* “Plan B for Business”
http://bteam.org/press/call-in-the-b-team/
Richard Branson’s big idea for building a better version of capitalism
The Economist, October 6, 2012
SLOWING down seems to be the last thing on Sir Richard Branson’s mind. Since turning 62 in July, the bearded British entrepreneur has as usual been making headlines around the world. On October 3rd he celebrated victory in a campaign to overturn the British government’s decision to strip Virgin Trains, of which his Virgin Group owns 51%, of the West Coast main-line rail franchise. The government now admits it got its sums wrong, as Sir Richard had claimed, and the bidding process will be rerun. Recently Sir Richard has also been in the news for (among other things) urging Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to end America’s war on drugs; declaring his intention to visit Mars; and parking a mock-up of the new Upper Class bar from his transatlantic aircraft outside the New York Stock Exchange. From there he promoted his latest book (“Like A Virgin: Secrets They Won’t Teach You at Business School”) and led a discussion with his Twitter followers. The subject under discussion was: “How can business change the world for the better?”
This last topic has become increasingly central to Brand Branson in the past few years—although social activism has been part of Sir Richard’s repertoire since he opened advice centres for students in the 1960s. Under Virgin Unite, its charitable arm, his corporate empire has become a leader in the booming business of “cause marketing” (aligning brands with charities). Sir Richard has even updated his old creed of “have fun and the money will come” to “do good, have fun and the money will come.” He has also launched a couple of much bigger ideas. One, the result of conversations he had with Nelson Mandela and Peter.Gabriel, is the Elders, a group of veteran statesmen (including Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson) who work together to provide advice to today’s politicians. The second is the Carbon War Room, an attempt to bring business leaders together to find profitable ways to reduce fossil-fuel use in the most carbon-intensive industries, including Sir Richard’s beloved airline business. On October 3rd, a few hours after his win against the British government, Sir Richard began to roll out a third initiative, which he has christened the B Team.
Experienced watchers of Sir Richard may suspect that the B is for Branson, but Schumpeter is informed that it refers both to business and to the need for a “Plan B” for capitalism. The idea is to form a small group of business leaders who will campaign for reforms to make capitalism more oriented to the long term and socially more responsible. Needless to say, they will bear no resemblance to the A-Team, whom fans of 1980s television will recall as a bunch of mercenaries who everyone assumed were in it for themselves but in fact wanted to save the world.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help…
The B Team will have two co-chairmen: Sir Richard and Jochen Zeitz, who as boss of Puma, a German sporting-goods firm, introduced a celebrated ethical programme based on being “fair, honest, positive and creative”. Other members are being recruited, from both rich and developing countries, before a formal launch early next year. The idea is that each member will champion a particular reform and work with the others to get all the reforms adopted. A consultation exercise is already under way to find which reforms are ripe to be pushed through. Proper accounting for environmental impact, an end to quarterly reporting of results and the phasing-out of fossil-fuel subsidies are likely to be near the top of the list.
Though popular for a businessman, Sir Richard also has plenty of critics, especially at home in Britain, where relentless self-promotion is still frowned on. They will no doubt regard this new campaign as the latest example of his hubris. Despite the beard and his fondness for woolly jumpers, he is no cuddly capitalist. Nor is he yet a great philanthropist: his pledge to leave 10% of his estate to charity pales beside the promise to give away most of their wealth made by signatories of the Giving Pledge for American billionaires launched by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Yet you do not have to be a saint to be an effective reformer, and a striking thing about Sir Richard’s recent do-gooding initiatives is that they have been grounded in an acute understanding of the practicalities of how to make change happen.
After a slow start, the Elders have started to show that with the right back-office support, a group of political big beasts can work effectively together, whether behind the scenes (peacemaking in Cyprus, Kenya and Sudan, for instance) or publicly, with their campaign against child marriage. The B Team will likewise have independent financing and a strong support staff, although it will not be quite the direct replica, the Business Elders, that Sir Richard envisaged at first. There were too few candidates from the business world of sufficiently unimpeachable character, it seems, and, more positively, some members of the B Team are likely to be relatively young. Instead, the plan is for the B Team to consist of people who have done business in a way that fits the guiding principles, such as Mr Zeitz, perhaps Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) or Paul Polman, who is trying to double Unilever’s revenues while halving its environmental footprint.
The B Team will also share the Carbon War Room’s focus on promoting only those changes that have both a big potential impact and a good chance of being achieved. The War Room, for instance, quickly identified $50 billion in potential savings in the shipping industry from better energy use: those savings are now being sought by leading firms. One reason to be optimistic is that many of these reforms have strong support from the generation of leaders now rising to the top of the corporate world, who are often deeply unhappy with the practices and norms bequeathed by their elders—other than Sir Richard, of course.
http://bteam.org/press/call-in-the-b-team/
Republished from The Economist October 6 edition
Economist.com/blogs/schumpeter
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Nov. 28, 2012
http://janmoranwrites.com/tag/richard-branson/
When I was watching the last summer Olympics, I learned that the Bhutanese have a Minister for Happiness. Really. It seems this point also caught the eye of Richard Branson, one of my favorite fellow entrepreneurs, who is known for having fun, doing good, and making scads of money. But, he insists, money is a by-product of pursuing and realizing one’s more personal, meaningful goals, such as those centered around happiness and well-being.
Wouldn’t life be grand if we all focused on “gross national happiness” like Bhutan? Maybe we can. Start small, start with you. Start today.
So, how do you measure success?
Jan Moran
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Natural Capitalist Solutions
http://natcapsolutions.org/ealert/June2013/Ealert-June2013.txt
Transforming the Global Economic Paradigm
An article by Hunter Lovins
You know well the challenges facing us. From reversing ecological and economic collapses to meeting the development needs of seven billion (and growing) residents of our planet, we've got our work cut out for us.
But what can one person-or one organization-do?
A lot. It's why I keep climbing on airplanes, and meeting with CEOs, students, government officials.
And I need your help.
Join me on an adventure to transform the global economic paradigm. I'm part of an International Expert Working Group, convened by the King of Bhutan to set forth the intellectual architecture for this new paradigm, and we created the Alliance for Sustainability and Prosperity, or ASAP for short, to convene the expertise needed to bring genuine prosperity and well-being to everyone on the planet. Check us out at www.asap4all.org.
ASAP seeks your ideas. The world needs help and its leaders are asking for your answers.
Twitter Accolades
Natural Capitalism Solutions (@natcapsolutions) was named one of the top 20 NGO's to follow on twitter by Triple Pundit (@triplepundit), while Hunter (@hlovins) was named by The Guardian (@guardian) as one of the top sustainability women to follow on twitter. If you are on twitter be sure to follow us to see what all the buzz is about, if you aren't already following us.
