If you care about business & you care about the state of our planet, then you have had more than a passing interest in sustainability. You may find you self frustrated, confused or even discouraged about the current state of things, yet at the same time unclear about what else to do. This book offers some fresh thinking about sustainability. The introduction to the three stages of sustainability will help clarify the journey while the Sustainable Values Set(R) provides a path. Exploring economics, leadership, ethics & other aspects of our world from this perspective, grounds concepts and ideas in practical applications. By thinking in wholes & understanding the implications & long-term consequences of our decisions, new opportunities open up. Business has an enormous amount of leverage to make changes & shift consciousness. This is the role business has played for the past 200 years as business explored planned obsolescence - to increase sales, immediate gratification - to increase sales, time management - to get more out of expendable workers, and so on. Business has had a major impact on our world & how we understand our world. Nature has been here to allow us to fulfill our dreams, & we have used her that way! Now we are beginning to see the consequences of acting as if only we mattered. Now we have an opportunity to turn around 180 degrees & see what kind of world we can create when we become both partners & co-creators with Mother Nature. Given her preference for bounty & abundance, this may prove to be an eye-opening experience as we engage in a collaborative relationship instead of an adversarial one. As humans we are beginning to understand that collaboration works within the human family. We are still shaky on that belief & rather unskilled in making collaboration a reality, but we now have tools, methods & processes to make real collaboration happen. As we make collaboration the norm, then the possibility that we will commit to spread that kind of relationship into our interactions with the rest of the living beings on the planet. While the shift from human centric to Earth centric decision-making is huge, it is also closer to hand than you might think. The urgency, the mandatory integrity, & the need for coherence between our ideals & our actions all require a discipline & fierce love that few other commitments have mandated. It is the application of sustainable intelligence to everyday decisions that make this such an achievable task. We all want a healthy planet, but we fear that will mean a dramatic change in life style. That we will have to reduce our standard of living & be without some of the conveniences we have learned to love. It is the attitude & belief that we will lose something that stops us before we even start. The truth is that while things may look different & some things may change, life will actually get better! A person recovering from a heart attack may complain about not being able to eat those juicy burgers, but once that hurdle has been overcome the healthy life style that follows is a joy. This is a good simile for the changes we need to make. Much of our current way of living is not joyous, not healthy, & puts off into the future the life we want as a means of justifying the pain we live with everyday. Changing this is NOT a sacrifice! It is a challenge, but a good one! This book is the first in a series that explores how to make this bold change in a manner that is congruent with our values & our real, heartfelt desires. The Sustainable Values Set(R) offers a path through the fog of desire into the sunshine. The values are not new, but seeing them as part of a system allows for new insights into how we both help & hinder the achievement of our goals. The three stages of sustainability make clear the benefits at each stage. This is not a linear path, but one that can be started from any stage - it is congruence & persistence that will get us there. This book points the way!
About the Author: She is an author, speaker, and culture coach working with people desiring to create organizations with work environments that promote creativity, personal initiative and meaningful participation. She excels at helping leaders and teams create and navigate their desired future. Kathryn was recognized as the businesswomen of the year by the Boulder chapter of the Business and Professional Women, and a Women to Watch in Sustainability by the Boulder, CO Westword in 2012. In her 16 years working with change, in organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies, she has learned the secret that effective organizations are ethical organizations. Working with leaders and teams to address the need to think differently about their problems, she has been instrumental in co-creating significant shifts in her client companies. Kathryn has an MA in Organizational Development and Transformation and She has served on the board of the Boulder Business & Professional Women, and on the board of the State organization Colorado Business Women. She is a former member of the Colorado OD Network, and the International Society of Systems Scientists, past board member of ASTD-RMC. She appears in Who's Who in American Woman and the International Who's Who.