ENVS 5150 Corporate Sector Strategies

Course Overview Focus on overall economic context some attention to practical business problems Postindustrial: the Redefinition of Wealth Sectors & use-value Distinctions between –protection & alternatives –big & small business; corporate & community Importance of values-driven or mission- driven business Relationships within and outside of the firm

The Green Economy A Historical Transition: …from Quantity to Quality A Question of Potentials …not simply limits Key to Sustainability: Redefining Wealth

Quantitative: Money & Material Accumulation Qualitative: Well-being Regeneration

Industrialism: The Divided Economy Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value Consumption Production People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

Invisible Economy (1) Total Productive System of an Industrial Society (layer cake with icing) GNP-Monetized ½ of Cake Top two layers Non-Monetized Productive ½ of Cake Lower two layers GNP Private Sector Rests on GNP Public Sector Rests on Social Cooperative Love Economy Rests on Natures Layer Private Sector PublicSector underground economy Love Economy Mother Nature All rights reserved.Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson 2

Basics of a Green Economy 1.The Service Economy Hot Showers and Cold Beer Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access, Shelter, Community, etc. 2. The Lake Economy Flowing with nature, Every output an input, Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the work

Structural obstacles to sustainability Nature of the Corporation & the SBL Centrality of Economic Growth Ownership patterns inconsistent with Stewardship Alienated relationship to human need –Creating rather than responding to it

The Corporation in History initial charters the Corporate Person & industrialization Bureaucracy: the rise of Big Organization Fordism: Mass production & the crisis of effective demand –postwar Waste Economy Post-Fordism: commanding heights shift from manufacturing to finance and retail, globalization & outsourcing

The Business Case for Sustainability Single Bottom Line Sustainability (SBLS) Essential to large corporations Not sufficient to create ecological economies Corporations need outside help!

Internal & External Action The balance is different for big & small business Relationship between democracy & economic evolution Centrality of Stakeholder relationships Importance of New Enterprise Networks

General Priorities labour vs. resource intensity --beyond cog-labour; upgrading work (human capital) qualitative indicators of wealth and progress --corporate accounting / community indicators place-based production & development economic democracy: workers, community, society organizational change: structure & culture that infuses all operations with sustainability goals & practices. transparency: de-monopolizing information restructuring of manufacturing: means/ends marketing: affects all aspects of the firm

Quantification & Value What is measured gets done What gets counted is valued; What is valued gets counted

Indicators [If it is to be achieved, the new economic system] will result from our becoming better ecological accountants at the community level. If we must as a future necessity recycle essentially all materials and run on sunlight, then our future will depend on accounting as the most important and interesting discipline. Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place

A Dashboard for the Cockpit The Family of indicators: –Urban Metabolism or regional mass balance –Green GDP (e.g. Genuine Progress IndicatorGPI ) –Ecological Footprint –Carbon accounting / carbon footprint –Life-cycle Assessment (products, processes, landscapes) –Industry-based accounts: food, building, forestry, etc. –ISO –Local Development Standards –5 capitals: personal, professional, spiritual, environmental and financial –Firm sustainability accounting –Sustainable Community Indicators –Risk Assessment, EIA, etc.

Market Transformation Social & Environmental Values become drivers of mindful markets Money & capital increasingly a means (not the end-goal) of economic development Involves the transformation of regulation incentives & disincentives built into everyday economic life

Distributed Regulation Need for incentives & disincentives embedded in everyday production & exchange. 3 rd Party certification systems as non-state regulation. Finance & taxation as regulation Power of collective consumerism B-Corp: certification of corporate governance: changing corporate DNA Ownership tailored to stewardship and democracy.