Hunter Lovins, thinker on sustainability, answers questions | Grist | InterActivist

Questions from Grist editors | Questions from readers

Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism, Inc.

I admire your guts and fortitude as a woman. Do you think being a woman makes you a "better" environmentalist? -- Debbie Hindman, Denver, Colo.

I don't know whether being female makes me better or worse at anything. I might be tempted to say yes, but then there's Dave Brower, who has me beat on being an environmentalist, hands down. But then there's Janine Benyus ... and Randy Hayes ... and Wangari Maathai ... I know so many great men and so many great women whose hearts are pure and who are more committed than me that I'd sure be hesitant to turn this into any sort of competition.

Given that you are "local," c'mon by our Eldorado office and let's meet.

What connections do you see between the future of water and energy? Do you see any prospects for renewable energy that utilize ocean physics? Is there a way to use renewable energy to deliver a reliable supply of clean water to people in developing countries? -- Megan Konar, Chicago, Ill.

The connections are almost endless:

On the policy side, we are making the same conceptual mistakes in water policy that we did in energy: seeking centralized, capital-intensive supply answers when efficient distributed solutions work better, subsidizing the wrong answers and thus making market solutions much harder to achieve, etc.

In ecological terms, carbon-based energy disrupts the climate, which disrupts the hydrological cycle, which disrupts vegetation, which further disrupts the cycle. Take a look at the recent edition of High Country News for a scary look at what climate change is likely to do across the West.

Pumping water takes a lot of energy. Heating water, ditto. Etc.

Yes, renewables from the sea may well be attractive. One friend of mine has an idea to make hydrogen at sea using bobbing buoys, tankering it to ships and ports. Clipper Windpower is exploring undersea currents to be harvested with wind-turbine-like machines.

The real issue, though, is not which technology to choose. Again, we need first to do the least-cost/end-use analysis: What forms of energy do we need, and what supply technologies will meet those needs at least cost? Until we know that, no supply option is the right answer.

Renewables in developing countries make a lot of sense, and are likely the only way that people there will be able to meet their needs. A friend, Raymond Wright, head of the National Petroleum Company in Jamaica, is promoting renewables there very successfully.

I am currently working with Bernard Amadei of Engineers Without Borders to bring renewables to Afghanistan. His students have used solar cells to enable children in Nepal to hook up a computer, and see whales for the first time. You really ought to see the smiles on their faces.

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What websites, books, etc. would you recommend as must-reads for high school and first-year college students, in general and specifically related to natural capitalism? -- Gwyneth Jones, Bellevue, Wash.

Our websites are a good start: natcapinc.com, natcapsolutions.org, and equatornetwork.com.

My colleague Christopher Juniper here at Nat Cap has an extensive reading list on sustainable business and economics that you can get from him at mcjuniper@natcapinc.com.

The RMI website is also an excellent resource.

Tnep.net is a great site out of Australia. These folk are our Australian counterparts and partners.

Also see: Jonathan Porrit's greenfutures.org.uk (Jonathan is kind of the Dave Brower of the U.K.) and sustainability.com, the U.K.-based, U.S.-officed outfit John Elkington (Cannibals with Forks) founded. Both are high quality organizations. Also see the International Finance Corporation, Lester Brown's Earth Policy Institute, the work of Mathis Wackernagel, Development Gateway (a massive resource on development writings), Panda.org (the living planet index), Human Rights Watch, Arctic Circle, Literacy for Environmental Justice, UNEP (the U.N.'s massive site on all this stuff), David Orr's writing (Earth in Mind, Ecological Literacy, The Nature of Design), David Suzuki's writing (The Sacred Balance) and his many films (The Nature of Things, The Journey into New Worlds, The Matrix of Life, The Fire of Creation, etc., available from BullFrog Films).

I've also got the reading list from my MBA class. Write me at hlovins@natcapinc.com.

Can you tell us briefly what pissed the RMI board off so much that they felt the need to treat you so badly? -- Peter Maxson, Brussels, Belgium

Yuck. How about you call me if you want the whole sordid story? I'm kind of under a gag order, and more, a promise that I will not say anything about the situation that would harm the environmental movement as a whole. Or better yet, how about let's just move on and let our various organizations be judged by the work that they do.

