7

Intelligent Growth

Balancing Ecological Health
and Economic Progress

It is tempting to think that Mother Nature will be safe now that an environmental ethic has swept around the world. Even business firms are competing to prove how “green” they are. But recent events suggest that the problems remain formidable. The “Big Green” initiative in California was defeated soundly in 1994, and an antienvironment backlash is under way in other parts of the United States.¹

These reactions represent more than resistance by growth advocates. In a wholistic world, they are another part of the whole, telling us that environmentalism is not easily reconciled with protecting jobs, improving living standards, avoiding government intrusion, and other issues that concern most people.

The “McDonald’s Clamshell Decision” offers a good example of the complexity involved. Environmentalists demanded that the company use paper packages rather than the plastic “clamshells,” which, it was claimed, cause pollution and do not decompose well. But the company had spent millions of dollars developing a biodegradable plastic package. Furthermore, studies published in Science concluded that plastic is less environmentally harmful than paper when all factors are considered, such as the loss of trees and the energy needed to make paper packages. Yet the public pressure became so intense when droves of children were organized to write letters of protest, that McDonald’s relented and switched to paper, against the better judgment of its managers.²

Thus the call for environmental protection may be long overdue, but it is not simply a moral issue. A sweeping transformation of the entire techno-economic system is involved that produces complex conflicts between equally valid but opposing interests. The concept of “sustainability” has become widely accepted because it is now clear to all that the environment must be sustainable indefinitely. But this point of view fails to recognize the enormous demands posed by billions of deprived people who are just starting to industrialize. Some broader vision is required that reconciles the urgent need to protect the Earth with the equally urgent need to vastly improve human life.

This chapter describes an economic perspective now emerging that offers the promise of resolving this dilemma. It may seem too good to be true, but an “ecological-economic transformation” is under way as progressive corporations around the world use the power of information technology (IT), the creativity of enterprise, and the collaborative ideals of democracy to devise an intelligent form of growth that is both productive and ecologically benign. In place of the begrudging compliance with regulations that marked the past, most business leaders now understand that there can be no future without a sound ecological system, and so they are turning their formidable problem-solving talents to this goal in earnest. Matthew Kiernan, CEO of a Swiss-based global corporation, put it this way:

We are currently witnessing the beginning of nothing less than a global industrial restructuring [in which] a company’s environmental performance will be increasingly central to its competitiveness and survival.³

RECONCILING ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENT

Although an ideological battle over the environment has continued for decades, polls show that the great majority of people from all walks of life and all nations now understand the imperative need to safeguard the environment.⁴

Rise of the Environmental Ethic

The urgency of sound environmental management became starkly clear when the collapse of Communism revealed what can happen if nature is ignored. Shoddy practices had so undermined the ecological system of the entire Soviet Union that one trillion dollars may be needed to restore it to health. This highly symbolic failure, combined with similar incidents in the West, such as the Exxon oil spill in Valdez, Alaska, drove home the wisdom of ecological protection. In 1993, 81 percent of business executives thought protecting the environment was necessary and reasonable.⁵

To be sure, much of this newfound motivation is the result of stern social pressures. Consumers are so concerned about the environment that 80 percent are willing to pay more for ecologically safe goods. The U.S. government has passed demanding legislation, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increased indictments of illegal practices dramatically to enforce these laws. Many corporations have been fined millions of dollars, and offending executives spent 550 months in jail during 1993.⁶

The most obvious justification for environmental protection is that pollutants cause disease. Cancer rates are rising 1 percent per year and now account for roughly one-third of all deaths in modern nations; as a result, people living today suffer twice the risk of cancer that their grandparents did. The incidence of brain cancer has doubled during the past two decades.⁷ Although this is partly due to people smoking, living longer, and other social factors, cancer rates are highest in industrialized areas, suggesting that a major cause may be the presence of chemicals, combustion exhausts, and other pollutants.⁸ It is estimated that the thinning of the ozone layer alone will cause 200,000 deaths over the next few decades. “The problem is more serious than we believed,” said William K. Reilly, former head of the EPA.⁹

