There was no stopping on the last morning of the EBBF/IEF annual conference, and immediately we were introduced to the CEO of GRI, the Global Reporting Initiative, Ernst Ligteringen (in photo), whose organization has developed a 79-indicator sustainability reporting framework to encourage and help organizations “Make sustainability reporting as visible and substantive as financial reporting.” Mr. Ligteringen spoke on the whys and hows of his work.

The urgency of awareness and reporting on issues of sustainability are becoming more and more clear:

One headline: “At the beginning of summer in the Southern hemisphere, there was a 50% chance of the southern ice cap melting completely”. North Pole ice cap has halved in the last 50 years. Food prices have shot up. Not only are the Italians complaining about the price of pasta; millions of millions of millions of people are now on the brink of starvation. Millions of euros were asked for to help these people, which came in slowly. Far less quickly as the millions which were raised for AIG to survive. As to population: In 2050, reach 9 billion people. Over 80% live in developing regions. Most have legitimate reason to aspire to a better life [in material terms]. Not talking about two cars, huge house, and the like, but access to water, mobility, and food security, maybe a motorcycle, maybe a cheap car. There are billions of people who quite rightly want to change their life, and want to live at Europe standards, but if this happens, we’ll have big environmental problems.

In the 1980s we passed a big mark: we began to use more of world’s resources (soil, marine resources, timber, ores) than the planet could regenerate. If we continue at this pace, we will need 2 planets to supply our resource needs. Don’t need an accountant to see we have a problem here. We can hold the course for a certain time, but very soon we’ll have to deal with reality.

The big question is how?

He then spoke of “peak oil”, the point at which we access to the world’s oil supply stops growing and begins to decline, and the implications this has for our economy, which is 90-95% dependant on oil. He pointed out we’ve already seen what happens when oil prices go up, how this affects, fuel, food, travel and almost everything. We can get rid of this highly polluting technology, but what’s next?

It was in 1929, he pointed out, during the Great Depression when the world was in turmoil, when the first global financial reporting started. “A need was felt for more transparency, because what we know is what we can predict. Now we are seeing that we need to know other things.”

Do we know what we would like to know about the companies that we deal with? Often even employees don’t know. They are also the ones who first read these sust reports. Increasingly people want to know what they are buying. What’s in my food? Is it safe? Does it have GMOs? In China people want to know how their milk was produced. Youngsters for a while were concerned with what was in their sneakers.

Should a company know about the materials it is using? You may have leather in your sneakers, do you know where it comes from, how it was produced? Can we find substantive information on the sustainability impact?

And it is not only consumers and environmental NGOs and government who are aware of this need, Mr. Ligteringen noted: “In December of 2006 heads of major consulting companies said that the current system of quarterly reporting is incomplete, that it needs to emcompass ‘a wider range of performance measures’. So it seems to be quite a gap between information we need and what is currently offered.”

The next point he touched on was the scope of the change we are experiencing and the implications for the kind of information we require. There is a kind of change (“technological change”) which requires the application of known solutions to specific problems, but the kind of changes we are facing are “adaptive, where there is no history or knowledge to come up with ready solutions. Often this requires new attitudes and new values…” He quoted Spanish poet Antonio Machado: “Walker, there is no path; we make the path by walking”.

We’re talking about massive adaptive change… In order to do this we need information that is very differing from what is now available from companies. And this is what GRI is working on, trying to cause a revolution in what companies report.

Specifically, he mentioned that these reports would have “More transparency on the impact on environmental and societal levels.” There is already a growing number of these reports the effect our stuff has on the environment, on society, employment, the market, on human rights, child labor, social security. These reports are becoming more solid, more companies are working with them, and more people want to know about them. Even though such reporting is currently done on a voluntary basis, over 3000 companies in Europe have published such reports, and not “everybody tells us”, so there may well be more.

He then commented on a very interesting point. This sustainability reporting isn’t only having an impact on consumers as they realize what effect the products they consume have on the environment and society. The effect goes two ways.

What many companies are finding when they take up the challenge, that the process helps them reevaluate what they are doing and how they are doing it. The reporting is becoming not only an afterthought, but helps them reconceptualize the entire company. It is turning out to be a very practical way of finding out how my company is positioned for the future, or how they company I work for is handling these questions.