I would love to hear your opinion on corporations. How do we know that the efforts of corporations like Shell at social and environmental responsibility are not just PR or greenwashing? -- Amelia Kissick, Falls Church, Va.

Excellent question. Do mistrust them. Do so until they prove to you that they are saying and doing the right thing, and continue to do so over time. I am just finishing (with Anita Burke, who was fired by Shell under Phil Watts for being serious about sustainability when he clearly was not) an analysis of a thesis of mine that a commitment to sustainability should be and will come to be a hallmark to investors of management intelligence and integrity. Check it out in the forthcoming book Natural Advantage of Nations, due out this fall from Earthscan, and perhaps a Harvard Business Review article.

Shell learned from being complicit in the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, but under Phil, it kind of forgot. Now it has the opportunity to remember again, and to return to the truly transformative work that Sir Mark Moody Stewart began.

Corporations have a lot of power. In David Korton's words, they rule the world. But it is our responsibility to hold all companies to higher standards, to not patronize them (the Exxons of the world) if they do not start down the road to becoming truly restorative. We can't expect a company to transform itself overnight, but we can sure insist that it begin to move in that direction.

I actually think that the folk at Bank Watch (a coalition of environmental groups watchdogging the Equator banks) have it a bit wrong. They ought to give the signatories to the Equator Principles a few years' free ride -- or a ride with a lot of dialogue -- and go like hell after the banks that have not signed on. There has to be some reward for trying to be better global citizens.

But what if they sign on, then don't make major corrections? Hypocrisy is the first step to genuine conversion. Let's help these corporations understand that failure to begin is unacceptable, that beginning feels good, and becoming more truly sustainable makes them winners.

Are we pulling out the roots of the problem by showing corporations how much money they can save by being green? -- Amelia Kissick, Falls Church, Va.

Nope, just starting down the route to the solution. Remember the three principles of Natural Capitalism:

Solving our problems will require, first of all, buying time by using all resources taken from the earth or borrowed from the future dramatically more productively. Fortunately, doing this can be profitable, and can create the needed capital to implement the other two principles.

The second principle is to redesign all aspects of business and society to do business as nature does (biomimicry), running on sunlight, creating no persistent toxins, and being "eco-effective" (McDonough and Braungart's concept, presented in Cradle to Cradle).

The third principle is to manage all of our institutions in ways that are restorative of human and natural capital. These are the forms of capital in short supply and in which reinvestment makes the most sense.

But even Natural Capitalism is not enough. We then have to address the very important parallel agenda of ensuring that a vibrant and responsible civil society is creating the sort of future we all want to live in. Markets (an "ecosystem" within which corporations are only one creature) are very powerful tools, but only that. Markets make a good servant, a lousy master, and a worse religion. We've tended to confuse those roles of late in this country. It is time that we all think much harder about what really matters to us, what the real purpose of being alive is, and how to achieve those higher purposes. But here's a clue: Most of what you can stick a price tag on ain't it.

I am in the middle of writing my business plan and am concerned that some of my principles (sustainability, social responsibility, etc.) may be objectionable to potential investors. Do you have any suggestions for overcoming objections that these programs are "too expensive"? -- Sandra Swayze, Lexington, Ky.

Expense is not so much the concern as return on investment. Your business plan has to show that you can sell your products at a sufficient price to repay the cost of inputs, including investment. This is just basic business arithmetic. Check out the whole realm of socially responsible investing (SRI). There are a growing number of SRI venture funds that take your principles as basic requirements to get their attention. Social Venture Network continues to be a good resource for people wanting to get into this field. Or write me at hlovins@natcapinc.com for a list of relevant websites.

1. Do you think labor capital might be the third cornerstone of capitalism, which, when added to money and natural resources, would make corporations truly sustainable?
2. Do you see nuclear energy as having a role to play in a sustainable power mix?
3. Do you think the lawsuit against the five biggest power companies in America is a positive development? What do you see as rounds two and three?
4. Is China going to be the environmental nightmare that we read about?
5. How can we reach the American people to convince them that there is a responsibility associated with our privileged position in the global structure?
6. Are Americans more or less environmentally conscious and active than others in the developed countries? How about compared to the less-developed countries? Why?
7. Do you think Americans expect technology to solve our environmental problems?
8. What group of people do you see as ultimately leading America toward sustainability? In other words, where are you putting your resources?
9. What would you do differently in your career?
10. What is your favorite ethnic food?
--Paul Dueweke, Los Gatos, Calif.