Corporate Social Responaibility Leader: Hunter Lovins
A number of past and current NCS clients, as well as Hunter, were named as 35 Female CSR leaders you should know of in Triple Pundit.
Wonder Woman: Hunter Lovins
New Hope Media Named Hunter one of 9 Wonder Women of the Natural Industry.
Thought Leader: Hunter Lovins
Trust Across America named Hunter one of the Top 100 thought leaders in trustworthy business behavior for 2013, along with an extraordinary group of leaders.
Advisory Roles
As we go to press, Hunter was asked to become an advisor to Unilever North America, and to Richard Branson's B-Team effort to make business work better. How? By shifting the focus from just financial gains, towards environmental and social gains as well.
Bhutan Working Group Meeting
Birmingham, UK (16-18 August 2013)
As you read above, I'm part of an International Expert Working Group, convened by the King to set forth the intellectual architecture for this new paradigm.
In a sense, this is what we do at Natural Capitalism: create new paradigms, and help companies, communities and countries implement them. It's why I keep climbing on airplanes, and meeting with CEOs, students, government officials. This spring I've been going down the road at an even more manic pace than usual - from setting sail with Unreasonable at Sea (read my last blog, click here) to flying to Bhutan, then down to Costa Rica for the UN's consultation on creating the ext global development goals, to criss-crossing the US and Canada, teaching and keynoting conferences, I've been on the road all but 20 days this year.
Coming home to Colorado is always nourishing, but never more so than in early summer, with horses knee-deep in verdant pastures and nighthawks swooping insects from the warm evening skies. With a few exceptions, I'll be home now until fall. Which is a good thing as the report to the King is due by September, and I'll need time to focus on it.
Warmest regards, Hunter
Natural Capitalism Solutions is a 501(c)3 non-profit
11823 N. 75th Street, Longmont, CO 80503 | 720-684-6580
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http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/richard-branson-jochen-zeitz-b-team
Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz launch the B Team challenge
The Virgin chief and former Puma boss launch a global team of business leaders aiming to create new, sustainable business models for people and planet
Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz have co-founded and will co-chair the B Team, a partnership of 14 business leaders with an ambitious brief to rethink sustainable business models Photograph: Todd Vansickle/AP
In a sign that the corporate sustainability movement may be entering a new dynamic phase, Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz, former chief executive of Puma and current director of Kering, today launched a new global collaboration to drive transformational change in the business sector.
The B Team brings together an initial 14 leaders from major corporations around the world, including Unilever, Natura, Celtel, Tata and Kering, in an attempt to enlarge projects that demonstrate that long-term business success can be built only by prioritising people and planet alongside profit.
A wake-up call to business
The collective, which also includes Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister, and the former Irish president Mary Robinson, has issued a declaration that places much of the blame for the world's problems directly on the doorstep of companies.
Recognising that their views will be seen by many competitors as an "affront", the declaration states: "Business is now waking up to the reality that if we carry on using the natural resources of the world unsustainably, they'll quite simply run out. With a burgeoning population, more people are still living in poverty than ever before and inequalities are increasing in many parts of the world.
"Unemployment rates are at frightening levels. Non-Profits alone cannot solve the tasks at hand, while many governments are unwilling or unable to act. While there are myriad reasons we've arrived at this juncture, much of the blame rests with the principles and practices of business as usual."
Can 14 people change the world?
In an interview with Guardian Sustainable Business, Branson says he hopes the B Team will succeed where others have failed by harnessing the energy of a small group of respected leaders who have access to heads of state and other key opinion formers.
But rather than go it alone, the B Team is forging partnerships with other organisations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Ashoka, a leading light in the social enterprise movement.
Branson hopes the B Team, which is being funded by several foundations, will emulate the success of other initiatives he has helped to foster, including the Carbon War Room, the Elders and the Ocean Elders.
"The Elders have made big breakthroughs on conflict resolution, although it is true they have also suffered failures," he says. "It is important to keep this small. Lots of other organisations have hundreds of members – we have just 14 people working together who can make real change by making decisions quickly and getting things done."
Three challenges
While Branson and Zeitz say there are many issues that need addressing, ranging from the need for greater transparency to redefining business education, the B Team begins with three challenges in a bid to turn business away from its fixation with short-term profit maximisation.
First, the future of leadership challenge will seek to accelerate a new kind of inclusive leadership underpinned by a moral compass of being fair, honest, positive and creative.
Second, the future of incentives challenge will work with partners to develop new corporate and employee incentive structures and to identify and map both positive and harmful subsidies.
The future bottom line challenge seeks to accelerate a move away from single-minded financial short-termism and will aim to expand corporate accountability beyond financial gains to include negative and positive contributions to the economy, environment and society.
Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, who has joined the B Team, has for several years been critical of the tyranny of quarterly earnings reports and famously said he no longer wanted short term investors to buy shares in the company.
In an interview this week on the US public radio show Marketplace, he said: "I saw a recent survey in the US that 75% of the CEOs were willing to postpone the right decisions if it would affect their quarterly reporting, and that cannot be healthy for the long-term of the business.
"Nine out of ten people in this world depend on businesses, and I think it's in all of our interests to create healthy institutions. You cannot get a successful, healthy business model if you also don't create a healthy environment. Business has a hard time succeeding in societies that fail."
Partnering with NGOs and politicians
Zeitz, who quit Puma to set up the B Team, said it was no longer acceptable that the corporate sector takes a back seat while the world goes to rack and ruin, and that success will come only from forging partnerships with NGOs and politicians.
"The B Team can catalyse initiatives," he told Guardian Sustainable Business. "There is a lot of talk, but we are not finding a lot of solutions. Business needs to push the agenda rather than waiting for it to happen.
"While we are an NGO, we will run the B Team as a business with clear actions, objectives, and KPIs [key performance indicators]. Some of the challenges will be significant and ultimate victory will be years away. But with the support of others, we can get these initiatives to a tipping point."
Practising what they preach
The business leaders who have joined the B Team have committed to practise what they preach in their own businesses and will therefore come under an unprecedented spotlight.
The declaration states that "before we comment on the practices of others, we 'pledge' that we will 'start at home'. We will focus on ourselves, our own businesses and industries, and do our utmost to ensure we meet the principles of better business."
This will be a particular challenge to the hundreds of companies under Branson's Virgin brand, many of which until now have failed to integrate sustainability into the heart of their organisations.
Some also complain about the lack of transparency of the company's finances, given they are owned via a complicated series of offshore trusts and holding companies.
However, before the launch of the B Team, Virgin has spent months developing a new sustainability vision and strategy, which it hopes will focus senior management's attention on their social and environmental impacts.
