get together

I have an occasional blog that would have belonged here, so I'll be reposting some old ones. This was posted on August 25, 2005 as is. Well, except for fixing the hyphens.

The people who understand the concept of sustainability--that buying local is smart in the long run, that cars don't have to be mandatory pollution machines that kill tens of thousands of people each year, that it should cost more to ship fish across an ocean twice to have it de-boned in China and brought back, not less--need to get together. We need to get together to talk to each other, to help each other understand broader and broader models of sustainability. We need to inspire each other. We need to keep each other up when things look bleak and move in the wrong direction (plenty to be bleak about nowadays). But more than that, we need to make sustainability a movement in this country. We need to make sustainability the new normal. And we have to hurry.

If we count on economic forces to drive the actions that government and businesses make, the quantity and price of the resource in question is what will be the only justification for change - though more and more the voice of customer and the marketing implications of innovation are weighing in. But every time another regulation is passed, or not, in this country the justification is to save jobs and to grow the economy. Not a word about the eminent demise of EVERY RESOURCE that is not sustainably managed. Every one. Just preserving jobs and growing the economy.

And how, exactly, would the acceleration of a new generation of innovation and services designed around long-term sustainability principles cripple our economy? By taking jobs that already exist. By forcing people who have had the same job for decades to be laid off. By disrupting the system already in place. Systems hate that, and are programmed to avoid it.

Can everyone who is not planning on having at least 10 jobs over the course of their lives please raise their hands? Unfortunately for the time being, the era of the lifetime job has come to an end. We as a generation have learned how to play the game of occupational Frogger. When something starts to sink, jump! When something comes along that will move you closer to your life goals presents itself, jump! No guarantees, but a couple free guys if you're lucky. That is the world we live in. I truly pity those further along who have to transition out of their occupational norm and into this strange, Atari-tinged world. But it's here and it's life.

However, nothing quite says long-term stability than sustainable business. That's what it means, after all.

So then it seems that the key to move things along is to ensure that the jobs are transferred out of the old, archaic as I believe we can now call it, product-oriented model into a new, innovative, service-oriented model that doesn't produce products so much as the services that people gain from using them. Say renting or leasing things until you're done with it instead of selling them. A Rent-A-Center economy, except that the renter is responsible for what happens to the product at the end of its life. Every product should be able to be recycled, or used to make a new version at the end of its life. This is the essence of sustainability.

Throwing something away at the end of its useful life is normal, but it's pretty stupid. If the companies that made these products had to pay to do it, they would innovate to save money instead of passing the costs of disposal on to you, the customer. Right now you are paying for that final wasteful end of their resources and energy.

So join up, sign up, make yourself known, and let's get to talkin'.