Toyota provides an example of this: as it become conscious of the impact its operations have on the environment and society, it created a new product, the Prius (a hybrid, electric-gas), which met the demand on the market for people who were also conscious of these issues. Other companies would have loved to fill this demand, but didn’t see it coming.

[Everyone you talk to at the conference enjoys it and leaves inspired (thanks to organizing team pictured on right). You would too. So come next year!]

The purpose of the workshop is to look at sustainable consumption. I’m a teacher of teachers, professors of education in Norway. I’ve worked with value and peace education, but then I got kidnapped by consumer education office in the government which wanted to develop curricula to help kids become better consumers.

But how do you help more people learn about their consumption patterns without making them feel guilty, wanting to put their heads in the sand. And then, how do you teach this? What we’ve created is a concept called consumer citizen education. Not just consumer education, but with citizenship. Because the idea of a consumer who just complains isn’t very constructive.

We then explored the question, what is consumption? Is consumption bad? Answer: No, consumption is a natural condition, but we have gone beyond limits. Then an exercise: list the last five things you remember consuming. We shared and as we did Victoria probed to see why we consumed these things. Here are some samples:

• Crayon gift: show caring, make others happy, stimulate growth
• Books for school: duty, learning
• Clothing: comfort, useful for work, self-esteem
• Cleaning stuff: virtue, health
• Food: hunger, health,
• Aftershave/cosmetics: smells good, health, acceptance.
• Party: social, compensation (addictions compensate feelings that person feels he/she can’t deal with)

She mentioned that we can categorize our motivations into three important categories:

1. symbolic value of our consumption. Acceptance, generosity, love. All these abstract reasons for consuming what we do.
2. practical value of our consumption. Get somewhere quick, eat for health.
3. environmental value (or impact), often a negative one.

And explained that we can sum these up to see a bigger picture. With a car, for example, we have a pretty heavy environmental impact or footprint or value. The symbolic value is the status it gives you, and the transportation is a practical value. So how to decide whether it’s a good idea to consume it or not? Does it balance out? Since the values differ per person, each person must decide whether it makes sense or not. Hard therefore for one person to decide what another should consume for there are pluses and minuses to each choice.

One thing she pointed out is that

We have to learn from societies that are happy and content while consuming less. On average a 6 year old child in Sweden has over 500 individual toys. One model of efficiency has come out of the King of Thailand, where they have an alive spiritual way of life. There most young boys after high school spend a few months or a year in a monastery serving the monks, eating a bowl of porridge a day. I’ve talked to a number of kids who are very happy with this. Learning to live with hardships is part of their life. Not that they don’t want more material things, but we can see that learning the concept of sufficiency, of when enough is enough, is important.

We concluded with a discussion on what to do about all of this, and here are her suggestions:

-Bring people and things together (e.g. live closer to work, shopping)
-Sharing tools and equipment (e.g. car pool, share newspapers, share tools with neighbors)
-Use what already exists (e.g. used clothing, wrapping paper)
-Give space to nature
-Eat according to nature (e.g. eat local produce, seasonal food)
-Organize networks
-Reduce waste

We need to dare. What makes me happy, what gives me joy, and ok, I’ll keep that. But be open to criticism: maybe you didn’t need that extra __________ (you fill in the blank).

(If curious about these issues, she suggested visiting: www.sustainable-everyday.net, www.hihm.no/concit)

I have a very short period of time to give you solutions to all the problems of the world, and I’m bound to fail so don’t be disappointment. I should be given a health warning to hang around my neck, saying, ‘this is dangerous to your health. What I tell you could lead to nightmares, depression, anxiety, etc.

Then on to talk about the end of the current business and political paradigm where growth is in the center:

There is a conflict between growth and sustainability. If company isn’t growing, off with your head, if GDP isn’t growing, change the president. But there are limits to planet. There isn’t anywhere else to go that is accessible except for to astronauts, and they generally want to come back here.

“On current trends, …humanity will need twice as much energy as it uses today within 35 years…. Produce too little energy, say the economists, and there will be price hikes and a financial crash unlike any the world has ever known, with possible resource wars, depression and famine. Produce the wrong sort of energy, say the climate scientists, and we will have more droughts, floods, rising seas and worldwide economic disaster with runaway global warming.” (John Vidal in The Guardian Weekly, 2007)

We shall probably do both at the same tine

Since we are operating on a limitless growth model with a shrinking resource base, our civilization is headed towards collapse. The question is when. If we continue on the current road at the current rate, says the model that though updated hasn’t changed since the 70s, around 2015 or 2020 we are going to be hitting a crisis of food, resources availability, industrial output, translating into a lower standard of living for all.

