Buddhism and Sustainability

I was asked to sit on a panel at a local Buddhist group -- a teacher was out of town, so the students put together this panel on Buddhism and the environment. One person spoke about composting and buying organic, while another (a professor of ecology) spoke about ecology vs environmentalism and the pursuit of truth through science. Both topics link nicely to Buddhism.

After all that inspirational stuff, my topic was ..... business. But actually, sustainable business links to Buddhism too. I shared a couple of ways that my current schooling and consulting in sustainable business relate to my Buddhist practice. In fact, I appreciated the opportunity to explore and integrate my ideas about this.

My views are somewhat in flux, but for now, here are my thoughts on the intersection of Buddhism, environmentalism, and business:

Buddhism and Sustainability

I am studying Sustainable Business. The word “sustainable” or “sustainability” is not easy to define, but the concept can be understood fairly easily: The current way that we use the Earth’s resources to meet human needs is not wise and cannot continue in the same manner for much longer. We are using things up too quickly, destroying habitats and other species in the process. We need something more harmonious that will serve long into the future.

“Sustainable development” is commonly defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland Report, 1987). It encompasses the way we make and use money, the way we handle the Earth’s resources, and the way we build our society and human relationships. There are other terms for “sustainability” also— “resilience” or “harmony,” for example.

Sustainable businesses are concerned with the “triple bottom line”—meaning that they endeavor to add environmental and social value in addition to making a financial profit. We say it as, People, planet, profit. The three legs of sustainable business.

But what does sustainable business have to do with Buddhism? There are probably many connections; I’d like to discuss two that are meaningful for me, one practical and one more idealistic.

Starting with the practical, we can use the cornerstone Buddhist principle of acknowledging and dealing with reality. At this time, all but a very small number of the world’s economies are essentially capitalist. And of the world’s 100 largest economic entities, around 50 are countries and around 50 are companies. If we are to transform our methods of meeting human needs, business must be included.

Sometimes in environmental or social justice circles, an assumption is made that business is evil. Phrases like “the corporate empire” or “global corporate hegemony” are said casually, implying that business is always a problem, and it is best to ignore it, resist it, or otherwise work outside of it.

But is this true?

A further assumption is that business is totally different from Nature, which is naturally mutualistic, synergistic, and harmonious.

But is this true? Conservation biologist and long-time Buddhist practitioner Michael Soule points out that we need to include everything in our view of Nature:

“There’s a false romanticism in contemporary Buddhism, […] which is the denial of nature’s dark, violent side. Buddhists may want to perceive balance, harmony, and nonviolence in ecosystems because such a view would seem to justify nonviolence in human communities. But murder and infanticide are common in mammals [and other creatures]. Should this be a model for human behavior? Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, even though it may be adaptive in an evolutionary sense. [The point is,] when you look at nature from a Buddhist point of view, you have to accept the whole package, not just look at the things you like about nature, its beauty and grace, and forget the rest.”

Bringing business into the picture, we can notice that the world is economically interdependent just as surely as it is ecologically interdependent. To a greater degree than ever before in history, my welfare is connected to that of other people in distant countries. Including business in our field of practice is a way of taking responsibility for our economic interdependence.

This includes our consumer buying decisions, but it also includes the practice of business itself. Can business have a heart?

• Interface Flooring Systems has a goal called Mission Zero: Eliminating any negative impact of its operations on the environment by 2020. Since 1996, it has decreased its waste to landfill by 70%. Employee bonuses are linked to environmental improvement.
  
• Nau clothing gives 5% of its sales (not profits) to charities, as well as designing its products with their entire life cycle in mind to minimize environmental impact. The company website includes a blog written by employees about practicing sustainability.
  
• REI redesigned the way it gives product information to customers, potentially reducing its use of paper by 37,000 pounds per year. (A single action by business can have a large impact compared to our individual conservation efforts).
  
• David Green figured out a new method of doing simple cataract surgery in India, as well as a new way to manufacture intraocular lenses. The lenses from his company, Aurolab, cost $4 apiece, compared to other companies’ prices of $100. He then devised a tiered pricing model for his hospitals whereby wealthier patients pay a higher price and subsidize 65%-100% of the surgery cost for poorer patients, so that now more than 200,000 cataract operations are performed per year in India, compared to just 5,000 before he arrived. He calls this “compassionate capitalism.” (David Green meditates, by the way).

None of this is to justify or condone the very real damage that has been done by global business or the stunningly uncompassionate actions companies have taken. There is plenty of ignorance and greed in the business world.

The point is that we can choose to work toward a better way. There is nothing wrong with using the water, land, and minerals of the Earth to support human life. (There is no need to feel guilty about eating, taking a shower, or whatever). What matters is how we do it. Are we going to pursue hoarding, grasping, and disrespectful taking, or are we going to treat the resources around us as gifts, sources of joy, and opportunities for practice and insight?