Guardian journalist Aditya Chakrabortty earlier this week accused Branson of building his business empire with "millions from you, me and other taxpayers", pointing to a new report that claims the only way Branson and the vast majority of train barons make their profits in the UK is through handouts from the taxpayer. "He's an even bigger subsidy junkie than I thought,"; wrote Chakrabortty.
Responding to the criticism, Branson told Guardian Sustainable Business: "The piece that appeared is almost identical to a previous one which I responded to. None of us is perfect and, at Virgin, I spend 80% of my time on non-profit work, from the Carbon War Room to working on solutions to extract carbon out of the atmosphere.
"We are making Necker island 100% carbon neutral and supporting others in the Caribbean to do likewise, while developing cleaner fuel out of the airline's profits to replace dirty fuels, and supporting companies working in that way. We are doing as much as we believe we can to get our house in order, considering we are in the airline industry."
The B Team, which will be launched in a live online broadcast to more than 200 gatherings in 60 cities around the world, will be holding community events over the next few months to get input from stakeholders and is encouraging people to submit their views on a new charter for better business at www.bteam.org.
* “Bhutan unveils its new development paradigm”
“Bhutan unveils its new development paradigm”
http://www.thebhutanese.bt/bhutan-unveils-its-new-development-paradigm/
The first meeting of the International Expert Working Group (IEWG), established by Royal Kasho is in session since 28 July, 2012, in Thimphu to work on a New Development Paradigm, a mandate given to Bhutan during a high-level meeting on 2 April, 2011, at the United Nations in New York.
The New Development Paradigm (NDP) is based explicitly on the recognition of the interdependent nature of reality, and the inescapable interconnectedness of human happiness and well-being of all life forms.
At the meeting International Expert Working Group (IEWG) contributors will work together with their Bhutanese counterparts to articulate the principles, goals, structures and responsibilities of the new paradigm, so that this alternative perspective on development can contribute to the United Nation’s post-2015 development agenda.
The IEWG comprises 50-60 international contributors with a wide range of expertise. They will help articulate the principles, goals, structures and policies of the new development paradigm.
The first phase of the work which began in August 2012 focuses on the ultimate goal, purpose and context of the new paradigm – namely to promote human happiness and the wellbeing of all life forms – with the aim of providing an interim (first segment) report to the UN by June 2013.
At the first main meeting of the IEWG from 27 January through 2 February 2013, the draft report on wellbeing and happiness emerging from the first phase of the work will be deliberated, along with additional contributions from working group members on what constitutes the new paradigm.
The meeting will also plan, organize and assign specific assignments for the second phase of the work. Cross-cutting issues to be considered for the new paradigm, as well as the key conditions required to achieve the goal of wellbeing and happiness will be identified.
Based on the agreements and outcomes of these deliberations, the second phase of the work following from the IEWG meeting will gear toward producing a comprehensive outcome (second segment) report on the new development paradigm for submission to the United Nations in 2014.
In working on the cross-cutting issues and the details such as the measurement and accounting systems to assess sustainability, and the governance, resource, investment, financial, trade and regulatory policies and mechanisms appropriate for such a development model, the contributors will draw from existing best practices and research and discourses conducted world-wide by progressive thinkers.
There will also be several review processes, both within and amongst the IEWG members, the Steering Committee and a wider cross-section of society. The Bhutanese government will present a draft report on the proposed new paradigm to the UN in June 2013 and a final document by 2014.
“The role of our observers at this meeting is important as we hope that you will come away with a useful understanding of how the inspiration of GNH is contributing to the development of a globally relevant new paradigm,” stated a release from the PM’s office.
The CBS President Dasho Karma Ura will coordinate work on the first phase of the drafting process, a concept document on “happiness and well being”. It will be presented to a larger group of experts today (30 January).
The format and content of the draft will be discussed on 30 and 31 January, co-ordinated by the Secretariat for the New Development Paradigm (SNDP) and eventually approved by the eight-member Steering Committee chaired by the PM, Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley.
The proposed NDP
The NDP is an evolving global initiative led by the government of Bhutan and inspired by Gross National Happiness (GNH). It proposes a holistic and responsible approach to human development based explicitly on the recognition of the interdependent nature of reality and the inescapable interconnectedness of human happiness and well-being with the wellbeing of all life forms on our finite planet.
When His Majesty the 4th King of Bhutan first gave expression to the notion of GNH in 1979, he provided not only Bhutan, but the whole world with a challenge: to redefine development and progress in more meaningful and integrated terms than the current paradigm of unlimited economic growth fuelled by self-interest, competition and unchecked consumerism.
Over the next 30 years, Bhutan sought balanced policies to raise its standard of living without reducing its rich and humanistic quality of life grounded in enduring values of inner contentment, community self-sufficiency, respect for the intricate eco-system and equitable use of the life-giving “resources” it provides.
Why a New Development Paradigm?
On 17 May 2012, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, spoke of the multiple economic, ecological and social crises facing our world, and of the urgent need for “a revolution in our thinking” and for “a new paradigm.”
He said “The old model is broken. We need to create a new one…. In this time of global challenge, even crisis, business as usual will not do…. It is time to invest in people….Clearly we must unite around a shared vision for the future a vision for equitable human development, a healthy planet, an enduring economic dynamism”.
Six weeks earlier, the UN Secretary-General had addressed another high-level meeting, also at UN headquarters, this one convened by the government of Bhutan. There, on 2 April, 2012 800 distinguished delegates from many countries and fields gathered to launch a new development paradigm.
This landmark meeting was convened in response to UN General Assembly resolution A/65/L.86, introduced by Bhutan in July 2011, calling for a “holistic approach to development” to nurture human happiness and the wellbeing of all life on earth.
The new development paradigm now in progress aims to do just that, seeking a healthy balance among thriving natural, human, social, cultural and built assets, and recognizing ecological sustainability, the fair distribution and efficient use of resources as key conditions.
The 2 April, 2012 meeting at the UN requested the Kingdom of Bhutan to convene an International Expert Working Group to elaborate the details of this new paradigm. And so, on 28 July 2012, His Majesty the King of Bhutan issued a Royal Edict to formally convene that group, the report of its work to be presented during the 68th and 69th Sessions of the General Assembly in 2013 and 2014.
The starting point for the first IEWG meeting is to define clearly the ultimate goal, purpose and context of the new paradigm, namely, to promote human happiness and the wellbeing of all life forms, then to examine the key conditions required to achieve that goal, including the measurement and accounting systems, policies and mechanisms for such a model to work in practice.
Why now?
The Bhutanese King was not alone in questioning the dominant model of unlimited economic growth. People around the world were beginning to challenge its unsubstantiated claims for globalised “wealth creation”, and evidence for its limitations and short-comings was already growing. In recent years, that evidence has become incontrovertible with rising inequality and lack of economic inclusiveness, intractable economic crises, serious infringements of human rights and freedoms even in countries doing “well” economically, and, above all, increasingly destructive impacts on the natural world.
