Deep Value Transformation

What have Peter Brabeck-Letmathe and the baby boomer generation including myself in common? We are all concerned about climate and environmental change, and how it will affect energy, food and water security, in the Global North and in particular the Global South. We all know today, that great and deep transformation is needed and we are all concerned about which energy to use to make the transformation happen. The good news, energy sources are still available, the bad news, 80% are fossil fuel based and the produced greenhouse gases can have a long lasting and catastrophic impact on our climate and planet Earth.

Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe as a charismatic leader and myself, as a former materialist consumer, we were not aware of how in developing markets, businesses and jobs globally, we adopt values, which have such an enormous and dangerous global impact on our planet, strongly affecting the most vulnerable and poor people who suffer most from climate change.

But we must ask ourselves, are the bottled water and capsuled coffee business sustainable? How it will affect the base of the pyramid 4 billion people? How long can these resources, some of which are non-renewable, be depleted on our planet? Is it reasonable to develop businesses rapidly to keep shareholders happy at the cost of the planet’s environment, resources and our civilization? We all know the answer.

Let’s imagine a balance (scale, libra, Waage) on which we weigh and compare resources. What are the resources needed for a product and its entire life-cycle, its exploration, extraction, supply, production, distribution, dumping, recycling? Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe would for example compare

- water from the tap and bottled water

- coffee from the bag and coffee from the capsule

These comparisons are not trivial, and for Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe, opting for one or the other, would mean deep business transformation. With regards to coffee he might ask me, do we still need to drink coffee anyway? My answer would be: “oh please, yes, I can’t make a day without coffee”.

Let me list some of the industries which, in my opinion, need to be transformed or started up as fast as possible, to which I subjectively attribute positive or negative “energies”:

Positive energies or “slow” industries

- clean and renewable energy

- organic food and public water “industry”

- healthy locomotion & travel

- “industries” of happiness (I leave it up to you what makes you happy and what ideas and industries you would imagine)

Negative energies industries

- fossil & nuclear fuel industries

- polluting industries

- alcohol and tobacco industries

- gmo food & other genetics industries

- illegal drugs

- sexual pornography (internet)

- human trafficking and child abuse

- violence pornography (internet, gaming, movie industry)

- weapons and defense industries

- casino money gambling and financial casino speculation & investing

- industries favoring corruption, money laundering, authoritarian regimes

Positive energy “industries” are still a few only, and there is huge potential for development. I let you imagine your own industries which procure you, your family, your friends, your community strength, health, love and happiness.

Let me help you. Let’s play a game. The games consist in answering the following questions, in comparing

1. the industrialized western human being
2. the blue-green nature and eco-friendly human being
3. nature
4. the poorest and most vulnerable human being, mostly children and women

Here is an example

1. What do we human beings in the industrialized western world prefer?

e.g. driving a luxury Mercedes, a cool Porsche or being escorted in a stretched limo

2. What does the “blue-green” nature-friendly human being prefer?

e.g. walk, ride a bike, an e-bike, go by public transportation

3. What does nature prefer?

that we walk or bike, live and work locally, go on a hike in our nearby forest, hills and mountains for our leisure and vacation, and that we respect and take care of nature and natural ecosystems

4. What do the 4 billion most vulnerable and poor human beings prefer?

build a livelihood locally in an area, where they can find safe shelter and health, enough safe food and nutrition, safe drinking water, not being forced to become climate refugees because of drought, flooding, other natural catastrophes, violence and civil war, caused by climate change, not to be forced to migrate, to be able to live in an area safe, also for women and children

Play the game with your friends, with your family and develop new ideas which bring love, health and happiness to each and everyone on our planet.

So what are the values, you think will bring you love, health, happiness? Let me give you mine

- love

- empathy

- expression of feelings

- words of healing

- altruism, help and volunteering, giving without asking a return favor

- respect and care for nature, plants and animals

- appreciate and enjoy the treasuries of nature, its flora and fauna

- respect and empathy for every human being

- sharing happiness

- socialize and share time together, in moments of grief, in moments of happiness

Decarbonization-curve to zero carbon society

We have to reconsider per capita per annum (PCPA) statistics on carbon emission.

While PCPA carbon emission on a nation's basis is a good indicator for inter-nation comparison, a more focused indicator is needed when we actually want implement measures to reduce carbon emission.