But the problem goes beyond practical concerns. People now grasp the profound reality that the Earth is a unified global organism supporting an intricate web of life. To put it in symbolic terms, the planet is a great living being in its own right. And if all life is intimately connected, then humans share a familylike relationship with other species. That’s why psychologists find acute signs of distress over the destruction of nature. “I am amazed at the number of people who break down in tears when they think about what we’re doing to the Earth,” says Theodore Roszak.¹⁰

Many claim that ecological awareness today represents a historic shift in consciousness, comparable to the religious consciousness of old and the technological consciousness of the Industrial Age. Willis Harman defines it as a “global mind change,” a fundamentally different philosophy that views the entire Earth as a sacred creation imbued with spiritual meaning.¹¹

The Coming Leap in Global Industrialization

It’s wonderful that so many people now feel a compelling need to protect nature, but they often fail to recognize other unavoidable realities. Apart from the satiated West, most of the world’s population is starved for the same material comforts now enjoyed by a few prosperous nations such as the United States. Try telling the Mexicans, Indians, or Chinese that material growth is a bad idea. Despite the fact that pollution has made lung disease the leading cause of death in China, the nation is determined to pursue economic growth as rapidly as possible.¹²

Moreover, the number of people in undeveloped nations is five times greater than in developed nations and is almost certain to double. Thus, the stark reality is that industrial output is likely to increase by roughly a factor of five to ten over the next few decades. The industrialization of China alone should double the load on the environment, and India may double it again.¹³

In short, the rapid industrialization of the globe seems almost unstoppable. The world faces an unprecedented challenge of creating some new and as yet unknown techno-economic system that can manage such a great leap in economic growth on a planet already suffering from severe environmental stress.

Between Two Groups of True Believers

Beyond general agreement on protecting the environment, opinions divide sharply when tough questions are raised about how to handle this imminent burst in industrialization.

The idea of sustainability advocated by environmentalists is a useful concept, but it does not address this huge problem. Somewhat like the equally popular appeal of “corporate social responsibility,” sustainability focuses on an ecological goal while ignoring the economic goal—a massive increase in industrial growth is needed. “Sustainability has become devalued to the point where it is now just a cliché,” noted one analyst.¹⁴

Sustainability alone would be realized admirably if we returned to the agrarian past, but how many of us are willing to give up our comfortable lifestyles? I often wonder, when hearing people lecture an audience about the evils of industrialization, Didn’t they take a jet airplane to attend this meeting? They must drive cars? Don’t they shop at supermarkets? The fact is that we all depend on modern technology and industry for the necessities of modern life.

A similar myopia prevails at the other end of the political spectrum. Many conservatives still celebrate the virtues of unbounded economic growth, and some even insist that population growth—the key factor driving the despoliation of the planet—should not be curbed because people are the “ultimate resource.”¹⁵ With billions suffering from poverty, famine, and other symptoms of overpopulation, one can only marvel at such faith.

Thus, the primary obstacle to environmental progress today is a clash between two groups of true believers who obscure the complex nature of the problem: one side is intent on protecting the environment at great cost to human welfare, while the other side is intent on growth at great cost to the environment.

A few years ago, big business was unreasonable in its opposition to the environment, but now many environmentalists can be just as unreasonable. Some environmentalists are themselves critical of the movement. John Heritage blamed the “go-for-the-throat” attitude of his colleagues for today’s anti-environment backlash, and Gregg Easterbrook had a similar criticism: “Through the next few years, conventional environmental viewpoints will collapse, done in by their own disjunction from the realities of the natural world. In their place will emerge a new middle path I call ‘ecorealism.’”¹⁶

An obvious example of the lack of communication is the continual attacks on prominent corporations. Business could improve, certainly; however, 92 percent of corporate executives now understand that the environment must be one of their top priorities, and many have voluntarily taken the lead on critical issues.¹⁷ When data on the ozone problem was announced, Du Pont immediately accelerated its plans to phase out all harmful gases. The chairman of Dow Chemical was the first CEO to call for full-environmental pricing of all products, a bold step toward using economic incentives to curb pollution (see Box 7.1).¹⁸ Yet environmentalists persist in condemning these companies, often handcuffing themselves to corporate facilities under TV coverage. Are these attacks justified? Do they serve any useful purpose?

