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Recently I’ve become quite interested in the works of Paul Hawken. As an environmentalist he states that we need business and entrepreneurship, that this type of human behavior can work in our benefit. There are two main things which need to change though:

1. A corporation can also grow inwards. Creating a better service is sometimes more profitable then trying to sell more. Quality over quantity.
2. Corporations need to start calculating the costs when they cause harm to the environment or society. If you include this in the total picture the profit might be much lower then expected.

This of course needs a change in awareness. The awareness that we are all connected. I’m not speaking about a spiritual connection here, no, let’s keep our feet firmly on the ground. It’s an awareness which originated from technological advances and rational science. Because of globalization things happening on one side of the world have an increasing effect on the other side. Global climate change is another factor which causes a connection between all human beings, all living things on our planet.

I also found these ideas described in the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. In this epic science fiction tale a possible future of the planet Mars is drawn. A future where humans not only inhabit the planet, but try to change it, terraform it into an Earth-like planet.

Robinson describes the planet’s changes in vivid detail. But also the people change, they get areoformed:

“we terraform the planet; but the planet areoforms us”, Red Mars

An empty planet gives opportunities for reinventing society. This is exactly what happens in the trilogy. The link with Paul Hawken can be seen in the following except:

“What about the ecological aspects of this economy that you used to emphasize?”
“They are fundamental,” Vlad said. “…the land, air, and water of Mars belong to no one, …we are the stewards of it for all the future generations. This stewardship will be everyone’s responsibility, but in case of conflicts we propose strong environmental courts, perhaps as part of the constitutional court, which will estimate the real and complete environmental costs of economic activities, and help to coordinate plans that impact the environment.”, Blue Mars

We don’t need to go to Mars to start with all these ideas. We can do it on Earth too, right now.

I found the first three chapters of Ecology of Commerce online here (see Course Schedule):

1. Chapter 1 – A Teasing Irony
2. Chapter 2 – Death of Birth
3. Chapter 3 – Creation of Waste

I found all the chapters of Natural Capitalism online here:

1. Preface
2. Acknowledgements
3. Synopsis
4. Chapter 1 – The Next Industrial Revolution
5. Chapter 2 – Reinventing the Wheels: Hypercars and Neighborhoods
6. Chapter 3 – Waste Not
7. Chapter 4 – Making the World
8. Chapter 5 – Building Blocks
9. Chapter 6 – Tunneling Through the Cost Barrier
10. Chapter 7 – Muda, Service, and Flow
11. Chapter 8 – Capital Gains
12. Chapter 9 – Nature’s Filaments
13. Chapter 10 – Food for Life
14. Chapter 11 – Aqueous Solutions
15. Chapter 12 – Climate: Making Sense and Making Money
16. Chapter 13 – Making Markets Work
17. Chapter 14 – Human Capitalism
18. Chapter 15 – Once Upon a Planet
19. Index
20. References
21. Notes

A summary of Natural Capitalism named “A Roadmap for Natural Capitalism” can be found here.