How can a possible “decarbonization to zero carbon”-curve look like? I use a quite simple curve, easy to remember:

In summary, targets are

2020: 20 t PCPA CO₂ emission

2030: 10 t PCPA CO₂ emission

2040: 1 t PCPA CO₂ emission

2050: zero carbon society

The curve is based on the following rational:

A) Shape of the curve?

The curve starts-off flat, since transformation always has some inertia associated to it.

As soon as transformation is well underway, decarbonization has become mainstream and the process of creativity and innovation is speeding up decarbonization and carbon substitutions.

B) What “societies” are we looking at?

Assume we are business consultants helping societies in achieving zero carbon.

I think it is reasonable that we spot those “societies” with highest PCPA carbon emissions.

The 25 t PCPA carbon emission in 2010 can be considered as the baseline. Some “societies” have higher, some have lower emissions, and the decarbonization curve must be adjusted in consequence. Still we want to achieve zero carbon in 2050.

We have not answered yet what these “societies” are and what carbon they produce?

- global businesses with high carbon outputs (e.g. per employee per annum)

- air, naval and road transportation (e.g. carbon per unit weight of products)

- car fleet and private cars (e.g. carbon per vehicle per km)

- and many more, a large pool of business and job opportunities!

We therefore have to define systems/societies or subsystems/subsocieties (e.g. companies and employees, cities and citizens, consumers), identify the PCPA carbon emission and support them in their transformation to zero carbon societies.

Why not use scenarios in setting up the decarbonization curve? This is exactly what we do, in referring to the IPCC scenarios and global annual average temperatures forecasts. We use the IPCC scenarios as input, to set our targets to achieve a zero carbon society in 2050.

Now it is up to all of us to sit together and come up with the smartest solutions, as industry leaders and champions, business consultants, responsible citizens and consumers, to tightly stick and follow to the “decarbonization curve” with the overall goal:

ZERO CARBON SOCIETY IN THE YEAR 2050

Melancholia – Women, Mothers and Planet Earth

It is of worth to think about Melancholia, movie realized by Lars von Trier, in the current debate of climate change.

From a physical and scientific perspective, Melancholia is the story of a Planet, about 20 times the size of Planet Earth. It’s the end of Planet Earth, as predicted through the science community, Earth being fully absorbed after its collision with Melancholia.

From a philosophical perspective, it is a movie about nature and human society. Those are wonderfully incorporated through the two main actresses: Kirsten Dunst in the role of Justine, Charlotte Gainsbourg in the role of Claire. Right, it is also a movie about gender and the role of women in our male dominated society.

What about the other women: they are torn between the two extremes, nature and human society, one that revolts against social norms (Charlotte Rampling, who hates weddings), and all the others.

Lars von Trier created a philosophical masterpiece. He understands that the power of movie making is a power of communication through the image and the visual. Texts and words in the script are chosen carefully, without overloading the already powerful messages, casted through the images and the finely chosen scenery.

From a physical and sensual perspective, Justine can be characterized as the plenty female. Justine is the incorporation of nature and independence. Claire, who has strong male traits, incorporates human society, conformism and a tendency to dominate. The movie is divided in 2 sequences, Part 1: Justine, Part 2: Claire.

The movie’s setting: The movie starts with a stretched limousine with the bride (Justine) and the groom. The oversized and heavy limousine remains stuck on its way to the wedding, too clumsy to adapt to the bends and obstacles of our lives. An object of technology and luxury not adapted to a landscape dominated by nature. And in nature, the rhythm of life is slow and pleasant, causing bride and groom to arrive hours late to the wedding.

The wedding takes place at a golf club, a golf course, dominated by a big castle. The landscape with the castle and the golf course is artificial, like a dream or a nightmare, in strong contrast with nature. Although they represent the countryside, they also represent a society, which has lost its connection to nature.

Justine: From Claire’s perspective, Justine is seriously sick, out of balance, depressed. Justine thus perfectly reflects the current state of Planet Earth. Lars von Trier provides us strong images of Justine, mother nature.

Justine has full control of society and the male world. Rather than revolting and confronting society, she gets depressed, falls sick, when she is abused by male power and domination. Pacifically, she refuses male domination and authority through fainting. By rejecting male domination and power, Justine takes control over the male world. She dominates men in refusing to respond to man’s sexual desires, while she lives her sexuality opportunistically and with domination, with the man of her choice.

