The Right Way to Flourish

Wal-Mart’s announcement of their plans to develop a “Sustainability Index” has unloosed a spate of comments in the press and cyberspace. The bulk of these fall into three areas: – Is this genuine or just a sophisticated form of greenwashing? – What will this do for sustainability? – Can consumers really use the information to make “better” choices than they have been making? I am staying out of the conversation about the first topic with one exception. Unless one has information that runs counter to the claims made by Wal-Mart or any other business project that purports to be green… Read More

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The Wall Street Journal (0nline) recently ran a short video about Berkshares, the local currency being used in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts. The Berkshares home page provides a link. This comes on the heels of a more general article on local currencies done by Time.com. I recently [posted a comment](http://www.johnehrenfeld.com/2009/07/my-book-rests-largely-on.html#comments) about a book I have been reading, *The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption*, by Gill Seyfang. Local currencies is the subject of one of the practical chapters. Their cases are all European-based, but have very similar features to Berkshares. Seyfang argues that sustainable consumption requires five factors, all part… Read More

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Some weeks ago, I wrote a [post](http://www.johnehrenfeld.com/2009/05/following-on-the-heels-of.html) critical of or maybe just skeptical of the claims of radical transparency made by Dan Goleman in his book, [*Ecological Intelligence*](http://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Intelligence-Knowing-Impacts-Everything/dp/0385527829). This followed a [post](http://www.johnehrenfeld.com/2009/05/feel-good-with-goodguide.html) about the consumer information website, [GoodGuide](http://www.goodguide.com/). Goleman sees this new way of shaping consumer choice as a prime example of radical transparency, defined as providing enough information to a buyer so as to shift choice towards the best performing products according to a complex sustainability scoring system. I saw the complexity to be the antithesis of transparency. Today I read an [article](http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/07/30/b2b-the-real-radical-transparency-opportunity) on [Greener Design](http://www.greenerdesign.com/) that makes the… Read More

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Joel Makower has a [recent column](http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/07/27/why-doesnt-green-better) asking why greener doesn’t or can’t equate to “better.” Here’s his list of what kinds of categories determine better products in consumers’ values. > • cheaper to buy > • cheaper to own > • enhanced features > • healthier > • higher performance > • improves my image > • innovative > • less wasteful > • more convenient > • more durable > • more stylish > • repairable > • reusable > • upgradeable > • uses less energy > All except the last items on the list refer to some… Read More

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My book rests largely on a critique of modernity, particularly the hegemonic use of technology to solve every problem, large and small. The few chapters offer a framework for remedying what I see as the root causes of unsustainability. But it is rather modest and focused on using technology to carry new ideas and practices into daily life, and slowly changing current cultural behavior patterns. Over and above what I have written, I have often been asked what can “I” do by many readers and others concerned about sustainability. This is a difficult and perplexing question for me. The focus… Read More

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Synchronicity, the experience of very closely related events coming at essentially the same time, always alerts me to be very aware of what is going on around me. This time the awareness started a few days ago when I read a [book review in the New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/books/review/Shapiro-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=book%20review%20discount%20high%20cost&st=cse) of Ellen Ruppel Schell’s new book, *Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture*. It continued when I watched the film, Food Inc. which showed the dangers of becoming dependent on only a few sources for the stuff we eat. Then, today, I got our weekly email from the farmer who operates the… Read More

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I went to see [Food, Inc.](http://www.foodincmovie.com/) last night. The showing was in a funky, mostly organic food restaurant cinema combination here in Brunswick, Maine. Appropriately the ticketing is on the honor system. I had read Michael Pollan’s, The Omnivore’s Dilemma some time ago so some of the film was familiar. Most of the reviews of the film I read had focused on the gore and gristly shots of the life and death of chickens, beef, and porkers. The film lives up to this aspect. But what I found most disconcerting was the parts of the film that exposed the way… Read More

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Just to make sure that I do not come off as as a sustainability Scrooge, I want to follow my last post about Wal-Mart with some comments from the cyberspace. The number of news and others articles about the Wal-Mart announcement is very large, not surprising as it is truly a big deal. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, [writing on her blog](http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/kanter/2009/07/walmarts-environmental-gamecha.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE) in the Harvard Business Press says: > Wal-Mart’s unilateral decision to put its purchasing and communication power behind going green also shows that a single company using its unique clout can accelerate public action to reduce greenhouse gases and reverse… Read More

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Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky (John Tenniel’s original image is pictured here) is often quoted as an example of nonsense, but nonsense that has become familiar to a large audience. We will be seeing a different kind of example shortly when Wal-Mart releases details of their much anticipated “Sustainability Index.” [Widely reported in the media](http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/07/14/inside-walmarts-sustainability-index), the news sends a couple of shivers up my spine. Slate has a long and informative story. > The giant retailer ($406 billion in revenues in 2008) is developing an ambitious, comprehensive, and fiendishly complex plan to measure the sustainability of every product it sells. Wal-Mart has… Read More

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An [extended interview](http://sloanreview.mit.edu/beyond-green/flourishing-forever/) with the Michael S. Hopkins, Editor-in-Chief of the Sloan Management Review has been published on the web. This is one of a series of interviews about sustainability as seen by a group of people with ties to MIT. Here is what the SMR says about this series. > The MIT Sustainability Interview features thought leaders from arenas as diverse as management, urban studies, history, energy science, civil engineering, and design. The conversations are wildly varied, but at root their goal is to help leading managers answer two crucial questions: “As sustainability—economic, environmental, social, and personal—becomes the defining… Read More

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