This clash between the Luddite mentality of environmental purists and the zealotry of unlimited growth advocates has squandered the lead America once held in the exploding environmental industry. Germany and Japan now dominate the market for product recycling, solar cells, high-efficiency appliances, pollution control equipment, and other booming fields.¹⁹

The Ecological-Economic Transformation

Curbing wasteful lifestyles and business practices is urgent, but moralizing against economic growth ignores the vast dimensions of the task. Even now we see a rising tide of industrialization doom wildlife species to extinction, destroy forests, turn farmland into desert, wipe out fishing stocks, foul our air and water, and cause severe disease²⁰—while the underdeveloped nations are likely to magnify these problems manyfold over the next few decades.

The only feasible solution is to devise a more sophisticated way of life that is both economically comfortable and ecologically benign—an “ecological-economic transformation,” or “eco-economic transformation.” There are few easy answers because this enormous task will require serious compromise as we trade off the costs and gains of various solutions. Expenditures for environmental protection in the United States rose from 0.8 percent of GDP in 1972 to 2.4 percent in 1992, about $200 billion, causing total declines of several percentage points in productivity, economic growth, and per capita income.²¹

For instance, the problem of auto emissions is not likely to be resolved easily. The world’s fleet of 500 million cars, which even now has made driving in major cities almost unbearable, is expected to double to a billion vehicles by 2010. Leading American states, such as California, have mandated electric cars to reduce auto exhausts, but this approach has its drawbacks. The added cost and limited range of electrics will limit their use, old batteries with toxic chemicals may soon litter the Golden State, and pollution is likely to move to power plants that provide the electricity. Indeed, a study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency found that electric cars could increase pollutant levels.²²

We could simply recycle everything, people say, and solve the problem. Well, it’s not that simple. The systemic nature of the recycling problem became apparent when cities found themselves holding bulging warehouses of old newspaper because present recycling programs are having trouble covering costs.

Integrating Economic Progress and Ecological Health

Fortunately, a wave of innovation is under way as business managers, environmentalists, government officials, and consumers struggle to protect nature while also serving human needs. These “green economic practices” go beyond the old war between business and the environment because the two can reinforce one another if approached properly. Just as the quality revolution revealed that we can have both high-quality goods and lower prices, the eco-economic transformation is based on the careful integration of environmental and economic goals.

Having accepted the economic reasons for change, pragmatic business corporations have moved ahead on the issue. Indeed, there is a refreshing tone of bold innovation because sound environmental management can avoid litigation, reduce operating costs, attract customers, and be in accord with social values. Environmental protection is now regarded by progressive managers around the world as a new economic frontier offering huge opportunities. Stephen Schmidheiny, a Swiss businessman, expressed it best: “Sustainable development makes good business sense because it can create competitive advantages and new opportunities. But it requires far-reaching shifts in corporate attitudes and new ways of doing business.”²³

PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Managing this leap in growth prudently requires dramatic changes in all phases of management, so many authorities have developed concepts to help understand this complex undertaking: the “three Ps” (“Pollution Prevention at a Profit”); “three Rs” (“Recycling, Reclamation, and Remanufacturing”); and progressive phases of environmental management (“Reactive, Receptive, Constructive, and Proactive”).²⁴ My studies show that this field can be described in terms of the five principles discussed in the sections that follow.

Internalize Environmental Costs and Benefits

Possibly the single most effective action we can take is to internalize environmental costs. People may favor ecological protection in the abstract, but their actions are guided by economic costs and benefits. One of the reasons auto congestion is so heavy is that $300 billion of public funds subsidize auto travel. In cities such as Singapore—where the cost of environmental “externalities” are passed on to drivers, or “internalized”—the problem almost solves itself as people decide that other alternatives are cheaper.