With this growing evidence has come the recognition that a new system based on different principles, goals, purposes, institutions, structures, regulations and policies is urgently needed.
But to be effective, such a “system” will require a shift in the underlying values and perspectives by which we organize our understanding of the world, others and ourselves. In other words, we will need a paradigm shift, away from narrow self-interest, material acquisition and resource exploitation towards a more enlightened self-interest that recognizes the goal of development as human happiness contingent on the wellbeing of all life forms.
Rationale
The adoption of a new global development paradigm is now widely acknowledged as an urgent necessity. The present GDP-based system was devised prior to any knowledge of climate change or the finite limits of the earth’s resources. It prioritizes material growth and consumption – frequently at the expense of nature, people, community and culture.
This present system, fuelled by consumerism, has depleted resources, degraded ecosystem services, accelerated greenhouse gas emissions, diminished biodiversity, and now threatens the survival of humans and other species on the planet. It has created yawning inequities, and is generating global economic insecurity, indebtedness, instability, and conflict.
At the same time, the world has never possessed greater knowledge, technical capacity, material abundance and productive potential to create a sane, secure, socially and ecologically responsible global order. No one need go hungry or live in grinding poverty. We can live well in full harmony with nature.
Basic Approach
The concept document is scheduled to be submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations in September this year and a final detailed proposal for a new paradigm to be submitted to the UN in 2014. The final draft will recommend policies that are aimed at helping governments achieve development that goes beyond the current GDP-driven goals, a paradigm that is increasingly seen as being inadequate and unsustainable.
The meeting, organised by the Steering Committee which was also established by Royal Kasho, will be attended by internationally acclaimed experts in fields covering the four pillars and nine domains of GNH as well as areas that are seen as the most important cross cutting issues that face human existence.
Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley will deliver the keynote address at the first IEWG meet on the New Development Paradigm (NDP) at the convention centre/ banquet hall today.
Sonam Pelvar / Thimphu
http://www.thebhutanese.bt/bhutan-unveils-its-new-development-paradigm/
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* “For Richer, For Poorer”
“For Richer, For Poorer”, by Zanny Minton Beddoes
http://www.economist.com/node/21564414
IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux of the Loire for inspiration, laid a railway to bring in limestone from Indiana and employed more than 1,000 labourers. Six years later “Biltmore” was completed. With 250 rooms spread over 175,000 square feet (16,000 square metres), the mansion was 300 times bigger than the average dwelling of its day. It had central.heating, an indoor swimming.pool, a bowling.alley, lifts and an intercom.system at a time when most American homes had neither electricity nor indoor.plumbing.
A bit over a century later, America’s second Gilded Age has nothing quite like the Vanderbilt extravaganza. Bill Gates’s home near Seattle is full of high-tech gizmos, but, at 66,000 square feet, it is a mere 30 times bigger than the average modern American home. Disparities in wealth are less visible in Americans’ everyday lives today than they were a century ago. Even poor people have televisions, air.conditioners and cars.
But appearances deceive. The democratisation of living standards has masked a dramatic concentration of incomes over the past 30 years, on a scale that matches, or even exceeds, the first Gilded Age. Including capital gains, the share of national income going to the richest 1% of Americans has doubled since 1980, from 10% to 20%, roughly where it was a century ago. Even more striking, the share going to the top 0.01%—some 16,000 families with an average income of $24m—has quadrupled, from just over 1% to almost 5%. That is a bigger slice of the national pie than the top 0.01% received 100 years ago.
This is an extraordinary development, and it is not confined to America. Many countries, including Britain, Canada, China, India and even egalitarian Sweden, have seen a rise in the share of national income taken by the top 1%. The numbers of the ultra-wealthy have soared around the globe. According to Forbes magazine’s rich list, America has some 421 billionaires, Russia 96, China 95 and India 48. The world’s richest man is a Mexican (Carlos Slim, worth some $69 billion). The world’s largest new house belongs to an Indian. Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey skyscraper in Mumbai occupies 400,000 square feet, making it 1,300 times bigger than the average shack in the slums that surround it.
The concentration of wealth at the very top is part of a much broader rise in disparities all along the income distribution. The best-known way of measuring inequality is the Gini coefficient, named after an Italian statistician called Corrado Gini. It aggregates the gaps between people’s incomes into a single measure. If everyone in a group has the same income, the Gini coefficient is 0; if all income goes to one person, it is 1.
The level of inequality differs widely around the world. Emerging economies are more unequal than rich ones. Scandinavian countries have the smallest income disparities, with a Gini coefficient for disposable income of around 0.25. At the other end of the spectrum the world’s most unequal, such as South Africa, register Ginis of around 0.6. (Because of the way the scale is constructed, a modest-sounding difference in the Gini ratio implies a big difference in inequality.)
Income gaps have also changed to varying degrees. America’s Gini for disposable income is up by almost 30% since 1980, to 0.39. Sweden’s is up by a quarter, to 0.24. China’s has risen by around 50% to 0.42 (and by some measures to 0.48). The biggest exception to the general upward trend is Latin America, long the world’s most unequal continent, where Gini coefficients have fallen sharply over the past ten years. But the majority of the people on the planet live in countries where income disparities are bigger than they were a generation ago.
That does not mean the world as a whole has become more unequal. Global inequality—the income gaps between all people on the planet—has begun to fall as poorer countries catch up with richer ones. Two French economists, François Bourguignon and Christian Morrisson, have calculated a “global Gini” that measures the scale of income disparities among everyone in the world. Their index shows that global inequality rose in the 19th and 20th centuries because richer economies, on average, grew faster than poorer ones. Recently that pattern has reversed and global inequality has started to fall even as inequality within many countries has risen. By that measure, the planet as a whole is becoming a fairer place. But in a world of nation states it is inequality within countries that has political salience, and this special report will focus on that.
From U to N
The widening of income gaps is a reversal of the pattern in much of the 20th century, when inequality narrowed in many countries. That narrowing seemed so inevitable that Simon Kuznets, a Belarusian-born Harvard economist, in 1955 famously described the relationship between inequality and prosperity as an upside-down U. According to the “Kuznets curve”, inequality rises in the early stages of industrialisation as people leave the land, become more productive and earn more in factories. Once industrialisation is complete and better-educated citizens demand redistribution from their government, it declines again.
Until 1980 this prediction appeared to have been vindicated. But the past 30 years have put paid to the Kuznets curve, at least in advanced economies. These days the inverted U has turned into something closer to an italicised N, with the final stroke pointing menacingly upwards.
