19/06: Blessed Unrest and the Real Wealth of Nations
Category: General
Reply To: benbingham
The last two week-ends I read two books that have shifted my understanding and my sense of possibility. Paul Hawken's Blessed Unrest in an open ended and artistic way describes the phenomenal immune response of over a million groups dedicated in myriad ways to saving the earth, while Riane Eisler in her book The Real Wealth of Nations deftly attacks the dominator paradigm which is the basis for so many stubborn and wrong headed cultural assumptions, and describes the potential for a world undergirded with an economy based on caring.
What is most synergistic about these two books read together is that Ms. Eisler's historical description of the ancient causes and the destructive effects of male domination ("Male" meant in the sense of left brain dominant and competitive) and her call to change our orientation in the realm of economics to caring (a "female" attribute) is already apparently being answered globally by an unprecedented upwelling of NGO's dedicated to respond to human and environmental needs.
This is inspiring and hopeful. The next step is to research and confirm that there is a similar global response to the call for caring in the realm of business. This is what we are recognizing in our daily research at Benchmark: not only are the corporate dragons washing themselves in green, but, more importantly possibly thousands of companies are emerging though still under the radar screen that are sincere in their missions to meet the needs of our time with sustainable solutions.
Though still on a watch list, three examples we found this week are indicative of a trend: a furniture maker in California, that uses 95% recyclable materials, takes back and recycles their own furniture and buys used materials from schools to help support programs; a rice processor in India that realized that burning the unused parts of the plant was wasteful and polluting, so they now use all aspects of the plant producing rice, rice oil, rice fodder for cattle, and replacing imported coal for local electricity with their new biomass energy plants; and a small environmental engineering company in China that is winning massive contracts for managing waste water without chemicals. One by one we are finding and investing in such companies. I believe there will be more and more.
G. Benjamin Bingham
June 2007
What is most synergistic about these two books read together is that Ms. Eisler's historical description of the ancient causes and the destructive effects of male domination ("Male" meant in the sense of left brain dominant and competitive) and her call to change our orientation in the realm of economics to caring (a "female" attribute) is already apparently being answered globally by an unprecedented upwelling of NGO's dedicated to respond to human and environmental needs.
This is inspiring and hopeful. The next step is to research and confirm that there is a similar global response to the call for caring in the realm of business. This is what we are recognizing in our daily research at Benchmark: not only are the corporate dragons washing themselves in green, but, more importantly possibly thousands of companies are emerging though still under the radar screen that are sincere in their missions to meet the needs of our time with sustainable solutions.
Though still on a watch list, three examples we found this week are indicative of a trend: a furniture maker in California, that uses 95% recyclable materials, takes back and recycles their own furniture and buys used materials from schools to help support programs; a rice processor in India that realized that burning the unused parts of the plant was wasteful and polluting, so they now use all aspects of the plant producing rice, rice oil, rice fodder for cattle, and replacing imported coal for local electricity with their new biomass energy plants; and a small environmental engineering company in China that is winning massive contracts for managing waste water without chemicals. One by one we are finding and investing in such companies. I believe there will be more and more.
G. Benjamin Bingham
June 2007