The concept is being adopted widely. A good example is provided by the 1990 Clean Air Act: by allowing firms to sell pollution rights to one another, companies balance the costs and gains of various cleanup facilities against the cost of pollution rights to arrive at optimal decisions. Early estimates were that this would cost $600 to $1,600 per ton of pollutants removed, but the actual cost was $150 per ton. “Once you give people a choice and they have an incentive, they find a way to do it,” said an EPA administrator.²⁵

Other examples abound. Power companies in thirty states are paying the public to avoid using energy, thereby supplying half of future energy growth through “negawatts.” Governments around the world are using various methods to estimate the costs polluters must pay to compensate for environmental damage, as when the U.S. government fined Exxon $1 billion for the Valdez oil spill. Cities are beginning to charge people for picking up their trash. Some firms are basing managers’ pay partly on environmental performance.²⁶

Extend Prevention Throughout the Product Cycle

Pollution prevention is no longer limited to cleaning up waste but is now regarded as a constant activity extending throughout the product cycle. As the examples in Box 7.2 suggest, companies now design products with materials that minimize environmental impact, they develop manufacturing processes that are energy efficient and nonpolluting, simplify consumer packaging to avoid waste, refill used containers, repair products to extend their life, and recycle the final discarded product.²⁷

The significance of this new perspective can be assessed by comparing it to progress in other fields. Just as TQM now emphasizes more robust product designs and continual improvement, and just as health care is changing focus from curing illness to prevention and wellness, environmental protection is best achieved early in the product cycle.

Close the Manufacturing Cycle

When a product’s useful life comes to an end, another principle comes into play: close the manufacturing cycle by using waste as the source of raw materials.

The large-scale recovery of useable resources from waste is improving to the point where business often prefers recycling materials because it is cheaper. “The enthusiasm out there for recycling is overwhelming,” said Dean Buntrock, chairman of Waste Management, Inc., the primary recycling corporation in America.²⁸ Major portions of aluminum, copper, steel, glass, paper, and other products are produced from recycled materials now, especially in Japan, where half of all waste is recycled.

To facilitate recycling, manufacturers such as BMW, IBM, Xerox, and HP are rapidly introducing a technique called “design for disassembly” (DFD). BMW estimates that 20 million European cars will be recycled by the end of this decade. GM, Ford, and Chrysler have built a joint laboratory for developing DFD methods. American autos are now built of 75 percent recycled materials, and BMW’s are approaching 95 percent. Many managers claim all products will be recycled in about ten years.²⁹

Thus manufacturing is moving to a position that regards pollutants as not inherently bad, but simply resources that are in the wrong place. The task then becomes one of converting waste into useful resources. By developing sophisticated recovery methods, the level of recycled materials should approach 100 percent in time, turning today’s overflowing garbage dumps into veritable mines of valuable material deposits.

Obtain Accurate Information on Environmental Impacts

In order to guide such complex matters, effective information systems are needed that will allow managers to assess the trade-offs between environmental and economic costs. Sound decisions depend on accurate information.

Studies by Alcan, a large Canadian maker of aluminum windows, show that construction only consumes 1 to 2 percent of the total energy costs incurred during a window’s typical life. The rest is passed through the window, so attention should focus on better insulated designs. Procter & Gamble and many other companies have conducted such life cycle analyses (LCAs) and found them equally useful. “If you don’t use sound science to make these decisions, you’ll make environmentally bad choices,” said a P&G vice president. Sophisticated software programs are being developed that conveniently conduct LCAs on typical PCs.³⁰

Companies are also evaluating the environmental impacts of their practices. Various forms of “ecological audits,” “green accounting,” and “social indicators” are being developed, including the translation of environmental impacts into dollar equivalents. And a “green GDP” is being developed that will bring environmental damage, renewable resources, and other nonmarket costs and benefits into national economic accounts.³¹

Develop Collaborative Working Relations

Because ecological problems are wide-ranging issues that span different institutions and nations, they can only be handled by interested parties working together, and it is in the interests of all parties to do so.

