Men need to learn this too and not just abdicate this strength to women, but the model remains feminine.
Sustainable leaders are not afraid of being ‘soft’ or of having emotions. Their skills include Emotional Intelligence and their ability to resonate is a strength. This means that male leaders have a skill at connecting and that female leaders are able to engage in behavior males use to rank each other. Sustainable leaders are multi lingual.
An important precept of The New Green Economy is the idea that we cannot buy our way out of environmental or social crisis. A basic reframing of the way we think is required if we are to continue building systems which will serve generations to come. For example, there are many sites on the internet that allow people to browse and purchase "green" products. While these sites provide an important service, they fail to include the larger practical vision which requires our culture to simply consume far less that it does now.
A relatively new site, www.LocalShare.org provides people with the ability to do just that - stop consuming new products. Users of the site can gift, share, trade, rent and sell items. These activities accomplish two things simultaneously:
- A vast reduction of environmental impact.
- Connection with others.
I was recently featured on a radio program "It's the Economy" where we discussed some of these concepts at length and responded to caller questions about what an economy based on sustainable values really looks like. The meat of the interview begins at about 9 minutes in. Click forward in the player below to jump to the interview.
The Top 5 Things I learned at the Global Work Party
Written by John Nicoll
After attending several events today that were part of 350.org’s Global Work Party, I came away with the following conclusions:
- Learning about sustainability is perhaps the most important thing a person can do in today’s culture. Let me elaborate: There are approximately 80 million adults in the United states who are either passionately exploring the values-based cultural shift that is occurring in the U.S. and beyond or who are at least passionate about some aspect of the values that make it up. What was becoming clear today is that these people are onto something that is happening. And it’s something very big. They are not making it up. The concept of sustainability is based on a deeper reality that will wash over us as a values revolution defined not by consumer, pop culture, but by human evolution. There are deeper forces that are coming to the fore than anything that anyone has experienced in our lifetime. And these forces will completely reshape our culture from the ground up. And when I say completely, I mean imagine that there is no health care system, no money, or potentially even no government. That is the scale of what was being discussed today.
- The predominant message that I heard today was about community. Over and over again I heard the message: reach out and connect with your neighbors. Connect with your community. Share food with them. Share your time and resources with them because in the cultural shift that is unfolding we are being reminded that we cannot “make it” alone.
- We are living in a time of change and opportunity. Carolyn Baker, in her workshop “Forsaking the Destruction of Earth, Embracing a New Human Species” asked, “faced with the challenges that lie ahead, who do you want to be”? That question is becoming more pertinent than ever.
- There are many practical steps that we as individuals can be taking, perhaps the most important ones relate to growing our own food, developing local sources of energy production (i.e. on your roof) and again, connecting more deeply with our communities.
- Here is the big one and almost certainly the single biggest reason that people seem to operate in a drugged slumber when it comes to climate changes issues: asking people to change their behavior in relationship to climate change is paramount to asking them to change their very identity because they have grown up in a consumer culture. And so while they may intellectually understand the crisis, they are almost paralyzed because to take action goes directly against who they perceive themselves to be. How do we navigate that? Personally, I think the answer lies in incremental changes. For example, www.localshare.org provides people with the ability to start living differently just by making available the multitude of resources they have available in their home. With minimal effort, they can a small step of sharing or gifting something into their personal community and begin to experience the new paradigm that is unfolding.
The thought just occurred to me that climate scientists studying global warming is like a 10 year old riding in a car that is seconds away from slamming into a concrete wall and the child says, “hey, I think I’ll become an automotive engineer”. It’s just not going to work out.
What is really needed today is a change in culture, or more accurately a change in values. There is an emergent value set that is organically arising out of the current conditions of life on Earth (of which we are a big part). The key is that individuals, communities, and entire countries need to begin to understand those values and integrate them into their daily thinking and language.
Are you ready to advance your understanding of the values shift that is required of us now? If so, please read these three articles to gain a contextual understanding of the values evolution:
The Sustainable Value Set Series - Part I