In this century we’re coming to an end of the growth paradigm. This is interesting for business based on exponential growth. Economic growth has depended on population growth, energy growth, resource growth and tech innovation. The first three all end this century. All running out. Even these rare earth elements in cell phones are cameras, are very limited, and we’re hitting lots of limits. All we have left is technological innovation. We’re left with brains and heart.

Retreating to a fortress of old values (forgetting bananas and pineapples) and keeping the poor out isn’t possible. We have no option but to move towards a new, sustainable paradigm.

All models show that this is technically possible. We have the knowledge, we have the technology, what we don’t have is political will. We have to look at questions of balance. What is the optimal size of company? Optimal size is not endless growth. Optimal size of a mouse is not an elephant. Dematerialization, how can we do with less. And figuring out working with a closed system, reusing what we have over and over again.

In this new paradigm we must redefine prosperity, and along with this the kind of civilization we want to build. He used the Bahai writings for inspiration on this theme:

Man’s merit lieth in service and virtue and not in the pageantry of wealth and riches. Take heed that your words be purged from idle fancies and worldly desires and your deeds be cleansed from craftiness and suspicion. Dissipate not the wealth of your precious lives in the pursuit of evil and corrupt affection, nor let your endeavours be spent in promoting your personal interest. Be generous in your days of plenty, and be patient in the hour of loss…. Guard against idleness and sloth, and cling unto that which profiteth mankind, whether young or old, whether high or low.

…although material civilization is one of the means for the progress of the world of mankind, yet until it becomes combined with Divine civilization, the desired result, which is the felicity of mankind, will not be attained…. Material civilization is like the body. No matter how infinitely graceful, elegant and beautiful it may be, it is dead.

That purpose must be sought in spiritual dimensions of life and motivation that transcend a constantly changing economic landscape and an artificially imposed division of human societies into “developed” and “developing”.

the real purpose of development…  is laying foundations for a new social order that can cultivate the limitless potentialities latent in human consciousness.

So we aren’t talking about no growth, but a new kind of growth: growth in beauty, in science, in creativity. There are all kinds of possibilities for growth, if we define prosperity in different context.

He then painted the outline of the New World Order, the institutions that we need to build in order to create a sustainable society, based on the principles of unity and justice. (You can see this part of his presentation— and many other parts that I’ve skipped, skimmed, or misrepresented(!)—on the conference website.)

Arthur then addressed the question of how to get there (sustainable world order) from here, highlighting the role of ethics and values in this process.

Ethics is the social equivalent of DNA. In biology everything is coded in a cell’s DNA tells them how to each other. In society these types of interaction are determined by its values. The most important way to transform a society is through its values. Otherwise a society will need an elaborate system of laws, backed up by a significant police force and large prison system. If individual knows how to behave, and is self-directing, it’s a cheap and effective system.

We are trustees of this planet. Sustainability itself is an ethical concept, for it has to do with being moderate and humble. We must ‘be content with little and be freed form all inordinate desire”. Just as an individual doesn’t only eat and grow forever, so likewise a company.

Sustainibility therefore requires a new kind of entrepreneurship. We are in the midst of a major global transition. We can either consciously work for change, or wait for catastrophe to force us to change. There are new forms of wealth creation and business out there that haven’t been done before, so we need creativity.

[Note: Photos to follow. Also, I'm posting only about 10% of what's happening here. We've had guided walk in the woods while talking about issues of sustainability, workshops galore, and other interesting talks. This is all to say, being here is much better than reading this!]

Below I include selections from Steve’s slides which lead to an alternative conception of prosperity and some ideas about how to measure a society’s movement towards that prosperity, and after that the gist of what John Patterson said.

Steve Karnic on a new definition of Prosperity

“Human nature is fundamentally spiritual and spiritual principles underlie the essential elements of a peaceful, prosperous and advancing civilization.”

“The material world is a reflection of spiritual conditions and until the spiritual conditions are changed, there can be no lasting change for the better in material affairs.”