The Environmental Defense Fund has joined with McDonald’s, General Motors, and other major corporations to advise these companies on improving their environmental policies. Roughly one-third of major corporations had organized permanent environmental advisory councils as of 1993. The U.S. government has formed the Green Lights Program to assist companies in developing business practices that are ecologically sound and profitable.

THE POWER OF ECONOMIC REALITY

The hopeful feature of the principles of environmental management is that they are eminently practical, so they reinforce the interests of average people rather than requiring heroic altruism that cannot often be sustained. Table 7.1 shows they are being adopted, albeit slowly, and Peter Coors, CEO of Coors Brewing, known for his conservative views, expressed the hard-core business perspective in these terms:

Environmental performance is a dependable path to profitability. Find pollution or waste and you’ve found inefficiency … fundamentally, all pollution is lost profit. By striving to eliminate it, we can together grow a more efficient, competitive economy.³²

Obviously, this approach lacks the love of nature that motivates environmentalists and some other companies. As shown in Box 7.3, the Body Shop not only strives to operate by the above principles, but it goes beyond them to conduct public interest campaigns that protect the environment. However, it seems unlikely that more than a minority is capable of such admirable conduct.

That is precisely why the view of ordinary businesspeople like Peter Coors is so promising: it makes sense in hard economic terms. This fundamental conclusion reminds us once again that markets can be compatible with social values, as argued in Chapter 4.

Recent surveys of hundreds of environmental business investments found average annual returns running from 63 percent to 204 percent. The researcher concluded: “Pollution prevention is one of the fundamental shifts taking place in business throughout the world. Every company can increase its profits and productivity by reducing pollutants.”³³ Other studies find that chemical plants using pollution-prevention technology typically recover their investment in six months or less and then go on to save huge sums every year after. An environmental think tank concluded, “The pollution prevention ethic is firmly taking root in American business.”³⁴ Box 7.4 describes successful projects under way.

The economic advantages are enormous. As of 1991, the environmental management industry in America consisted of 70,000 businesses employing 1 million workers and generating $130 billion in sales. Considering the normal economic multiplier, the total impact likely produces 3.5 million jobs, $270 billion in sales, and $76 billion in federal taxes. If Americans could conserve energy as efficiently as the Japanese, we could save $200 billion per year, which would eliminate the federal budget deficit.³⁵

Achieving this societal transformation will be a mean feat that is sure to test fervent environmentalists and staunch growth advocates alike. Neither a pure allegiance to the environment nor to growth will be possible; instead, a more intelligent, balanced synthesis is needed that goes beyond sustainability. Gunter Pauli, CEO of Ecover, a European corporation, put it this way: “The era of Left Greens [environmentalists] is over. The era of Right Capitalists [growth advocates] is over. The two sides are converging.”³⁶

The concept of “sustainable development” is closer to reality, but it is also somewhat misleading because the word “development” is really a euphemism that avoids the negative connotations of “growth.” I find the concept of “intelligent growth” or “smart growth” more useful because it acknowledges the need for growth, but in a more sophisticated manner based on the use of knowledge to make choices that protect nature and serve society as well.

These distinctions may appear to be quibbling over words, but they can be crucial because they often lead to different types of action. For instance, much attention is being devoted to defining sustainability in precise terms so it can be implemented, and many people are convinced that only by abandoning the free enterprise system can we create an equitable enough distribution of resources and reasonable enough lifestyles to solve the environmental problem.³⁷

Such a scenario may be possible, but it is hard to even vaguely envision what it would look like. The fall of Communism has affirmed that free enterprise is the only viable way to manage today’s complex world. Likewise, achieving sustainability is far too complex to be entrusted to some government agency, a group of scientists, or other elites. Like other complex undertakings—achieving success in a career, a corporate strategy, or a national goal—it can only be pursued by incrementally moving in a general direction as our understanding improves. Thus, an ecologically sustainable future cannot be planned, but must emerge out of free markets guided by democratic institutions to continually balance the needs of the Earth and its inhabitants.