1. My next book (well, one of 'em) with Walter Link is titled The Human Dimensions of Natural Capitalism. We go back and forth about whether there needs to be a "principle" around human capital, whether it is the key to implementing all the others, or just how to treat it. Clearly, this was mostly left out of the first Nat Cap book (though chapter 14 on Curitiba tried to get at it). But it is where I am focusing most of my attention these days.

2. No. This country has spent more money on nuclear power than on the Vietnam War and the space program combined, to get a technology that delivers about as much energy as wood. Most of the Cheney energy plan would subsidize nuclear and fossil options. Let's not throw more good money after bad. There is no one who thinks that a nuclear industry could exist without subsidies. I believe the market has spoken.

3. As an apostate lawyer, I'm not a big fan of suing. (Don't get your knickers in a wad, all you great environmental lawyers -- what you do is very important, and I'm sure glad you are still out there. Especially because suits often open the door for folk like me to then go talk to these guys -- and they mostly are guys -- about what they might do instead.) So clearly, what to do instead needs to be round two, or maybe three. If the threat of a suit is going to get folk to the table, we need to be clear going in what our end game is. Confrontational environmentalists are often a mite weak on that, and it is where we need to put a lot more of our thinking. It's easy to be against something. What are we for?

4. Ah, this may be the issue of our century. Lester Brown, one of the most prescient writers of our time, sure thinks so. There are both scary and exciting possibilities: China buying grain, emitting carbon, buying oil, polluting like mad, trampling human rights, ethnic and cultural integrity, etc. Or China driving a transition to a hydrogen economy, China installing windmills across Mongolia, China as the powerhouse of sustainable development. There is some indication that this could be as likely an outcome. Everyone who has the opportunity should do all that they can to nudge things in this direction, because if China does it wrong, we're all in trouble.

5. This task is up to each one of us, to show how we can do this by our own actions, to talk to our families and friends, neighbors and colleagues. Each one teach one.

6. We tend to lag behind most Europeans, beat Russians and Chinese, and about tie the Japanese, though they are rapidly passing us -- check out the excellent website Japan for Sustainability. And there is still much that even the most environmentally conscious countries can do.

7. Yes. And technology is an important part of the mix, but only part. For example, we can eliminate at least half of our carbon emissions cost effectively. But getting to the 60 to 80 percent reduction that the IPCC surmises will be necessary will likely take structural and behavioral changes. That is something we're very good at if we're convinced that it will improve our quality of life, but real bad at being dragged into. This is why the work of the Center for a New American Dream is so important. Check 'em out.

8. Corporations. Be sure to go see the movie The Corporation, just out. I think that some of the strongest leaders for sustainability are such people as Ray Anderson of Interface and Sir Mark Moody Stuart, who launched Shell down the sustainability road (though Phil Watts tried to make a U-turn). But this new breed of corporate leader can only go so far out in front of their customers. So each one of you is just as important.

9. Whooeee. A lot. Maybe never have taken up caring, so I could be a happy cowgirl ... Okay, that's not an option. I would have learned earlier that not stepping on people's toes unless really necessary confers greater longevity at one's chosen job. I would have learned more science -- I'm reading the big dummies guide to chemistry now, teaching myself organic chemistry. In this field we have to learn a new discipline every year or so. Universities seem to want to turn out people who know more and more about less and less, and the solutions we need now require expertise across all the disciplines. I gave a talk in Australia to a university group that was arguing for greater interdisciplinary studies and pointed out how my basic Nat Cap lecture draws on about 30 disciplines from economics to ecology to atmospheric science to engineering to sociology to biology to art and all of the humanities ...