This leads to the second, more idealistic, connection I see between business, environmentalism, and Buddhism.

There is a verse in the Dhammapada – verse 283 (in “The Path,” Magga), Gil Fronsdal's translation – that is humorously environmental on the surface, but also points toward the challenges we face with global business.

Cut down the forest [of desire], not [real] trees.
From the forest [of desire], fear is born.
Having cut down both the forest and the underbrush,
Monks, be deforested [of desire].

Notes on page 134-135 of Gil’s translation:

"This verse seems to contain a number of word plays and so is difficult to translate. For example, it plays on the two meanings of vana, “forest” and “desire.” The commentaries explain that once, when the Buddha told his monks to cut down the vana, they started to clear the forest. He then had to clarify that he meant to “cut down the forest of desire, not the forest of trees.” […] The verse might also be punning between nibbanaa (“free of forest”) and nibbana (Nirvana)."

One reason our current business practices are unsustainable is that they are born from a thick forest of desire. We generate and buy more and more “stuff,” which we then have to protect. We fear losing what we have, even though it seems not to be making us happy. As the Dhammapada verse states, indulging our desires creates fear. When you read the newspaper, and especially the business section, most of it is about desire and fear.

The companies mentioned previously are not “Buddhist companies” (whatever that would be!). They are part of the growing population of companies, non-profits, and other groups dedicated to practicing sustainable and responsible business. In a sense, these companies “swim against the stream” — the stream of the conventional single bottom line that only cares about short-term financial profit.

But is it enough? A triple bottom line is still a bottom line. It’s still about competing in a marketplace, selling goods, and paying salaries. Only a handful of businesses are daring to venture beyond recognized models.

Some are. There is a non-profit in Portland Oregon called SCRAP (the School & Community Reuse Action Project). They operate a retail store selling art and creative materials that are donated in an effort to keep them out of the landfill. Although SCRAP is doing retail, their inventory is donated — an interesting merging of dana (generosity/donations) and capitalism. Other examples include community repair/reconstruction shops, blood donation, common pool resources, social entrepreneurship, micro lending, time banks, shared computer processing power, and Fair Trade practices.

But for those companies still practicing the bottom line, I see it as a process. Moving from a single bottom line to a triple bottom line is not enough to save the planet, but in taking that step, businesses transform themselves into something new. And that new entity becomes capable of imagining other steps to take, which then leads to another transformation. We don’t have to see the end point from here. We can trust the process of expanding the consciousness of business to bring about transformative change. It is enough to see a little bit more interconnection and to have a little bit more ethical behavior this year than last year. Each tree of desire that we cut down saves several real trees.

I work as a sustainable business consultant, helping people in companies make their products and business practices more harmonious and humane. Some are just starting to wake up, while others already have quite a broad conscience. This work brings me face to face with my own desires, aversions, and delusions. In my lifetime, I don’t expect to see world peace or a full economic transformation come to fruition, but I do know that I will see more and more deeply into my own mind as I work with other people aspiring to comprehend the economic Indra’s Net that we live in.

When the forest of desire is cut down everywhere, we will have no further worries about the real trees that grow on Earth.

Cat community

For complicated reasons, I spent 3 hours yesterday in a small apartment that houses 9 cats (and a rabbit). In fact, my job there was to provide some cuddling, as they had not had that for a while.

As might be expected, these cats had formed their own community. They've known each other for a long time, and two sets of three of them are littermates. I was the intruder-- although the important one with opposable thumbs-- and it was an interesting process to get to know these felines.

I have included their real names on the grounds that they probably wouldn't mind and don't have reputations that can be manipulated anyway.

During the time there, I did verify that yes, there are 9 cats. At some point, I saw all of them, although a couple just for a moment. Berg and Abbey were the bravest and friendliest, both taking turns on my lap. When one slipped off to get food, the other zipped over and claimed the space. I regret that I really only have space for one cat on my body. I should say that their owner's no-cats-on-the-couch rule has pretty much gone by the wayside. Abbey has created her own dent in the easy chair by the window, and most horizontal surfaces are totally coated with fur. I sat on the couch and let them walk all over me and anywhere else they wanted.

Fae came by many times to snuggle around my neck and sniff my head, and even accepted a little petting. Neb showed off his huge, fearful eyes, but somehow got past that raw emotion to receive some petting. Clearly the desire for touch was strong enough to break through the fear barrier.

Elora, I feel, is having a hard time. She's actually the one I saw first when I came in the door, and she never warmed up to me. Growling and hissing, she let me know I was NOT the right person to walk in and start doing things like putting bags of laundry away. She wanted to sniff and sniff and sniff me, but the scent never got familiar. I tried ever so gently petting her, which was OK for a few strokes, but eventually she swatted me so I stopped pushing it. Later, she was willing to sit warily a few feet away from me and even dozed off, so perhaps I was at least downgraded from Extreme Threat to merely Suspicious. Even by the end, she still growled at me on the way out. I was glad she had her 8 companions still-- it seems to be a stressful time for her.