Although inequality has been on the rise for three decades, its political prominence is newer. During the go-go years before the financial crisis, growing disparities were hardly at the top of politicians’ to-do list. One reason was that asset bubbles and cheap credit eased life for everyone. Financiers were growing fabulously wealthy in the early 2000s, but others could also borrow ever more against the value of their home.
That changed after the crash. The bank rescues shone a spotlight on the unfairness of a system in which affluent bankers were bailed out whereas ordinary folk lost their houses and jobs. And in today’s sluggish economies, more inequality often means that people at the bottom and even in the middle of the income distribution are falling behind not just in relative but also in absolute terms.
The Occupy Wall Street campaign proved incoherent and ephemeral, but inequality and fairness have moved right up the political agenda. America’s presidential election is largely being fought over questions such as whether taxes should rise at the top, and how big a role government should play in helping the rest. In Europe France’s new president, François Hollande, wants a top income-tax rate of 75%. New surcharges on the richest are part of austerity programmes in Portugal and Spain.
Even in more buoyant emerging economies, inequality is a growing worry. India’s government is under fire for the lack of “inclusive growth” and for cronyism that has enriched insiders, evident from dubious mobile-phone-spectrum auctions and dodgy mining deals. China’s leaders fear that growing disparities will cause social unrest. Wen Jiabao, the outgoing prime minister, has long pushed for a “harmonious society”.
Many economists, too, now worry that widening income disparities may have damaging side-effects. In theory, inequality has an ambiguous relationship with prosperity. It can boost growth, because richer folk save and invest more and because people work harder in response to incentives. But big income gaps can also be inefficient, because they can bar talented poor people from access to education or feed resentment that results in growth-destroying populist policies.
The mainstream consensus has long been that a growing economy raises all boats, to much better effect than incentive-dulling redistribution. Robert Lucas, a Nobel prize-winner, epitomised the orthodoxy when he wrote in 2003 that “of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive and…poisonous is to focus on questions of distribution.”
But now the economics establishment has become concerned about who gets what. Research by economists at the IMF suggests that income inequality slows growth, causes financial crises and weakens demand. In a recent report the Asian Development Bank argued that if emerging Asia’s income distribution had not worsened over the past 20 years, the region’s rapid growth would have lifted an extra 240m people out of extreme poverty. More controversial studies purport to link widening income gaps with all manner of ills, from obesity to suicide.
The widening gaps within many countries are beginning to worry even the plutocrats. A survey for the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos pointed to inequality as the most pressing problem of the coming decade (alongside fiscal imbalances). In all sections of society, there is growing agreement that the world is becoming more unequal, and that today’s disparities and their likely trajectory are dangerous.
Not so fast
That is too simplistic. Inequality, as measured by Gini coefficients, is simply a snapshot of outcomes. It does not tell you why those gaps have opened up or what the trend is over time. And like any snapshot, the picture can be misleading. Income gaps can arise for good reasons (such as when people are rewarded for productive work) or for bad ones (if poorer children do not get the same opportunities as richer ones). Equally, inequality of outcomes might be acceptable if the gaps are between young people and older folk, so may shrink over time. But in societies without this sort of mobility a high Gini is troubling.
Some societies are more concerned about equality of opportunity, others more about equality of outcome. Europeans tend to be more egalitarian, believing that in a fair society there should be no big income gaps. Americans and Chinese put more emphasis on equality of opportunity. Provided people can move up the social ladder, they believe a society with wide income gaps can still be fair. Whatever people’s preferences, static measures of income gaps tell only half the story.
Despite the lack of nuance, today’s debate over inequality will have important consequences. The unstable history of Latin America, long the continent with the biggest income gaps, suggests that countries run by entrenched wealthy elites do not do very well. Yet the 20th century’s focus on redistribution brought its own problems. Too often high-tax welfare states turned out to be inefficient and unsustainable. Government cures for inequality have sometimes been worse than the disease itself.
This special report will explore how 21st-century capitalism should respond to the present challenge; it will examine the recent history of both inequality and social mobility; and it will offer four contemporary case studies: the United States, emerging Asia, Latin America and Sweden. Based on this evidence it will make three arguments. First, although the modern global economy is leading to wider gaps between the more and the less educated, a big driver of today’s income distributions is government policy. Second, a lot of today’s inequality is inefficient, particularly in the most unequal countries. It reflects market and government failures that also reduce growth. And where this is happening, bigger income gaps themselves are likely to reduce both social mobility and future prosperity.
Third, there is a reform agenda to reduce income disparities that makes sense whatever your attitude towards fairness. It is not about higher taxes and more handouts. Both in rich and emerging economies, it is about attacking cronyism and investing in the young. You could call it a “True Progressivism”.
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* “Rethinking progress: A new development paradigm and goals for critical global challenges”
“Rethinking progress: A new development paradigm and goals for critical global challenges”
http://www.trust.org/item/?map=rethinking-progress-a-new-development-paradigm-and-goals-for-critical-global-challenges/
(Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) – Switzerland - Tue, 2 Aug 2011 09:26 AM
Author: Dr Mukesh Kapila; Undersecretary General, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies & Co-director of CIGI / IFRC project on post-2015 development goals)
Does anyone still remember the excitement of starting the new Millennium? And does anyone still remember the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDSs), eight international development goals that all United Nations member states agreed to achieve by the year 2015? Promising to tackle pressing issues such as extreme poverty, child mortality and disease epidemics, the MDGs exemplified the hopes and aspirations of a generation.
To be sure there has been much progress in development over the past decade. Never before have we had so much knowledge, developed such amazing technologies, been better inter-connected, and accumulated so many assets and capabilities. We now have more overweight people than hungry ones. There are more children in school than there are on the streets or later in unemployment queues. Fewer are dying of measles and malaria even if greater numbers perish from road traffic accidents, suicide, and heart disease. Gender equality is steadily improving even though one in three females still suffers violence in her lifetime. More people have more money even as more and bigger disasters wipe out others’ precious savings and livelihoods. Foreign aid givers and philanthropists are generous as never before, even as greater amounts go on modernising nuclear arsenals. More international agreements and partnerships are being signed-off, even as more and more question the fitness of our global institutions and the integrity of our leaders.
But as the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu once warned, “if you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”. So is it, therefore, a good idea to keep following the same path in a fast-changing world where large risks and complex vulnerabilities are paralleled by great expectations and unprecedented opportunities? It is clear that the world needs vision and strong leadership like never before. And any future development model must move us away from a paternalistic view of development as the production line for well-functioning human machines to one that reaches out to bring hope to the despondent, courage to the weak, justice to the wronged, and healing to the hurt. This view of development is certainly not about unproductive welfare dependency. It is about enabling everyone to take responsibility to lead productive and creative lives with dignity, and to realise their rights while fulfilling their obligations to relate respectfully to others. Such development is sustainable only if achieved through the responsible use of resources to create and share wealth fairly so that everyone’s reasonable current needs are met without compromising the needs of future generations.