10. Steak. (Ain't us cowboys an ethnic group?) Seriously, I love many ethnic foods: Most recently, I have been pigging out on Afghan cuisine (lamb will do just fine, thank you); I love New Mexico-style chili, especially cooked by my friend 2D, wife of my favorite cowboy singer, sitting out on their back porch overlooking the Gallinas River Canyon (where All the Pretty Horses was shot ), sipping whiskey and singing cowboy songs. But too, I love Chinese dim sum, Dzo liver high in the Himalayas, fried grubs in Australia, sauteed eland sitting in a brush Kraal in Africa, spanikopita, pad thai, arak, and so on. If I can't pronounce it, I'll likely take a shine to it.

Do you really compete in rodeos, and if so, how on earth do you rationalize or compartmentalize that behavior? What makes it ethical or humane or environmentally compassionate to use, abuse, and torture animals? -- Mary Martin, West Palm Beach, Fla.

Okay, y'all. Standing invite: Come rodeoing with me and let's see just whether it really is as cruel as you've been led to think. I bet I convince you that those animals are treated pretty durn well. Yes, some back-country rodeos still haven't come into the 19th century, some abuse occurs, and most everyone in the rodeo family abhors that and works hard to put an end to it. Truthfully, most rodeos take good care of their stock. Why? First of all, cowboys are pretty good stewards. As people, they care about their animals. They live with a connection to animals that most city dwellers never experience. Second, only healthy stock performs well. Third, good stock costs a lot of money -- like thousands of dollars. And they also pay attention because all those animal activists will shut 'em down if they do not live up to high standards. And a good thing too. I've gotten in some folks' face for treating their stock badly -- yeah, even a real bar fight or two (but that really is another story).

Conversely, the bucking stock, were they not in a rodeo, working maybe 25 times a year for eight seconds a time -- you do the math -- would be touring France in a can. These are often spoiled saddle horses that would hurt someone, then go to the killers, were they not going down the road to another rodeo. Horses from "Born to Buck" programs have some of the cushiest lives of any equine athletes. For more information on how rodeo animals are treated and the high standards that rodeo contestants are held to, take a look at this site.

In my events, only a true partnership between a completely willing horse and rider give you a shot at winning. Now, if you are saying that humans should not use, eat, or interact with animals in any form, well, we've got a disagreement.

I don't think you need to wait for someone to produce a super-efficient truck. Why not just run it on used vegetable oil? -- Jessica Barry, Kingston, N.Y.

Mmm, yes. As soon as there's a reliable source of biodiesel where I drive, I will likely swap the ol' Ford in on a diesel. I about made that switch that last winter, but woof, Jessica, have you seen the price tag of new trucks?

Could you use your influence, your "celebrity," and your credibility to get environmental groups to put their turf pride on the back burner so they can work together to influence governments and corporations to change, before it's too late for all of us? -- Ed Ciaccio, Douglaston, N.Y.

Ho! Great idea, Ed. Now, how would you suggest that I go about this? Seriously. I am a huge fan of pooling our efforts, and of getting over the tendency we all have to strut our egos. No argument, we should be doing as the pioneers did -- all getting together for a barn raising, or all throwing our weight behind a stuck wagon. Eileen Clausen at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change is doing excellent work pulling corporate leaders together on this. Richard Sandor's work is also having that effect. But, as Dave Brower points out, when environmentalists are in trouble, they circle the wagons and shoot in. I'm sure open to any suggestions as to what I can do to help achieve what you suggest. You're spot on, I'm just not smart enough yet to know how to get it done.

Businesses have to compete in the world we live in, not the world they would like to live in. How can a socially and environmentally conscious business compete? -- Nancy Karloff, Akron, Ohio

Nancy asks a really good question, but it takes a long answer to do it any justice. It is precisely the topic of an article that Walter Link and I are writing with Sissel Wagge, the brilliant director of research at Natural Step. We're aiming it at Harvard Business Review. I hope to have the next edit done in a week, and anyone who wants, email me at hlovins@natcapinc.com and I'll sent it to ya for a peer review. It'll also be up on our website as soon as we get it published.

Given new tools and techniques, do small local factories feeding local markets make economic sense? -- Patrick Gallagher, Albuquerque, N.M.