Finding our way will be easier if we bear in mind the principles of the New Management. The Information Revolution should make it possible to draw on democracy and enterprise to create an intelligent form of growth that protects the environment. Corporations and governments should involve their constituencies in creating a green economic infrastructure and then allow internal market forces to sort out conflicting claims into optimal decisions. The task will be daunting, but information systems should improve our ability to monitor environmental conditions, understand the trade-offs, internalize costs, educate people, embrace nonpolluting modes of “teleworking” and “teleliving,” and generally shape a more conserving society.

The concept of corporate community described in Chapter 3 helps put the role of environmental management in perspective. Protecting ecological systems is a fundamental priority because it affects not only the general public but all stakeholders as well. After all, the environment is the ultimate corporate stakeholder.

Reconciling the Obstacles Within

The following conclusions stand out as a guide to the major changes that are needed:

1. The world is very likely to experience a five- to tenfold increase in economic growth over the long term.

2. A complete transformation in technological, economic, and social systems is needed to make societies ecologically benign.

3. Business will have to develop systems for green manufacturing, recovery of discarded products, and full environmental costing.

4. Government must bear the responsibility for monitoring the environment, passing protective laws, and internalizing costs.

5. The public must adopt a more temperate style of living that is compatible with ecological health.

This transformation will inevitably alter the way modern societies are structured, but the truly difficult obstacles lie within us as individuals. The change to an ecologically healthy economy will require an inner change in our personal values. Can people in advanced nations, especially the United States, tame their extravagant consumption habits? How many business-people will be able to see beyond their immediate financial performance? Can environmentalists accept the need for economic growth, especially as it races through the undeveloped world?

It is sure to be a difficult struggle for average Americans to accept limits on their indulgent lifestyles. Is it reasonable for many families of two or three people to live in 5,000-square-foot homes, consuming enough resources to sustain several families in other parts of the world? Isn’t a second home used for a few weekends a year wasteful? Can we tolerate a throwaway culture in which everything—from cigarette lighters to autos—is disposable, without bearing environmental costs? (I know the first reaction of my family when faced with anything outmoded is to just toss it out—then I retrieve it from the trash.)

Although business has made great advances, one of the themes that emerged from the CIT survey is a lack of awareness of how pervasive the problem really is. Most manufacturing managers are working on environmental protection, but time and again, others claimed it did not apply to their white-collar organization because they “did not manufacture anything.” Yet they operated buildings that had to be constructed, lighted, heated, and cooled. They employed people who drove cars to work, used electrical equipment, and discarded paper. One manager noted: “I am amazed to see lights left on during long vacations and reams of paper trashed without being recycled.”

Oddly enough, environmentalists may prove the most resistant. Sharon Newsome, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, noted: “I wondered if the environmental community was capable of [compromise]? I’ve come to the conclusion we’re not. Taking on your enemies is more fun.”³⁸ If we Americans cannot agree among ourselves, how can we expect the Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, and members of other nations to agree with us on the urgency of disciplining their birth rates and their newfound appetites for consumption?

Resolving these conflicts involves accepting the reality that life is more complex than any single perspective. For instance, despite the fact that the weather has been unseasonably hot in recent years, scientific evidence for global warming remains controversial because the temperature rise that has occurred since 1900 lies within the normal range of temperature cycles. One wonders how much of today’s concern happens to be a result of political fashion? George Will notes that a decade or two ago we were deluged with similar fears over global cooling.³⁹

It seems to me that it is necessary in these personal, overwhelmingly complex matters to go beyond management and technology by carefully attending to the subtle interactions between life and its environment. A new form of “biologic” is needed that appreciates these subtle ecological considerations, that recognizes the unique character of each natural system, senses each one’s state of ecological health, learns how to draw what we need with minimal disruption, and develops appropriate means for doing so.⁴⁰ If we can cultivate a society attuned to the needs of other species, we may then learn to coexist with them in harmony.