In general, the relationship between men and Justine can be considered as Oedipal, conditioned through Justine’s pronounced feminality and motherliness.

In one scene, Justine lies nude, directly exposing her feminine body and erotic sensuality to Planet Melancholia. We can interpret the scene of Justine, narcissus, being attracted and stimulated by the female beauty of Melancholia, a mirror image of her own.

For Justine, the final setting for the apocalypse is mystic in nature, empathetic for the one child, a mysterious cave of wooden sticks. The setting reminds us that children can be comforted. They are not afraid of death like adults are. They are in confidence of adult’s words and promises.

Claire: Empathetic, caring and loving her sister Justine, Claire’s values belong to the superficial values of our society, values which are flawed. Lars von Trier also shows us through the entire wedding that these values constitute the foundations of our culture, and build the norm for our society.

According to Claire, the final setting of the apocalypse would be sitting on the terrace, drinking a glass of red wine, listening to Beethoven’s 9^th symphony.

Claire’s way to deal with death are pure measures of hygiene. She hardly seems to have dealt during her entire lifetime neither with death, nor life. She and her Self is a product of our artificial, male dominated society.

Animals: in the movie, animals are represented as living beings, definitely more closely related to nature in the sense that they react more instinctively and spontaneously to the threat of Melancholia. The horses also reflect the taming and domination by humans. Justine’s physical and psychological male domination is reflected through a scene, where she hits her stallion until its resignation, finally lying down onto the ground.

Final setting: moments before the apocalypse, Justine declares Planet Earth and human society as evil, not worth to be safeguarded. She also declares that there is no other life in the Universe. Is it worth to safe Planet Earth, our civilization? Yes, of course. Human beings have their strengths and weaknesses. Our civilization today is a given, she is learning, she is learning form its mistakes, and she can improve. While Melancholia is the apocalypse, our Planet and civilization is far from over. In the wake of climate change, big challenges lie ahead of us, which have to be tackled without hesitation or further delay.

Melancholia: One can ask the question, whether from a gender perspective, Melancholia represents male, female gender or asexuality, and eventually conclude on the gender of Planet Earth.

In absorbing Planet Earth, Melancholia absorbs what once has been created as a fertile and vital planet. From a male perspective, it would signify an act of destruction. We can also consider Earth’s absorption as the plantation of a seed.

Looking at the “dance of death (Totentanz)” trajectory of Melancholia, Melancholia actually seems to end up in Earth’s trajectory around the sun. Thus there is hope for new life and a planet, 20 times as big as planet Earth. Life starts from scratch and it is possible that history repeats itself, in endless cycles, dictated through the universe.

Thus Planet Earth is both, the matrix for life, and at the same time, the seed for new life. Man has first to be created, before he can reproduce. Planet Earth can be considered as both, male and female in gender.

To conclude: our civilization needs to revalue what is abject, from what is to be valued.

The way in which we create societies, is mainly through dirt. We value nature as abject, as dirt, while we create shiny worlds and cities as mere Fata Morganas.

As in deep ecology, we have to turn our world into what is fundamentally natural, turning away from domination of nature into a symbiosis of human society with nature, to assure the resources, needed for the survival of our civilization and our varied nations and cultures.

Also an important lesson, referring to Michel de Montaigne, Hannah Arendt, Erich Fromm, Sogyal Rinpoche, we as humans have to learn early and consciously what life is and what death means to and for us.

A Good and Happy Year 2012

CO₂ emissions will matter in 2012 and beyond: Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels increased last year by a record high of 5.9%. For comparison, the average increase since 1990, the reference year, is 3.1% annually. This increase of 5.9% is very alarming and must activate all sirens in every place and city of the world, as chances that the 2°C temperature increase above pre-industrial level will be largely surpassed, causing catastrophic and irreversible consequences for our planet and our civilization. 2012 is not a year to rest.

Meaning, Cause and Purpose: in changing into a new economic paradigm, it is important to build a common understanding and sharing of what we value as important. Simon Mainwaring emphasizes in his book “We First” that produces and consumers strongly value meaning, purpose in consuming, producing, promoting. That is consume and produce, at the same time support an important cause.

Education: It is important that education needs to reach everyone. Also young people need to discipline themselves for learning and consciousness development, they must stay away from alcohols and drugs that can strongly impact their mental and physical condition, being the sources of depression. It is all right to celebrate successes or for a break, not abusing of what we consume.