Arising out of such a paradigm, future development must be truly global – applying to poor and rich countries alike – each aspiring to minimum for our common humanity, while leaving space for nations to take responsibility by setting their own based on the needs and aspirations of their people within their own contexts. As we often get only what we measure, must be carefully selected to assess results with objectivity. Disaggregation by gender, urban/rural, identity groups, and income bands would go some way to unmask the inequalities that hide behind generalised statistics.
The new development paradigm and goals should not, of course, be handed down from above. We should ask those most affected to say what life they want to live and how they want to be enabled to live it.
A new system of accountability will need to accompany the new paradigm, placing the poor, vulnerable, and marginalised at the centre of the policy and practice considerations that shape their lives. We must also strive to regain transparency and trust in our institutions, both nationally and internationally.
A future architecture of 12 goals, clustered into three categories, is proposed. Framed deliberately in positive terms, the first set of four development goals are about the .
Goal 1: Adequate livelihoods and income levels for dignified human existence.
Goal 2: Sufficient food and water for active living.
Goal 3: Appropriate education and skills for productive participation in society.
Goal 4: Good health for the best possible physical and mental well-being.
The second set of four goals are concerned with
Goal 5: Gender equality for enabling males and females to participate and benefit equally in society.
Goal 6: Security for ensuring freedom from violence.
Goal 7: Resilient communities and nations for reduced disaster impact from natural and technological hazards.
Goal 8: Connectivity for access to essential information, services, and opportunities.
The third set of four goals deal with the :
Goal 9: Empowerment of people for realising their civil and political rights.
Goal 10: Sustainable management of the biosphere for enabling people and planet to thrive together.
Goal 11: Rules on running the world economy for the fairly shared benefit of all nations.
Goal 12: Good global governance for transparent and accountable international institutions and partnerships.
Mathematicians tell us that 12 is a “sublime number”. It is also a number of significance in most world cultures and in our representation of time. Fortuitous symbolism aside, these are twelve development goals which could change the course of our current development path and improve the lives of millions of people. The critical question now is whether we can all agree on them as we prepare to embark on our journey beyond 2015? Our crisis-scathed world needs to awaken and overcome our borderless challenges to sustain a common humanity.
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* “Should a green economy be a growing one?”
Thu, 12 Sept 2013, “Should a green economy be a growing one?”, by Lord Julian Hunt, UK Parliament
http://www.trust.org/item/20130912100424-lmes5/
Following a recent meeting between Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao and Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, the ADB has pledged its support for green and inclusive growth in China with a major new investment.
In the next two years, the bank will provide $4.2 billion dollars for urban development, water supply and sanitation, and transport projects aligned with China’s current 12th Five Year Plan.
The ADB’s announcement comes at a time when the ‘green growth’ approach is receiving growing support at the expense of an alternative ‘green economy’ paradigm.
The latter came to prominence at the UN Rio+20 meeting in June 2012, which concluded that developing countries should focus future development on non-polluting green industries, including renewable energies.
However, in the 12 months since, the green economy approach is increasingly viewed as politically unacceptable, especially by legislators in developing countries. This is largely because it will probably mean lower standards of living for many in the developing world.
Green growth, by contrast, implies rising consumption of resources, food, and energy - and thus higher standards of living. However, implicit in this approach is that developing countries must also introduce fundamental changes in patterns of consumption, technology, and agriculture to ensure a sustainable future for their growing populations.
The importance of sustainability for economic growth was illustrated during intense floods in Thailand in 2011, exacerbated by global warming, which disrupted the country’s car industry with knock-on effects for international supply chains.
And in Asia, this year, there have been several examples of severe air pollution in cities spreading over hundreds of kilometres. This disrupted both economic activity and affected the health of millions.
Recent air pollution in Asia underlines the urgency of speeding up measures to protect the atmosphere. China, for instance, is moving toward substantially reduced emissions per unit of energy, with more efficient fossil-fuel power plants and growing amounts of renewable and nuclear power.
Recent reports indicate that there should be a substantial net decrease in China’s annual emissions by 2050.
Despite increased popularity of the green growth approach, it nonetheless poses extraordinary challenges for experts, decision makers and also communities. This is nowhere more the case than in China where speed of reform, aimed at advancing green growth objectives, is outpacing even the scale of change witnessed during the extraordinary transformations brought by Bismarck and Meiji in late nineteenth century Germany and Japan respectively.
One example of these challenges is choosing appropriate policies to deliver green growth objectives. This can be controversial.
China, for instance, is promoting on-line shopping and local delivery centres ‘on every street corner’. However, critics understandably question whether global shipping of consumer goods will not massively increase air pollution emissions from shipping which already accounts for 15 percent of such global emissions.
It is clear that for more people to enjoy better standards of well-being at the same time as promoting sustainability, enhanced innovation is needed to reduce consumption of physical materials and damage to sensitive ecologies and resources.
Some small states and cities in the developing world are showing the way in a number of directions, including world class, low emission transportation, low energy housing, agriculture with low energy and minimal water use, and bio-energy (including mixing human and animal wastes in village bio-reactors).
At a continental scale, developing countries have a record of establishing innovative energy and water networks, although transportation and trade networks have emerged more slowly.
Buckminster Fuller’s vision of a world electricity network is becoming closer as Europe, Russia and China are linking together, and other Asian countries are planning to join. This is a key part of green growth and will bring significant benefits in ensuring power availability in developing countries in the event of natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes), and extremes of weather and temperature extremes associated with climate change.
For the developed world, a key challenge is how best to share knowledge about green growth with developing countries. And just as important, how to convince more decision makers, especially finance ministries, that economic development needs to be based upon optimum long term use of natural resources while preserving and enhancing the natural environment.
There remains scope for improvement, but the increased popularity of green growth underlines that more people in the developing world are now listening. This is especially so as these arguments begin to be framed in terms of surveying, exploiting and investing in ‘natural capital’ - a term endorsed by the U.N. Biodiversity Convention.
National governments, including the United Kingdom, are now formally including natural capital in their accounting. This is beginning to be replicated in the private sector too.
Indeed, a meeting at the UK Parliament recently heard how even international luxury goods companies, which use rare resources, now recognise the necessity for their future business sustainability of assessing the depletion of, or investment in, natural capital. This trend is crucial otherwise there simply can be no green growth over the long term.
Taken overall, it is clear that green growth represents a key, emerging development paradigm, and that China will probably be the crucial test bed. Whether this approach is widely adopted and proves successful will have vital implications not just for the developing world, but also global environmental sustainability.