Interesting idea, Patrick. I've not really looked at the economics of this, though the excellent work by David Korton, whom I highly respect, on relocalilzation sure seems to have merit. Local organic food is something that each one of us can and ought to invest in. For starts, join your local community-supported agriculture outlet.

What advice would you give John Kerry (should he win) toward a successful and effective reversal of Bush policy, regardless of the majority in Congress? -- Tim Wagner, Salt Lake City, Utah

He could appoint a guy named Ira Feldman as head of EPA. That'd be a good start. Another friend of mine, Tom Weis, who worked with Gary Hart long ago, has just put together a very thoughtful proposal for an initiative on energy independence. Groups like the Apollo Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, NRDC, and others have very good policy platforms all ready to go. A serious effort to use energy efficiency and renewables to get off oil would dramatically strengthen American security and our economy and do wonders to protect the environment.

But all that is getting just a mite ahead of ourselves, Tim. Job one is to get Kerry elected. I think we'll all be real pleased at how good he will be, and how knowledgeable he already in on environmental issues. And no, just as I told the Clinton folk, I do not want to move to Washington. I'd make a lousy bureaucrat.

Have you and your staff approached any nonprofits to help them incorporate sustainability as they help people recover from natural and human-made disasters? -- Carol Bergmann, Milwaukee, Wis.

When I was at RMI we held a design workshop, at the behest of the brilliant Navy surgeon Eric Rasmusssen, on how to design refugee camps more sustainably. Actually, it was that event that lead, ultimately, to where I am now, but that, also, is another long story. Anyway, after the event, RMI dropped that ball. A group called Carebridge tried to pick it up and to some extent we are now working with Bernard Amadei of Engineers Without Borders and the NGO Village Earth. I'd sure be thrilled to talk with any relief agency that is interested in any of our ideas.

How might you suggest I go about attaining gainful employment with NCI? Alternately, what other ways might you suggest one go about getting work of this sort? -- Gabriel Scheer, Seattle, Wash.

Send us a resume to info@natcapinc.com. No promises -- we are still in start-up mode and money is tight, but let's talk. Also check out Green Careers, ecojobs.com, environmental-jobs.com, greenbiz.com, and sustainablebusiness.com.

Buckminster Fuller said, "The 21st century is when we find out if the human race is a failed experiment." What do you think is more likely: pass or fail? -- Nick Peckham, Columbia, Mo.

Good question, Nick. Bucky had a way of putting things, didn't he? The best answer I've seen comes from my dear friend Dana Meadows. She wrote:

We think a transition to a sustainable world is technically and economically possible, but we know it is psychologically and politically daunting ... The sustainability revolution, if it happens, will be organic and evolutionary. It will arise from the visions, insights, experiments, and actions of billions of people. It will require every human quality and skill, from technical ingenuity, economic entrepreneurism, and political leadership to honesty, compassion, and love.

Are any of the necessary changes, from resource efficiency to human compassion, really possible? Can the world actually ease down below the limits and avoid collapse? Is there time? Is there enough money, technology, freedom, vision, community, responsibility, foresight, discipline, and love on a global scale?

The world faces not a preordained future, but a choice. The choice is between mental models. One model says that this finite world for all practical purposes has no limits. Choosing that model will take us even further beyond the limits, and, we believe, to collapse within the next half century.

Another model says that the limits are real and close and that there is not enough time and that people cannot be moderate or responsible or compassionate. That model is self-fulfilling. If we choose to believe it, we will get to be right.

A third model says that the limits are real and close and there is just exactly enough time, with no time to waste. There is just exactly enough energy, enough material, enough money, enough environmental resilience, and enough human virtue to bring about a revolution to a better world.

That model might be wrong. All the evidence we have seen, however, from the world data to the global computer models suggests that it might be right. There is no way of knowing for sure, other than to do it.

As someone who loves the earth and all of its marvelous creatures, how can you prevent yourself from falling into depression and despondency at the terrible things that are happening? -- Richard Arnold, Errington, B.C., Canada

Yeah, I hear you. Dave Brower said, "Our victories are temporary, our defeats are permanent." Focus on all that is going wrong and you can work yourself into a genuine case of disempowerment. But don't go there, Richard. For me -- and that's all I can really speak to -- the antidote is to do whatever I can, every day, to make a difference. Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world.