“True civilization does not arise merely from material progress, but rather is defined by and based upon the transcendent values that hold society together.”

“The interrelatedness of challenges stemming from the critical issues facing the world today calls for the articulation of principles capable of guiding analysis, decision-making and the development of indicators to measure progress.”

He then presented a new definition of prosperity:
“The presence/abundance of those ethical, social and material resources needed to develop the moral, intellectual and social capacities of individuals, communities and institutions.”

And subsequently outline a few ideas as to how we could measure the ‘quality, direction, and results of individual spiritual well-being’. These included:

• The degree to which spiritual education and moral development opportunities exist in society.
• The degree to which the concept of service as a path to individual development is both verbalized and practiced for social transformation – increase in leisure time and the percentage of leisure time devoted to service.
• Money spent on philanthropy (measured as a percentage of income) measured for individuals and nations.
• Degree to which beauty (natural and man-made) is accessible in society and the degree to which the arts and literature flourish and provide a moral compass for society.

John Patterson on Translating Principles in Practice (at a large IT company)

I’m going to talk about a company I helped start, but I’m first going to talk about my life as a whole, because even though my life experiences have been diverse, all 64.5 years of it, it feels like a single experience.

We spent several years working [in Canada, I believe], I as a clergyman, my wife as schoolteacher, before we decided to serve in villages in India. Frankly, a certain kind of boredom set in, and we said, ‘Where will more be requested of us?’ One answer we came up with was village development in India. So we went there. But then we got to be 45, our kids were college age, we had no money, and we thought, ‘Well, we better do something about it.’ So we started Kanbay, an IT company with two friends, and built on India’s growing strength in the computer science field.

Having decided to devote my life to service, my question at the time was, ‘How do we get in to this dirty thing called business (I knew it wasn’t all that bad) and not get totally consumed by it?’ You see, I was going from doing service with just enough to eat, to being the owner of a tech-based business. So we agreed that the company must be built on principles that were important to us. We had long conversations about what these were. Much of them centered on the human factor, on the people who would be entrusted their lives to us (employees) and our clients. If we look after our people, we said, the company will grow well. We knew that when you’ve got people from different cultures and countries, the entire business depends on people being able to respect each other. No “I’m better than you posture.” We knew that this kind of respect had to do with the culture we built into our organization.

But how do you build such a process? We didn’t know at the time, but now we can reflect back on what we did and learn from it.

We began by stating our beliefs, and listed the core values that sprung from those beliefs. Then we defined behavior we expected from employees (both desirable and undesirable behavior). And came up with policies, systems and processes that reflect those values. And we evaluated every year all these things with everybody.

He mentioned then the three beliefs that oriented the company—globality, valuing the human spirit, and company as community–and talked about its purpose: to create environments that transcend borders and cultures to fully release human and organizational. He noted that they didn’t mention profits here in particular. But that they did become very profitable, with 7,000 employees.

We had seven corporate values, developed across the company with everyone’s participation.  These included: ‘We value respect for the individual’; ‘We value our ability to create and exceed high client expectations’, and ‘we value work that allows us to give back to our society’. And then came the real question. Here’s how he said it:

How do you translate these values into behavior? We did several things. We made it clear what people could expect from organization with regards to those values, and made explicit what kind of behavior will be rewarded and what is ‘taboo’ behavior. For example, with someone who is not performing well, taboo is not to deal with him and ignore the issue. We must help him, talk to him. We help people grasp these values from day one. When someone started to work with us they received two whole days of orientation just on our values and ethics. These were full days, with the CEO, which demonstrated how important it was to us. Then there were regular reviews. We also really emphasized with those rising into leadership, whatever is embodied in your lives, that’s what’s going to be shown in the lives of others. Because it’s not what you say, but how the leaders manifest what you say.

Kanbay values and how they are manifested in the organization

And how did it go? Well, We were initially funded by family and friends, then some venture capitalists investment in us. The first thing we told them about was our list of values. They agreed to funding us saying, ‘We’ll fund you because you led with your values and you’re the first we’ve seen do this’. Then we were listed on NASDAQ. And eventually we were bought by by a major European consulting firm. And so now the company continues to make its contribution in a larger context. One thing that reflects our success is that we had a 92-95 retention rate in the IT sector, just incredible.