Erich Fromm in “Haben oder Sein” attributes the increasing consumption of drugs (alcohol inclusive) on the “Haben” or having. Rather than being self, young people satisfy or, according to my theory, substitute their materialist instincts through drug consumption. It is a high risks substitution that can end with the loss of the self or “Sein” through drug dependency and eventually a fatal outcome.

I also believe that education for leadership requires more than just good business administration. Today we are mainly facing challenges related to humanities, our natural environment and economics. Leaders need to learn and reach a deep level of insight into the anthropogenic and industrial causes and processes, responsible of climate change, and the consequences and risk for our entire civilization.

It is not only shareholder value which is at stake. Downsizing, strategic divestitures or mergers and takeovers are not the only agenda items where strategic leadership is required. The question is more, whether we can save humanity from climate and environmental disruption, how the collapse of our civilization can be prevented in time.

Business Valuation: in neo-classical economics, cost of business does not take into account the costs related to the use of the natural commons, the natural resources and the environment. We all agree that no longer we can proceed with this path. Aware of the difficulty to valuate and attribute these costs, we no longer can ignore them. There can be several reasons for internalizing environmental costs. Natural and vital resources have become scarce. If we continue to deplete rainforest and pollute the atmosphere we destroy the vital resources which allow us to breathe, which are the condition for life on Earth.

A New Game: let’s use the game of chess, its board and pieces for comparison. Right, we are more than two players. But most important, the game board itself changes during the course of the game. Also rather than taking the opponents’ pieces, they players need to negotiate, trade and coordinate, who takes what, where and how much. We also need to bring new players into the game, to assure, that we can continue the game 20 years from now.

Goal Setting for Sustainability: What goals do we need to pursue to secure resources, peace, quality and justice today and for future generations across all cultures and societies? Our goals might differ, but here are 3 goals, which need to have highest attention and priority:

• Protect the tropical rainforests, as a major source of oxygen and biodiversity;
• Cut CO₂ emissions, rather than betting on geo-engineering or carbon capture and sequestration;
• Work intensely with producers and consumers to achieve the goals of sustainability under the triple bottom line of society, our planet and the global economy.

Getting prepared and ready in heading into a Great Recession, Great Depression: We should not be afraid for an evolution, which is systemic and which we cannot control ourselves on an individual level. If we have achieved high standards of living through continued growth in production and consumption in the industrialized countries, we have to understand that on our planet, resources are limited. We also have to understand, that with population growth from today 7 bn to 9 bn in 2050, we have to change our way of life, our material aspirations. That means we have to step away from resource waste towards a way of life based on sufficiency or just enough for everyone. We should not fear to adopt this new lifestyle, one that is fair and just. There is immense hardship in the Global South, where entire populations suffer most from climate change already today. Intergenerational justice is mandatory. Emerging economies and countries see hope for a better future. As industrialized nations we see opportunities. For both, industrialized and emerging economies, these opportunities must be realized under the premises of sustainability and the safeguard of planet Earth. Urban expansion and development – 70% of world’s population is forecasted to live in urban areas by 2050 –relates to the construction industry, the heaviest industries with regards to CO₂ emissions. These developments mainly occur in emerging economies, increasing climate change pressures and impacts in the developing world. What industrialized nations have achieved up to date, emerging economies are repeating, and they cannot be blamed for doing so. We have to support and help these nations to grow in a sustainable way.

Let’s change together now, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, it is never too late to start: Why together? It is easier to change together. Start in your family, with your neighbors. Start small, little actions of give and take. Exchange, ideas, goods you crafted, created. You will learn that both, sharing and your community will grow naturally.

The entire global community has to go through this process. Building strong communities, we can help each other out, where hardship is present or even dominant. It is not “someone’s” task, an anonymous body, the very rich. It is the task of each of us. And it will not resolve on its own. Don’t wait, it will not come alone. We all have to take our lives in our own hands to build a carbon free society. We all have our vision of a healthy planet, with beautiful wilderness, magnificent valleys and mountains, wild rivers, beautiful redwood forests, tropical rainforest with immense biodiversity, oceans where under the sea surface fascinating and wonderful living creatures unfold. Let’s imagine we are artists, painters and in our imagination we paint the vision of our planet, of today and tomorrow. Yes we can, and yes we “are”. We have strong senses, and we should not forget about them.