My partner Walter Link tells me that this is all part of a thousand-year (or more) evolution of humans to something a mite more enlightened (we'll write more about that in our new book -- if we ever get time and financial support to write the durn thing). He feels (as Dana did -- I once asked her if all this energy and resource efficiency that we did at RMI was anything more than just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and she said that it was very important, because it bought time -- something we are very short of in the face of eco-catastrophe -- to put in place the more fundamental answers) that our job at this time is to do all we can to save as much as we can of ecological and cultural integrity, for that time when humans will be wise enough to treasure it. But, he cautions, we should know that we will not live to see the ultimate result. Perhaps that's okay. Dave Brower said that a goal that can be achieved in your lifetime isn't worth having.

For me, happy comes from serving, from doing the best I can. Will it be enough? Will we make it as a species? Janine Benyus (author of Biomimicry) says that these are the lessons our species need to learn if we want to get to stay home.

I dunno. My friend Jason Elliot, author of the luminous book An Unexpected Light, says, "Never forget that we do not know the outcome of things -- a good thing. You can only see where the twisting canyon leads from up above, and that's not the view we're given. Those curvy bits can come a shock, though."

There'll be lots more curvy bits, no doubt. And it's not given to us to know if any of what we do will make a difference. We know, as Dana said, that deciding that it won't will ensure that outcome. And I've found that happiness comes from doing something every day to make someone else's life just a little bit better. It's part of why I was an EMT for so many years on my local fire department (something I need to join up over here) -- it's a right now, very real way to make a difference. And it feels so durn good every time I do that.

1. How has the sensibility of Natural Capitalism flourished or shriveled in large-scale and small-to-medium-scale business circles as a result of the Bush administration's support of maximum-resource-exploitation tactics? Who are some new champions of Green Practice equals Green Profit?
2. What's your response to Bill McDonough's charge that advocates of measures like energy efficiency and waste reduction are just "less bad"? -- Jean Ponzi, St. Louis, Mo.

1. Some businesses are making profound changes, and profiting. Some are greenwashing and profiting. And some, like Exxon, are still profiting and being bad. It really is up to each of us to determine with whom we will do business, and to start to enforce superior environmental performance by voting with our dollars.

My sense is that Natural Capitalism is only really starting to take off. I consulted a week ago with a company, Xanterra, that has Natural Capitalism as its formally stated basis for doing business. Around the world, I am seeing a great deal more interest in these ideas, and will go so far as to say that we are at or near to the tipping point at which it will soon be a sign of irresponsibility for a business not to be moving seriously in this direction.

And durn near every business has a long way to go. Paul Hawken is tracking the best companies in the world, and should release that list shortly. It will be a real eye opener about what is possible, and how far even the best "green" companies in this country have to go to catch up with the world's best.

But some more champions? How about our landlord Joe Palumbo? The building our office is in is really an art center (Joe is a sculptor, in addition to a developer and a green builder). The place is made of recycled materials, entirely wind powered, and increasingly efficient (we share the cost of upgrades). Joe also runs the Eldorado Corner Store, buying local fuel and vegetables, selling mostly organic and fair-trade products. He wants to stick up a wind turbine and solar panels, so we're looking into helping him get a grant to do that. Now he is taking these ideas to his real-estate development up in Longmont.

I testified to the city council that it really ought to join Chicago Climate Exchange, and told a long-time restaurateur how he is saving thousands of dollars retrofitting light bulbs and HVAC systems in his operations. These ideas are just as important for the little guys as for the sustainability hall-of-famers I usually talk about.

2. He's right -- sort of. But only sort of. Eco-efficiency, alone, is not enough. But it's a very good first step. It is adherence to Disney's first law -- "wishing will make it so" -- to think that we can take today's companies and make them restorative tomorrow. They will achieve that only through a process of exploring what sustainability (another term Bill hates -- and with some reason -- but it is still the best we've got) means for them, experimenting with capturing the low-hanging fruit, taking a leadership role, as Interface has, then finally achieving the status of a truly restorative company. This process, as we are outlining in our Natural Capitalism Field Guide, now in production, takes time, and takes a roadmap, menu, Helix (as we are calling it). So watch for this new book -- out, I hope, this fall.