He then spoke about his work with the NGO he created with his wife, called Abbey North. They focus on three things: HIV/AIDS in Africa, creating orphan care centers; Environmental matters in Canada, promoting locally grown food, and local renewable power generation [he also mentioned collaborating on greening sacred spaces—bringing green energy and green design to all religious buildings in Canada]; and three (“In case we have time on hands”), working on delegitimizing war for settling differences and conflicts. Currently focusing on education.

He concluded with these words: “When we meet in 20 years time, which no doubt will, we will request one thing of you. Please ask us if we are being true to our calling to serve, because that’s what we need from you.”

Sylvia Karlsson of IEF

After a devotional period, reflecting on the beauty of creation and the natural world, IEF secretary-general Sylvia Karlsson gave the keynote of the conference, directly addressing its central question: Growth OR Sustainability.

She began by reminding us that sustainability is something that involves a lot of defining (what resources, species and all should be sustained and for how long?), and that it has both temporal and spatial dimensions. Environment has long temporal dimensions. What we do today, for example, to temper the dangers of climate change, will be felt after a lapse of decades. Economic issues, on the other hand, have to do with short-term decision making and consequences. Sustainability also implies spatial dimension inasmuch as economies are interconnected. While one country may clean up its act as it moves towards service economy, the polluting processes of production may just have been moved to another part of the world (e.g. China).

She then addressed the rhetorical question whether our pattern of growth is threatening sustainability. A rapid flow of facts followed (the exhaustive list and references can be found in her presentation to be posted on this site), including: Almost 50% land surface has been transformed by direct human action. There are two million contaminated sites in Europe alone; water resources being depleted more rapidly than replenished; 2.4 million die every year particle air pollution; to restore the ozone to 1980 levels will still take another 50-60 years; global warming by 1-6 degrees in this century and the significant rise of sea levels; extinction rates are increasing sharply in ecosystems around world, specifically with coral species, marine stocks; 60% of ecosystem services (wood fuel, genetic resources, pollination, etc.) are degraded. In a word, the Earth is operating in state never operated before, a no analogue state, unprecedented in the nature and magnitude of the changes.

The bottom line: Growth and sustainable are in conflict. At least for now.

They could be in less conflict if producers and consumers changed their time and scale horizons, changing from a short term vision to a long term vision. If we value the future, this changes the whole economic accounting system. And she pointed out that actually, according to the Stern report, it is economically more feasible to avoid dangerous climate change, than the costs of adapting to it. But this involved valuing time equally, as opposed to giving greater value to the present than the future.

She then asked, why should we care? Can’t we just live like teenagers and spend money, burn fuel, and live as if there was no tomorrow. We can’t because there may be no tomorrow. Living up to the maturity of human race implies taking on the responsibilities of parenthood, putting the welfare of children in front of one’s own welfare. So we must think about the future. How can claim to love humanity if only love humanity that happens to be alive now. The principle of oneness extends all over space, and into time. Today and 10,000 generations onwards.

However, she pointed out that there would be no conflict in growth if the concept were redefined. The safest and surest way to do this is to redefine wealth. As a guide in this redefinition she quoted from the writings of the Bahá’í Faith. “It is clear that the honour and exaltation of man must be something more than material riches. Material comforts are only a branch, but the root is the good attributes and virtues which are the adornments of his reality.”

If the development of ‘good attributes and virtues’ is the definition of growth, then there is no limit to man’s growth. She concluded thus: “The beauty of all this is when you pursue this kind of growth you don’t need that much stuff!”

Threading into Dutch farmland and forests atop the 2nd floor of the gliding electric train, I arrived safe and sound to the joint IEF-EBBF conference on Growth or Sustainability. Aside from the natural beauty of the countryside, people around us are making positive contributions to the environment: the bike traffic dwarfs that of the cars (if only Madrid would follow its lead…).

I’m running on a few hours of sleep, but I can’t help but feel energized once here. Over a yummy dinner I spoke with a couple recent Italian graduates, one who is working with a ballooning wind energy project in Milan, the other pursuing a career in corporate social responsibility. After dinner, a chat with a man doing his PhD. on the relevance of spiritual principles found in the Bahai Faith to the discipline of economics.