A small accomplishment in my life had a great impact on my understanding. I love to be surrounded by nature, and so I have cultivated a garden that envelops my home in profuse greenery. It’s not practical in any economic sense, and it requires considerable time and resources to maintain. But I built a compost system that helps make gardening convenient. Rather than having to bag leaves, grass, and the tons of other organic matter any garden produces and then having it hauled miles away to some dump, I just toss it into my compost bin. Throughout the year I can then extract rich black soil from the bottom that nourishes my garden with better nutrients than costly and damaging chemicals.

It’s a modest success, of course, but I’ve found that this humble system is not only convenient, it is also spiritually refreshing. There is something about closing the cycle of nature that strikes me as proper, in keeping with the rhythm of seasons. Tending a garden with grace is my small but cherished offering to the propagation of life on a healthy Earth.

If we can become attuned to the larger garden composed of the vast ecological diversity that surrounds civilization, there is no good reason why we cannot develop a benign global economy that allows us to live in harmony with the Earth. We would then find a way to build clean factories, turn farms and parks into chemical-free natural settings, reforest denuded deserts and cities, downsize our homes and public buildings, harness the power of IT to replace needless travel, and employ countless other ways of maintaining a bountiful, healthy environment.

These difficult changes should be easier if we see that they constitute an historic innovation, somewhat comparable to the invention of democracy. Where democracy created a sustainable social order based on the sacred rights of people, the eco-economic transformation should form a sustainable economic order based on the sacred rights of Nature. Recognizing that all life is sacred does not mean we cannot harvest plants and animals to serve human needs. It means that we should do so sparingly, with reverence for the passing of their lives into ours, like a sacrament.

Notes

1. See Carl Deal, The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations (Berkeley, Calif.: Odonian Press, 1993).

2. George C. Lodge and Jeffrey F. Rayport, “Knee-deep and Rising: America’s Recycling Crisis,” Harvard Business Review (September-October 1991). Art Kleiner, “What Does It Mean to Be Green?” Harvard Business Review (July-August 1991).

3. Matthew J. Kiernan, “The Eco-Industrial Revolution,” Business in the Contemporary World (Autumn 1992), p. 133.

4. Pollster George Gallup summed up the results of his surveys on environmentalism in a talk given at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1992: “The state of the environment is no longer an exotic, elitist issue [but] a truly global concern, reaching all levels of society and nations around the world.”

5. Mark Starik, “When Business Goes for the Green,” GW Magazine (Summer 1993).

6. Starik, “When Business Goes for the Green.”

7. David Brown, “Cancer Risk Up Sharply in This Era,” Washington Post (February 9, 1994).

8. Eliot Marshall, “Experts Clash Over Cancer Data,” Science (November 1990), pp. 900–902; Susan Okie, “Cancer Rates in Industrial Countries Rise,” Washington Post (December 9, 1990).

9. Michael Weisskopf, “Skin Cancer Risk Increases,” Washington Post (October 23, 1991).

10. Theodore Roszak, Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopyschology (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); Terrence O’Connor, “Therapy for a Dying Planet,” Networker (September/October 1989).

11. Willis Harman, Global Mind Change (Indianapolis: Knowledge Systems, 1988).

12. He Bochuan, China on the Edge (China Books, 1991); Vaclav Smil, China’s Environmental Crisis (Armonk, New York: Sharpe, 1993); and Sheryl WuDunn, “Chinese Suffer from Rising Pollution,” New York Times (February 28, 1993).

13. See the “Bruntland Report” by the World Commission of Environment and Development, in Our Common Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), and Jim MacNeill, Pieter Winsemius, and Taizo Yakushiji, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Many older studies have predicted a tenfold increase in industrial consumption, such as Herbert Robinson, “Can the World Stand Higher Productivity and Incomes?” The Futurist (October, 1977), and Jay Forrester, “Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems,” Technology Review (January 1971).