For years, RMI has been promoting a story about Osage, Iowa, claiming that energy efficiency saved the town millions of dollars and boosted its economy. Fact is, the savings calculations are wrong and Osage is a very, very average small Iowa town -- i.e., it hasn't been doing very well at all. Shouldn't the good guys have higher standards than the bad guys? -- John Feather, London, England

I'd be curious, John, where you get your information. Mine, from the folk who did the work in Osage, is very different. Now, communities change over time, and the man who ran the Osage Municipal utility, Wes Birdsall, who achieved the several-million-a-year savings, has moved on, achieving similar savings in other institutions (universities and such). Recent history is replete with outfits that took energy efficiency seriously when there was a perception of a need, and lost that concern when oil prices plummeted because all the efficiency did its job. That does not make the numbers wrong; it just means that we need to pay attention again -- and that we are still confronted by insurmountable opportunities, as Pogo said.

Thanks for your inspiration. How do you see financial and investment businesses evolving? -- James Shaffer-Bauck, Eastsound, Wash.

Ah, very important -- perhaps the most important leverage point in all of this work. Now here's my dream: This is an idea that my partner David Elliot and I conceived on a plane ride back from some consulting gig we did. There are now 25 banks around the world, collectively representing something like 85 percent of all project finance, that have signed on to what are now called the Equator Principles (really the International Finance Corporation's set of corporate governance, social, and environmental responsibility standards -- not bad standards, though the Equator banks only pledge to abide by them voluntarily and then only for loans over $50 million). Suppose all those banks also commit to give, with every loan they make, expertise on how to increase the sustainability and profitability of a company? This would make adherence to the Equator Principles much more attractive, and confer a genuine competitive advantage to the banks that increased the sustainability of their clients.

How could this happen? We've proposed to IFC and several other institutions that they help us create a global network of these experts. Such experts are out there -- I know some, and those know others, and more are entering this nascent market every day. Creating such a network, served by a good web interface so that its members could carry on a conversation about global best practices, would bring sustainability into the big time. The banks should fund this -- it is very much in their interest. So far no one has stepped up. But it is one of those big projects that I am going to see accomplished before I die.

With this global network in place, the financial institutions would become one of the most powerful levers for implementing sustainability. For more information on the concept, see equatornetwork.com.

I compliment you on your courage to rebound from your unfortunate and unjust -- in the way your situation was handled -- departure from RMI. I want to know your definition of sustainability and your hopes for a more sustainable world. Also, as a long-time vegetarian, I must beg to differ about a sustainable meal, and consider a meal of organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains as the ideal sustainable meal. -- Gill Brociner, New York, N.Y.

Thanks, Gil. I was not the only one badly injured in that "transition."

There's a cowboy cartoon by Mad Jack that shows an ol' boy under a horse that's flipped and is kicking the tar out of a picket fence, pickets flying and dust roiling. His friend is setting ahorseback a few yards away. The ol' boy says to his friend, "I don't know if I'm alright or not, Homer, this here wreck ain't over with yet ..."

Yes, for sustainability to be more than a green pipe dream, it must address the legitimate aspirations of people the world over for a better life, a higher standard of living, and equity. Most good definitions do (Bruntland, Natural Step, Randy Hayes' ...). The challenge is that these definitions are difficult to operationalize. Just what is it that a corporate manager does differently, starting today? This is why the Roadmap of Sustainability/Helix of Sustainability that we are working on is important. It gives people practical answers to what do they do next, what is the overview of all the tasks to be done, and given where I am at, where do I go next.

The analysis shows that it would take something like $150 billion to meet all of the basic needs of everyone on earth. And we're spending what? A billion a week in Iraq? Someone just told me that it is now a billion a day. A week, a day, either way, something's real wrong with this picture. Isn't there a better use for all that dough?

The work of Dana and Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers (Limits to Growth, Beyond the Limits, and their new book, re-titled Limits to Growth) show that, done right, we can meet the needs of the world's people. There are enough resources. What we cannot meet is all of the greed, and not a greedy and exponentially growing population, exponentially increasing the throughput of resources.