Then the first evening session. After a wacky getting to know you activity, alternately converging and separating into sets of entrepreneurs, employees, or others best represented by ‘work? What’s that?’, we were introduced to a sampling of the conference presenters through creative questioning by Finnish EBBF member and talk show host, Aram Aflatuni.

Here’s a sampling of the interaction with the four interviewees (three of whom are Canadian!).

1. Senior policy advisor of product division of Eco Canada, Diana Cartwright.
Aram: What motivates you to get to work every morning?
Diana: (with irony) Well, that’s an easy question to start with! I get to ride my bike to work and I really like biking.
Aram: How much is the sustainable thing in the hands of governments or big business as opposed to in the hands of individual people?
Diana: I think we all have to own sustainable development. Should I recycle, should I use reduce consumption? Yes, do it all. We also have to have carbon taxes, etc., but sustainability is in everyone’s hands.
Aram: What is the relationship between spirituality and sustainability?
Diana: Spirituality I define is trying to connect to higher reality in life. Sustainability is about living just off the interest of the earth’s resources and not its capital, as we are currently doing. I learned something about the relationship from going through the Bahá’i Fast. It’s not something that I particularly enjoy, but I do it because I know it’s good for me. It helps me learn to be detached from material things. Prayer and meditation also help to inoculate us against all the materialistic propaganda, and fasting to help detach from material bombardment. By being more detached and aware, we will be able to reduce our consumption and be more responsible as consumers.

2. John Patterson.
Aram: You spent 11 years in India doing development work, how was it?
John: Well, my son was born in India, daughter was one when we went there. We were living in the village with the people, using simple accommodations. What we did was we listened to local people, and supported them in their own initiatives, in order to help them understand that their own local initiatives would make the world of different.
Aram: What did you do?
John: Waters schemes, electricity—their own initiatives got electricity to their village. My wife worked with young ladies to start a school. My son’s first language was actually Marati. For first time in living memory, the village we lived in began to have cultural celebrations coming back from Bombay, heard sounds of drumming, to one of temples, place was packed dancing and singing. One young man said that in his entire life he had never seen anything like this. And this was their own initiative.
Aram: Now you are retired from Software, and are engaged in service projects in East Africa. What’s the connection?
John: Back to roots, in a way. When my wife and I retired 4 or 5 years ago, we said, ‘We are still healthy, so what are major challenges facing planet? HIV/AIDS is one of them.’ Then we went to one place to help local people think about how they are going to bring HIV/AIDS under control in their own community. The results are very exciting.

3. Next person was the Chief communications officer for AIESEC, Lucy Symons. She explained her organization’s focus by saying, ‘We believe the most sustainable/significant impact we can have is to develop leadership.’

Aram: EBBF and AISEC do many things together. What is the most important connection?
Lucy: I think it is Values Based Leadership. We are in an org of 32,000 people, trying to develop ourselves as Values Based leaders. And EBBF has so much experience. We can learn a lot from each other.

4. 30 years of life developing human potential, Gordon Naylor.
Aram: Since you are an educator, if we think about the future ecological challenges, what new qualities do people have to learn?
Gordon: … We have everything we need to make the world prosperous and peaceful. So what’s missing? Not just a simple virtue or quality, we need will and resolution, and to learn how to apply spiritual principle in action and learn how to make a difference. If we just focus on academics, we’re in serious trouble. Academics on its own is not enough. We need character education. With these principles in mind, we will never make a choice that will undermine other people, or foster prejudice. With these two forms of education it will be light upon light.

This year we decided to hold the EBBF and IEF Annual Conferences jointly, gathering together to offer and learn about ideas, practical applications and innovative visions around the title:

Growth or Sustainability?
Defining, Measuring and Achieving Prosperity

As the conference has sold out and for all those of you who want to maintain their carbon footprint low we have set up this alternative way to enjoy the event.

It will not be quite like being there in person but we hope that you do enjoy the experience of viewing the talks and panels of the EBBF/IEF joint annual event and the opportunity to interact with participants and with other people viewing this online experience.

As we wait for the conference to begin you can view the latest news, list of participants, relevant articles and information, the opportunity to submit your project etc do visit this webpage.

We offer this online experience free of charge but if you feel it gave you something worthwhile or if you wish to support a specific activity or project, feel free to invest as much or as little as you wish here.