(Lord Julian Hunt is a visiting professor at Delft University of Technology, and vice president of the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE).
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* “Good Business = Well-Being of People and Planet?”
Huffington Post, September 17, 2013, “Good Business = Well-Being of People and Planet?” : "The B Team", Jules Peck, Posted: 09.16.13
When you see the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Paul Polman, Ratan Tata, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, Francois-Henri Pinault, Professor Muhammad Yunus and Jochen Zeitz call for a refocus of business towards well-being you know that change is afoot. Well-being? It all sounds a bit fluffy for hardcore business leaders, doesn't it?
So what might these B-Team Leaders mean when they launch with a headline commitment to help create a world where business is used as "a primary driver of holistic well-being, adding social value through evolving business models, employee welfare, health, citizen engagement and human rights"? And what might Paul Polman's company Unilever mean when its Sustainable Living Plan commits to improve the well-being of one billion people by 2020?
Let me take you back to the build up to Rio '92. In 1987, the UN Brundtland Report defined what 'sustainable' development was all about as development which meets the needs of current and future generations within the limits of the planet. In other words, there are two lenses to sustainable development: to be sustainable, development has to focus on satisfying human needs while respecting natural limits. Until now, however, most corporate sustainability has focused on only one of these two lenses, the planetary limits, and has missed the far more crucial question of human needs. This is where well-being comes in.
There are various ways of understanding human needs, those things and circumstances we require to flourish, to have high levels of well-being. Most of us know Maslow's hierarchy, with basic material needs at the bottom and non-material psycho-spiritual ones at the top. The problem with the way we live today is that we've heaped much of our material use (and resulting pollutants) at the top - in the non-material needs area. In an age when we know we are living way beyond safe planetary limits, it seems crazy and profligate to be wasting scarce materials to try, often unsuccessfully, to satisfy these non-material needs.
We all know intrinsically that money can't buy us happiness, as Professor Tim Jackson says of our current 'insatiability doctrine' in his brilliant TED talk, "We spend money we don't have on things we don't need to impress people we don't even care about." So what are the key ways to attain well-being? Well, once our basic material needs for food, warmth and the like are met, the key headline things which increase well-being - the 'five ways to well-being' are connection to friends, family and community; giving back and volunteering; being physically active; having life goals and continuing to learn; and taking notice and being engaged. Behind those five-ways sits a more complex matrix of what are known as well-being-satisfiers developed by an economist called Professor Manfred Max-Neef. But lets not get all technical here. What can business do about all of this?
At Jericho Chambers, we've developed a process called WellbeingNeedfinding which is based on insights from user-centered-design, positive psychology, well-being and welfare economics, theories of human needs, hedonomics and neuroscience. This strategic innovation process helps companies map, measure, manage and maximize the well-being-satisfaction their brands, products and services can provide to customers and society. It's based on unpacking and understanding the real well-being-needs of customers and either mapping current products and services against that landscape of needs, or innovating with new products or services which can satisfy those needs in an ecologically optimal manner.
With leadership from progressive business, we should be able to satisfy the material and non-material well-being-needs (though not the created 'wants') of nine billion people. But to do so will require business to think very differently about its role and how it operates. That's why at The B-Team, we understand that the sustainable business of the future, the future bottom line, the future of leadership and future incentives will all need to be defined by their ability to ecologically-efficiently satisfy our well-being-needs.
As Sir Richard has said: "We have no planet B." It's time to live as if we recognize that, and time for business to view everything it does through the lens of satisfying well-being-needs, while respecting the limits of this one, beautiful planet we are so privileged to live on.
(Jules Peck, Founding Partner, Jericho Chambers;Trustee, New Economics Foundation, Posted: 09.16.13, >http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jules-peck/good-business-wellbeing-o_b_3936924.html<
Huffington Post, September 17, 2013)
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* “Eco-Business: Asia Pacific's Sustainable Business Community, “Plan B for Business?”
Eco-Business: Asia Pacific's Sustainable Business Community, “Plan B for Business”
Sir Richard Branson and Kering director Jochen Zeitz have today launched a major non-profit group, dubbed The B Team, with the view to promoting a new set of progressive business values that “prioritise people and planet alongside profit”.
The group brings together a host of high profile business and political leaders, including Arianna Huffington, Unilever’s Paul Polman, Ratan Tata of the Tata Group, President of the United Nations Foundation Kathy Calvin, and former Irish President Mary Robinson. These so-called “B Leaders” have pledged to work on the development of a “Plan B for business” that seeks to address the growing challenges businesses and societies face, such as high unemployment, global inequality and the unsustainable use of natural resources.
“Today we want to start a global conversation on a ‘Plan B’ for business,” said co-founder Sir Richard Branson in a statement. “We are working with government agencies, the social sector, and business leaders to help get on top of some of the world’s seemingly intractable challenges. We are keen to listen, learn and share with others to build businesses that do what’s right for people and the planet.”…
“The evolution of business leadership away from a focus on short-term profits is essential for the future generation of leaders,” said Arianna Huffington. “We need a ‘Plan B’ for the way business is managed, starting with leadership more committed to well-being, wisdom and sustainable business success.”
The group, which will today host a live online broadcast to over 200 gatherings in 60 cities around the world, also released a joint declaration setting out its goals and priorities.
“The private sector can and must redefine both its responsibilities and its own terms of success; a Plan B for concerted, positive action that will ensure business becomes a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit,” the group stated, adding that global society now faces severe challenges in terms of resource scarcity and continuing inequality. “While there are myriad reasons we’ve arrived at this juncture, much of the blame rests with the principles and practices of ‘business as usual’.
“These are not the outcomes we envisioned as we grew our companies; this is not the dream that inspired us. And the overwhelming conclusion we’ve reached is that businesses have been a major contributor to the problems, and we as business leaders have the responsibility of creating sustainable solutions.”
The declaration added that there was now no alternative but for business leaders to develop a new approach, which it many ways would constitute a new form of capitalism.
“Our vision of the future is a world in which the purpose of business is to become a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit,” the declaration states. “Our mission is to help develop a ‘Plan B’ that puts people and planet alongside profit. Plan A - where companies have been driven by the profit motive alone - is no longer acceptable.”
(Eco-Business: Asia Pacific's Sustainable Business Community, >http://www.eco-business.com/news/branson-and-zeitz-launch-plan-b-business/<)
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* “February 14, 2013, “A New Development Paradigm Takes Shape In Bhutan”
Relationship trouble on Asia, Bhutan, February 14, 2013, “A New Development Paradigm Takes Shape In Bhutan”
For people who want to change the world, the departure lounge of Bhutan’s Paro International Airport was the place to be on February 3rd this year. The simple confines of the terminal became an extension of the high level meetings that had taken place the week before, as members of an International Expert Working Group (IEWG) headed home on the one and only flight to Bangkok.