Myself, I've tried being a vegetarian and my metabolism just runs down. But if you're getting by, good on ya. Just be sure that your veggies aren't making that average trip of 1,300 miles to get to you. In these here Rocky Mountains, there's not much that grows in the winter besides elk and potatoes.

With all these favorite places you mention, don't you think that perhaps jetting around so much is a sin, given the serious damage caused by flying? -- David Broatch, Auckland, New Zealand

How right you are. It's one of the reasons that my company joined Chicago Climate Exchange -- to offset all my flying. We are now officially carbon negative. And I'm not even counting all those trees I planted at TreePeople. Better, Nat Cap's joining even "encouraged" RMI to join.

Is it enough? Probably not. I make a calculation every time someone issues me an invite to come speak whether I will do more good or harm by that travel. Dana Meadows set herself a carbon budget for conferences and other travel, and when she exceeded it she quit going. I don't travel on vacation (my idea of that, anyway, is to stay home). All those places were seen on "work" trips. But it may well come that unless we find non-polluting ways of flying I'll have to stay home anyway. That is one of those lifestyle changes that protecting the climate may demand of us. And when it does, well, I always did want to go back to cowboying ...

In stuff about sustainability, I constantly read statements that "biologists/engineers/whoever" have already figured out how to do something technically necessary -- in other words, those hated, non-creative reductionists are the ones doing the work and what everyone else contributes is their groovy ideas. Any comment or ideas on how to bridge this philosophical gap? -- Tay Gerstell, Montara, Calif.

The way to bridge most gaps is, as folk like Meg Wheatley say, to learn how to have genuine conversations. It is way past time we realize what each side of that divide has to bring to the party that we all need. My partner Walter Link (who is anything but a reductionist thinker) says, "What's wrong with linear thinking? A straight line is the quickest way to get from one point to another." I have a great respect for the guys in pickup trucks who know how to get things done. Matter of fact, I live with one.

I guess more and more, I feel that one of the more important things that all of us who are working for a better tomorrow can do is to respect the work that everyone else is doing for the same cause. Sherri Anderson and Paul Ray, authors of Cultural Creatives, say that there are a whole lot of us who share similar values, but don't realize that the rest of us are out there and working on very similar causes, with a common worldview. I gave up a few years ago thinking that the folk who were into spiritual matters had nothing to teach me, and that the activists should all do things my way, that early childhood education was really irrelevant to my far more important challenges, or that all those folk with different issues were missing the point. We are, ourselves, as people who seek a vision that all living things can share, a rich ecology that is stronger for our diversity. It's time to park our self-righteousness, however fun it might be, and reach out to each other. My two latest staff additions are both engineers, and my dear friend Janine's a biologist. Amory started life as a physicist.

Do you have any comments on individual clothing habits (including your own) or advice for the textile industry? -- Claire James, Ithaca, N.Y.

Like the song says, "I was country when country wasn't cool." I'm still wearing jeans and a cowboy work shirt. The shirt on my back right now is about 20 years old. The dress suit my mother bought for me when I went off on the road with Amory back in '78 is still what I wear for business formal. Take good care of things, they last a while.

So, I'm not much of an expert on fashion, sorry.

But as with all products, clothes (and all textiles -- check out Interface's Guilford of Maine operation) can be made more or less responsibly. Who made your clothes? Was it American Apparel in Los Angeles (check 'em out for a great example of social and environmental responsibility)? Cutter and Buck? They are making an effort along these lines. There are people working with native weavers and making sure that their products return a fair price to women in developing countries. Shopping for clothes? Ask who made 'em. Patronize manufacturers whose policies you respect. Every purchase you make, Claire, is an opportunity for a conversation.

To everyone out there, hey, thanks for reading this and spending some time with me. If you want to keep up this conversation, be sure to let us know how to contact you and we'll send you our periodic E-zine, Solutions. Send your name to info@natcapsolutions.org and we'll put you on the mailing lists.

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Lovins Spoonful

Hunter Lovins, thinker on sustainability, answers readers' questions