14. Johan Holmberg, Making Development Sustainable (London: Earthscan, 1992).

15. One of the most articulate proponents of this view is Julian Simon, of the University of Maryland. For one of his recent statements, see “The Unreported Revolution in Population Economics,” The Public Interest (Fall 1990), pp. 89–100.

16. See the views of Wallace Kaufman, former president of two environmental groups, No Turning Back (New York: Basic Books, 1994). John Heritage, “When Environmentalists Go for the Throat,” Washington Post (June 2, 1995). Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on the Earth (New York: Viking, 1995).

17. The Corporate Response to the Environmental Challenge (Amsterdam: McKinsey & Company, 1991). Pieter Winsemius and Ulrich Guntram, “Responding to the Environmental Challenge,” Business Horizons (March-April 1992).

18. Boyce Rensberger, “Decline of Ozone-Harming Chemicals Suggests Atmosphere May Heal Itself,” Washington Post (August 26, 1993). “Quick, Save the Ozone,” BusinessWeek (May 17, 1993).

19. Curtis Moore and Alan Miller, Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States, and the Race for Environmental Technology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).

20. For an assessment of the environmental problem see Lester Brown, State of the World (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), and Donella Meadows et al., Beyond the Limits (Post Mills, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 1992).

21. Bruce Bartlett, “The High Cost of Turning Green,” Wall Street Journal (September 14, 1994). Noah Walley and Bradley Whitehead, “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” Harvard Business Review (May-June 1994).

22. Oscar Suris, “Electric Cars Also Pollute Air, ERA Study Says,” Wall Street Journal (April 5, 1994).

23. Stephan Schmidheiny, Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), p. xii.

24. These examples are from William K. Reilly, “Environment, Inc.,” Business Horizons (March-April 1992), pp. 9–11; Joseph F. Coates, “Waste Not,” American Way (November 1, 1992); and Winsemius and Guntram, “Responding to the Environmental Challenge,” pp. 12–20.

25. Martha Hamilton, “Selling Pollution Rights Cuts the Cost of Cleaner Air,” Washington Post (August 24, 1994).

26. Paul Klebnikov, “Demand-Siders,” Forbes (October 26, 1992). Robert Repetto et al., Green Fees (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1992). Emily Smith et al., “The Greening of Corporate America,” BusinessWeek (April 23, 1990).

27. See Jim Jackson (ed.), Clean Production Strategies (Boca Raton, Fla.: Lewis, 1993).

28. Brian Bremner, “Recycling,” BusinessWeek (March 5, 1990).

29. Gene Bylinsky, “Manufacturing for Reuse,” Fortune (February 6, 1995).

30. “The Green Machine,” Enterprise (October 1994).

31. Hazel Henderson, Paradigms in Progress (Indianapolis: Knowledge Systems, 1991). Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1989).

32. Peter Coors, “The New Corporate Environmentalism,” BusinessWeek (May 11, 1992).

33. Joseph Romm, Lean and Clean Management (New York: Kodansha, 1994).

34. Martha Hamilton, “Firms Saving Money by Preventing Pollution,” Washington Post (June 17, 1992).

35. Timothy Wirth, “Easy Being Green,” Washington Post (October 4, 1992).

36. “Gunter Pauli Cleans Up,” Fast Company (November 1993).

37. Willis Harman, for instance, is a leading spokeperson of this view, which is well described in “Global Dilemmas and the Plausibility of Whole System Change,” Technological Forecasting & Social Change (May 1995).

38. Daniel Glick, “Barbarians Inside the Gate,” Newsweek (November 1, 1993).

39. George Will, “Chicken Littles,” Washington Post (May 31, 1992).

40. The concept of “biologic” was coined by David Wann; see his Biologic: Designing with Nature to Protect the Environment (Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books, 1994).