Green business is cool, but is it all about stuff?
I am really inspired by the whole "green business" concept: let’s really get together and make the world a better place, by taking responsibility for the way we’re treating our world. The ecological movement is about becoming more and more conscious about our relationship with the rest of the planet, having an awareness of our actions.
But what I wonder is: Is it all about stuff? I mean, so much of what we talk about in terms of what is "green", is about stuff:
- How much stuff are we using?
- Are we using the right stuff?
- Where is our stuff coming from?
- Does our stuff have chemicals on it?
- Are we reusing our stuff, or are we just throwing it away?
- Does our stuff biodegrade, or is it just going to sit there for the next thousand years?
Not that this all isn’t important, because I’m sure that it is. Well, of course it is, but I just wonder–is sustainability just about stuff? I have a lot of other concerns that are equally important to me in how I want to see business evolve, such as:
- How are we treating each other?
- Are we having fun?
- Are we being of service? Contributing something of value to the greater whole?
- Are we growing, evolving?
- Are we financially thriving?
- How hard are we working? Does our business allow us to have fun and do other things, or does success necessitate total devotion of our every waking hour?
- Are we learning something new?
For me, all of this is equally important to how we are treating, or using, our stuff. And it is equally an important legacy to leave to our grandchildren, equally a critical part of the culture that we are growing, that we are learning how to be happy and play and share and grow. A lot of the "green" magazines or blogs I read are written by people who are really interested in advances in technology, such as biodegradable corn plastics, or vegetable oil-powered cars.
Maybe what I am feeling is that the growth in technology, like this, is not separate from the growth in inner human culture that I am talking about. Just as a mid-20th century mind would come up with disposable everything, the mind of the culture we are evolving into can come up with a whole bunch of much cooler stuff. But I want to emphasize that without pursuing the evolution of culture at the same time, I believe we will be hamstrung in terms of what we can accomplish in the stuff department, as well.
The great eco-philosopher Joanna Macy says there are three areas in which The Great Turning (as she calls it) will occur: "holding actions", such as tree sitting or protective legislation, that buy us time by preserving the beauty of what we have; developing new solutions, that help us live in more sustainable ways, and–equally as critical–changing and shifting our consciousness, or how we think about things. In that light, I would like to say that I think the "greening" of business should also include all of our efforts to consciously evolve our own culture into more humane, sustainable, and life-empowering ways.
