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Paul Hawkenis an environmentalist , entrepreneur , generator , and militant who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and change the relationship between business concern and the environment . He is a appendage of Ray Anderson ’s original EcoDreamTeam .
The following is an excerpt fromMid - line Correction Revisitedby Ray C. Anderson and John A. Lanier . It has been adapted for the web .
JOHN A. LANIER: You are the reason Ray’s life changed, and it was your words that changed his life. I know he reached out to you not long after readingThe Ecology of Commerce. I would love to hear your memories of meeting Ray and coming to know him.
PAUL : The first time he reached out to me was in the form of a letter when I was living on a houseboat . I had never hear of the company , or of him . In the letter he said he was challenged by his squad for an environmental vision and he realized he did n’t have one . He was givenThe bionomics of Commerceby Joyce LaValle , a vice president at Interface , and he meekly note that he had copied parts of it for a speech to his employees about an environmental imagination . That was the beginning .
How and why do you think the vision took hold at Interface?
I think the impulse within Interface to address the environment really first took hold in Ray — spiritually , emotionally , intellectually , and ethically . It took hold on all those levels , but then there was the implementation of it in a 20th - century industrial ship’s company that was small by some standards but big by other measures .
There was initial scepticism within the companionship and fears about sustainability costing too much money , and there were worries about Interface being marginalise by Wall Street . Some masses thought Ray might be seen as someone who lost his corporate way and got entrapped and captured by the environmental movement .
Nevertheless , Ray ’s vision took delay inside , and as more multitude became literate in sustainability it began to flourish . It started to energize the companionship and define it , as it go from an approximation to initiation and practice session . And it was n’t long before the company start out to get mention for its pioneering leaders . And that was due to Ray ’s steadfastness .
Ray showed that the course to sustainability was not a path of compliance but a path to innovation and a competitive advantage . Avoiding environmental breakdowns was actually a path to breakthroughs . And I conceive most everyone receive it . If there were doubters , they stayed well hidden .
What sparked Project Drawdown?
For a long time I was one of those people who thought clime change was huge but one of many number — human wellness , toxicity , biodiversity , deforestation , and more . In 2001 , when I read the summary of the Third IPCC Assessment , I did n’t interpret why we were verbalize almost entirely about the problem of global warming and not about the solutions . For years , I was see how world warming was being communicated and seeing how the main communicating creature was fear . Given the skill , the awe is more than justified . However , fear is not a motivator ; what happen is that it create “ halt and flight . ” Most people went numb , deform aside , did not need to do anything , or feel disempowered .
I need to know where we stood . What were the solutions to global warming , all of them?So I launched an organization to map , measure , and simulate the 100 most substantive existing solutions to global warming and called it Project Drawdown . This identification and modeling had never been done before . Moreover , the goal had never been make : drawdown , that point in prison term when greenhouse gases peak and go down on a yr - to - year basis . So we did both , key out the goal and then cooperate with scholars and scientist around the humanity to see whether we could achieve drawdown by 2050 if existing root that were in place continued to scale in a rigorous way .
What has the response to Project Drawdown been?
If we had fantasized about the best case reaction , we would have lowball what in reality has fall out .
Drawdownwas an instantNew York Timesbest seller and is write in twelve spoken communication around the world . The drawdown construct is easy but sure as shooting permeating the world , becoming a reference compass point for all types of organizations , including school day , universities , cities , investors , NGOs , countries , and more . Every problem is a solvent in camouflage , and global warming may be the most gnarly problem ever identified and define . What we bespeak out is that as a problem it is redolent in transformative solutions . It is create optimism and hope . People who have read it acknowledged that they had n’t understand how much grief and despair they were convey .
quislingism is at the core of what we do ; two - hundredplus - some hoi polloi from around the world created the role model , and many of the scientist are millennials , which is kind of cool . It was n’t old people talking to vernal multitude — it ’s vernal people putting together the good example and saying , This is what we know . There ’s no telling the wallop it will have as it continues to scale . It ’s a very pragmatic and grounded book that is being picked up by many organizations . Universities are talking about regionalizing the model .
We compose a book that did n’t incrimination or pity and did n’t create fear or threat or doom but honored the skill and identified the hypothesis . It did n’t demonise or say someone is wrong or high-risk or not near , and we really did n’t even say that we were right . We suppose it is approximately right . All models of the future tense are incorrect , but some are utile .
Just like any good model. No model is exactly right; that is not the point.
What we have tried to do is create the conditions for ego - organized groups around the cosmos who require to address global thawing . Top - down organizations are too boring and get in their own room . And it seems to be play . There is Drawdown Europe in Berlin , Drawdown Switzerland , Drawdown Netherlands , Drawdown Nova Scotia , Drawdown New Zealand , and many more .
How human being modification is mystical . However , we do know that we move toward possibility and are not motivated by the chance of day of reckoning . What we did is essentially hold a mirror up to the earthly concern and give away what we have intercourse and what we are doing . Drawdown appearance , I think , that humanity is on the instance and deeply give care .
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