Francis Moore-Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, handed out biscuits to the likes of Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism Solutions, and pioneer Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef while pursuing discussions on subjects like evolving models of democracy, paradoxes of political change, and the role of environmentalism in the new paradigm. The group had been invited by H.E. Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley, prime minister of Bhutan and chairman of the steering committee for the New Development Paradigm, and included John DeGraaf, Johannes Hirata, Thaddeus Metz, Kristen Vala-Ragnarsottir, Anil Gupta, Jorgen Burke Mortenson, and many other intellectuals and activists from around the world.
Why Bhutan as its venue? Maybe because the country is one of the world’s youngest democracies. Bhutan has been in the spotlight for its experiment in developing progressive policies for more sustainable and humane governance in line with the aspirations of Gross National Happiness (GNH). With a landmass the size of Pennsylvania and a population of about 700,000, it may not be the largest or most powerful of nations, but it is an agile country with a people who still trust in their leaders.
In April 2012, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, urged the Royal Government of Bhutan to take GNH to a new level. He gave the government the task of creating a New Development Paradigm (NDP) that, whether adopted into policy or not, will mark for future generations a point in history when populations across the globe started rethinking the role of government.
Secretary Ban Ki-moon, said there is an urgent need for “a revolution in our thinking” to address the multiple economic, ecological and social crises facing our world. “The old model is broken. We need to create a new one…. In this time of global challenge, even crisis, business as usual will not do…. Clearly we must unite around a shared vision for the future – a vision for equitable human development, a healthy planet, and enduring economic dynamism.”
To that end, prime minister Lyonchchen and the Kingdom of Bhutan hosted this landmark IEWG gathering in the capital Thimphu from January 28 to February 2, 2013. The prime minister’s steering committee assembled an impressive list of participants including scientists, economists, environmentalists, psychologists and other great minds from all continents to collaborate with a select group of their Bhutanese counterparts. Their job was to “articulate the principles, goals, structures and responsibilities of the new paradigm, so that this alternative perspective on development can contribute to the United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda.” The Secretariat stated that “The new development paradigm will focus on balancing thriving natural, human, social, cultural and built assets, and recognising ecological sustainability, fair distribution and the efficient use of resources as key conditions.” The draft report will be presented to the UN in June, 2013, and a final document given by September 2014.
It was a truly new millennial meeting of minds with all the expected agreements and disagreements. How does one structure such a new paradigm? Based on the 9 domains of GNH? Or the UN’s Millennium Development Goals? Discussions were carried out under cloudless skies and in hallowed halls with hand-painted walls. Stories of success and collapse were articulated by this most articulate of groups. Hopes ran high and visionary statements flowed. “We need to remove the idea of private wealth from public decision-making,” said one delegate. “The inseparability of all that space contains is the key to bringing about fundamental change,” said geneticist David Suzuki. “Don’[t get too romantic or ideological about nature,” countered Mark Mancall, “We are the custodians.” Suzuki warned that progress doesn’t always stick. “What we thought were great victories were just skirmishes,” he said. “We didn’t get to the root. We were too concerned with the symptoms and not with the underlying root causes.
The Secretariat group hopes to identify these root causes and provide the best solutions known to mankind today. One root cause or symptom repeatedly discussed was income distribution. It was agreed that equality was more important for happiness than a country’s GDP and relative wealth on the world platform. Studies have shown that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive, and ends up hurting the have’s as well as the have-nots. Francis Moore-Lappe suggested that people either “reclaim or come up with another word for ‘democracy’, another way to come together.”
In a joint statement, the Secretariat wrote:
“Perhaps most encouraging in this moment of life-threatening planetary crisis and malaise is the powerful surge of activity from civil society movements around the world – taking the lead where governments feared to tread, and giving courageous expression to humankind’s basic goodness and inherent wisdom. This energy will and must create a global movement for adoption of the new development paradigm and generate the political will to act. But while we are witnessing a growing consensus that the present global system is bankrupt, as yet we still have no consensus on a clear, coherent and practical blueprint for the new approach that must take its place. Fortunately, elements of this consensus are rapidly emerging, including agreement that development must function within planetary boundaries and that it must enhance the well-being of all life forms.”
This is definitely and initiative worth keeping an eye on. (Written by noajones on February 14, 2013. Published in Relationship trouble on Asia, Bhutan, >http://futurechallenges.org/local/a-new-development-paradigm-takes-shape-in-bhutan/<)
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* “Richard Branson…Bhutanese…and Happiness”
November 15, 2012, hrrumph, “Richard Branson…Bhutanese…and Happiness”
I like Richard Branson. The billionaire Virgin Airlines guy just looks like he has fun, well just being alive. You just have to admire that. On LinkedIn today, Richard (he just looks like he’d be okay with first names) asked a question that really is more insightful than it seems on the surface:
“How happy are you?”
At first this seems like a pretty tame and easy to answer question. I suggest that it is not and the fact that, for me at least, it is not it, well, disturbing.
Richard highlights an example of a people who really understand happiness: the Bhutanese. Who you say? Yeah, I confess that I had to look it up too. These folks live in a little country called Bhutan. Bhutan is hemmed in by China, India and the Himalayas; so fear and trepidation could understandably be their major export (or import). But, Richard says this about the tiny kingdom of Bhutan and the Bhutanese:
With this in mind, I was delighted to hear the Bhutanese have introduced a Minister for Happiness.
This Himalayan kingdom has a new measurement of national prosperity too – “gross national happiness”. By focussing on people’s well-being rather than economic productivity, there is likely to be a knock-on effect for business too. After all, a happy workforce makes for a more successful and productive team.
The Bhutanese and Richard are absolutely correct, of course. If we can all try to focus less on defining success by how much money you earn or how big your bank account is, we would all have more time to focus on the happier things in our lives.
In fact, Richard says that is the key to success: focus on being happy and happiness will simply surround you. Now maybe that happiness won’t be on a private jet flying over the Himalayas, but it doesn’t really have to be, now does it.
Let’s all try to measure our success on a different yardstick than most of the wealthy people I know.
I’ll start:
* I find myself married to the most wonderful woman in the world.
* I have my health.
* I have two loving dogs and 3 somewhat lovable cats.
* I have a few talents (well more or less).
* I have a few good friends and a great many good aquaintenances.
* I live in a great place.
* I am married to a woman most men would give their lives for.
Wow, I guess I really am wealthy and, at least much of the time, happy.
Thanks Richard. –
(November 15, 2012 – hrrumph – >http://www.hrrumph.com/tag/richard-branson/<)
