 The
same day I posted my article about William McDonough, reader Brian Dear
pointed out the work that Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute
has been doing in much the same vein. Lovins, with colleagues Paul
Hawken and L. Hunter Lovins, wrote a (fully downloadable) book entitled
Natural Capitalism that, like McDonough's Cradle to Cradle,
suggests pragmatic, creative ways for man to stave off environmental
disaster by simply thinking and working better, more organically, with
nature as the model. If McDonough's bottom-line message was Learn from, and imitate, nature -- nature knows how to design and build things right, everything recycled, zero waste, Lovins' could be Shift the economy to recognize the inherent value of people and natural resources, and you can transform the world. While
McDonough, the architect, is focused on physical design, Lovins, the
economist, is focused on systems design. They are perfect complements,
with similar, optimistic, "let's get on with it" worldviews and
concrete prescriptions for change, a refreshing change from the
relentless pessimism in so many analyses of the world's environmental
problems.
You can get an excellent idea of Lovins' prescription by reading the
chapter summaries of his book online (I'm going to buy the whole book
for my reference and "lending" library). Or, read the HBR summary, A Road Map for Natural Capitalism. Using
case studies and small successes achieved already, the authors explain
how each industry and each facet of the economy can be transformed by
looking at it differently, more holistically, including the natural
capital that we currently don't value and waste, and step-by-step
changing its operating principles, structure, strategy, practices,
rewards and governance, and drawing on biologically inspired design
principles.
Everything in Lovins' prescription is achievable, sensible, and
consistent with looking at the economy and markets as a means of
maximizing human well-being instead of wealth. But it is in the final
chapters, where he takes on the environmental pessimists (like me) and
the unrepentent markets-need-growth traditionalists, that I start to
lose conviction that this prescription will do the job. After
effectively destroying the myth that our economic markets are free and
efficient, he describes ways (e.g. tax shifting, changing our
measurements of success, encouraging risk and innovation, improving
regulation and information) that we can reinvent markets, much as he
proposed in earlier chapters how to reinvent industries. His ebullient
description of the economic and cultural transformation of Curitiba,
Brasil, by a succession of architect-mayors who have redesigned one of
the world's poorest and fast-growing cities into a city that works for
people, is truly inspiring (anyone know if it's really that successful?)
But ultimately, the economy is designed the way it is to funnel power
and wealth to those that have it and plan to keep it. It is not
designed for efficiency, equity, fairness, and optimal distribution of
resources -- in fact, as the extent of poverty, famine, and destitution
in a world where a small minority have unimaginable wealth demonstrates
-- political and social structures are designed to keep the status quo,
to hoard resources, and to create and sustain inequitable distribution
of wealth and power. Lovins suggests that the four groups in our
political and economic systems: the blues (free-marketers), reds
(socialists), greens (environmentalists), and whites (pragmatists),
need to set aside their differences and opposing worldviews and respect
the fact that each is partly right, and collaboratively assemble an
"operating manual for Planet Earth". If there was a more equitable
distribution of the resources, power and knowledge needed to assemble
such a manual, and if the population and average footprint of humans on
this planet weren't both catastrophically soaring, and if the
horrendous consequences of these two realities (consequences like war,
famine, global waming, epidemic disease, violence and crime, despair,
hopelessness etc.) werren't preoccupying all our time and attention,
such a manual might be
possible. But ultimately, Lovins' prescription is like asking the crew
and passengers of an airplane that has been struck by lightning to
collaborate and share knowledge and energies to assess how to bring the
plane to a safe landing, while it is plummeting to Earth.
It's a nice idea, but I think it's a little late for that.
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