So what is material in all that? Nothing. The “Being”, being ourselves together in a strong community, it is by all means something essentially natural. And this is our foundation. We have all the ingredients we need to build our future, to preserve all the natural resources and the beauty of our planet.

Together we can build resilience, which allows us to adapt to climate change. It involves all aspects, green technology, local organic farming, sustainable fisheries, rainforest conservation to just mention a few. The overall goal is to bring drastically down our CO₂ emissions and to build a carbon-free society as fast as possible.

We have to cut our path through strong opposing forces: It want go easily or smoothly. Just think about the oil lobby? Do you think they invest their fortune into green technology if they don’t have to, if cash flows into their pockets as oil flows into ours? Be aware of “green-washing”. What about businesses who strongly rely upon fossil fuels in transportation and shipping? What about the airline business? They want to keep the stream of money flowing freely into their pockets to grow their businesses. The very wealthy don’t want to abandon or renounce to luxury. There are huge interests from resource rich countries and their wealthy people, as well as the luxury industry, to maintain the legacy and run business as usual. Nonetheless we know, that such behavior can be catastrophic for our planet and our civilization. It is very important to bring all stakeholders together, to work and communicate together.

Yes, we have to accept that we will be deceived, denigrated and that we have to deal with a lot of frustration. Recently during a guest lecture at the university, where I am taking classes in corporate sustainability, a friend of mine to which I gave highly consideration, gave this guest lecture. In front of all my student peers, he denigrated me, accused me out of the blue. Yes I was very deceived and disappointed about that person. Thinking the situation over I believe that it was fear, that caused this person to act in such a bad way, perhaps fear that the content of his lecture was not at the university level? In fact his lecture was well structured, and very interactive. The lesson is that we have to accept fear, in the process of transforming our society and ourselves. Fear is as natural as any other emotion, such as love. The lesson I took with me was to always stay tolerant, accept the feelings of the other, who eventually have to deal with hardship at that right moment.

Yes, there will be many obstacles we have to come over, and our path will be stony. And yes, we have no choice but to move forward, step-by-step, in being smart, using our skills and intelligence. Lobbies are huge and powerful, so are criminal organizations acting internationally, e.g. drug cartels. And sometimes criminal organizations are tangled up with international businesses, where illegal practice and corruption are common practice. We are powerful and strong, too. And we can make use of our social networks to get even more powerful. And we have the strength of our hearts, our strong vision and values which leads us to the preservation and the safeguard of our planet. Global competition is fierce under tough global economic conditions and strong financial pressures. In working towards the safeguard of planet Earth, we are riding the waves of the Blue Ocean (Chan Kim & Mauborgne) in which creativity and innovation is dominant, making competition obsolete.

The Great Transformation: Governments, Business Corporations, NGOs and all stakeholders have to work hand in hand. We need good government, good business practices, good in the sense of ethics, with regards to the respect of fundamental human rights, climate ethics, good in the sense of sustainability of economics, people, nature and our natural commons to develop a culture of mutual trust and strong relationships. Rather than talking about recession or depression, we should use for the era we unknowingly entered decades ago the term “Transformation”. Recession and Depression are associated to financial and economic crisis. In the era we are living today, we could reuse this terminology again. But the situation is different. It is not only the economy, it is a triple crisis (in reference to Jeremy Leggett) of climate change, energy and economics. Therefore it make sense to rather use the term “The Great Transformation”, which implies change, governance, strategy and action for the sake and to meet the resource and livelihood needs of the world’s population today and in the future.

While it is in our hands and in each ones responsibility, as consumers and producers, governments, national and local, together with business corporations need to stimulate, support and give directions and roadmaps to achieve this transformation. Each of us is a genius. Each of us holds a plenitude of ideas, of creativity. Bringing all this energy and ideas together, we can foster ideas, turn them into innovation for transforming our society, together with government, business enablers, entrepreneurs, eventually also venture finance.

A Good and Happy Year 2012: Let’s change together. Let’s build and become part of strong communities. Let’s exchange ideas and goods for a better world. Let’s be responsible in what we produce and what we consume. Let’s protect and care about our planet, being aware that we are many and that our planet’s resources are scarce. We want to wish all of you and to all the people on our planet a good and happy New Year 2012.