Climber mostly sat on the stairs and watched me. He has an intellectual look. At first his eyes were filled with fear, but later he seemed to have settled into acute observation and even some scientific testing. I noticed him moving down the stairs slowly. At first, he perched up just where the staircase gets a view of downstairs. An hour later, he was about 3 stairs lower. And then he was another stair lower, and actually lying down. He took a lazy nap there, his feet draped over the stair. When he woke up, he began inching toward the place where he could go from the stairs to the back of the couch (where I was sitting). He didn't make it the first time because I looked up at him. But later, when he inched forward again, I was careful to watch only out of the corner of my eye. With great deliberation, he tiptoed off the back of the couch and over my legs to jump down to the floor. He seemed amazed and relieved that it had gone so well. He got some food, and when he went back upstairs, he made great effort to walk all the way around behind the chair in the front window and past the front door, perhaps so he wouldn't have to go right by the couch in plain sight. But overall, he seemed happy to have conducted a few experiments with this new, strange human, and survived to tell about it. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he wrote his own lab report about what happened.

Pip I saw once. I looked up from my book, and he was suddenly there on the stairs, just looking at me. He didn't stay long once he had been noticed, but he didn't have a panicked look in his eyes either. It was more like he was just having a look to see what all the fuss downstairs was about, and once he had seen it, he could go back upstairs.

The other mainly-white one, whose name I've forgotten, also appeared once, or maybe twice. Both times, it was behind Climber on the stairs, sort of peering over his shoulder. That one genuinely looked scared and didn't have any interest in eye contact.

The shadowy black one was the same -- just one appearance near the top of the stairs, and then zipped back to safety. In that one's case, it seemed like appearing was a mistake. He/She thought that because it was quiet, all the humans were probably gone, but NO!! There was still a human there, reading on the couch. Horrors!!!! What a cruel trick, to be quiet, but still be there.

Some folks make broad statements about "cats" as a whole. But anyone who knows cats well knows that they are each totally unique. These 9 offered a rich spectrum on this fascinating visit.

A new basis for Arab economies

Part of sustainability for countries in the Middle East is figuring out a basis for livelihood beyond selling petroleum. For all our talk about "ending our dependence on foreign oil," it will come to an end some way or other as oil resources dwindle.

And then what? Naturally, we are most focused on the effect this will have on ourselves, so we are pursuing many alternative energy options. We worry about how we will make and distribute goods, including food, as well as how we will travel for business and pleasure.

But what about for the countries that used to sell petroleum? Neither they nor the rest of the world can afford a collapse of their economies. (If you think the raw emotion pouring out of that region of the world is powerful now, imagine how it will be when they are having trouble feeding themselves.) That's why this article caught my eye:

Venture Capital to Boost Innovation in Arab World

The amount of money they are talking about is rather paltry at this point (although presumably it is not as expensive to do research there as it would be in, say, Silicon Valley). But still, this is a good start to building a foundation of value for their societies. After all, the first scientists were from the Arab world. They were far ahead of their European counterparts in such fields as astronomy and mathematics. Maybe it's time to reconnect to those roots.

Free kids

In the past few days, I've seen an amazing and heartening sight on several occasions: Groups of two or three kids hanging out together on their bikes/skateboards or walking. They're not under the watchful eyes of paranoid parents, or boxed into the security of a minivan or SUV. No, they are actually right out there in the elements, unsupervised. Laughing and joking, and looking carefree and happy.

Can you believe it?

It's pretty shocking in these times of terror -- irrational parental terror, that is. How nice to see kids being allowed to be kids, exploring the world on their own terms. Learning by experience in an outdoor setting, not indoors on a video screen. It's too late for some kids-- who were fenced in like workers at the clothing factories in Southeast Asia (for their own protection, of course). But perhaps a few from the next generation will have some direct understanding of the world they live in. Without that, the Earth is really in trouble, not to mention human relations.

I am aware that this post leans toward one end of a spectrum of sentiment. But it's the end that needs more emphasis right now. If you've got kids, please let them out. We don't need more Nature Deficit Disorder.

Seeing without context

Having just returned from a 10-day silent meditation retreat, I read this essay about photography as an essay about meditation. What we see in our minds is not so different from a series of photographs, to which we automatically apply captions, labels, comments, and context. What if we didn't do that? What would we see in there?

Come and see.

BGI on YouTube

BGI was recently featured on "Peak Moment" -- here's the YouTube video. It's a 25-minute interview with our esteemed and fearless Dean, Jill Bamburg.

I'll let it speak for itself.

Calling SF residents

If you live in San Francisco and don't have solar panels, this may be of interest. The city has a challenge to install solar on 10,000 buildings, and is only 5% of the way there. You can find out the potential of any building for solar with this handy map:

San Francisco Solar Map

Perhaps it will inspire other cities to create their own maps too.