Tipping points and leverage points exist in complex systems – 2015 may be a tipping point and the leverage point may be your decision to shift to a mindset of nurturing people, planet and profits.
2015 has seen some monumental events that may be pointing to an expansion of global consciousness around the need for we humans to change the way we live and work on this planet.
These include:
- The Pope’s encyclical – 180 pages detailing the ways in which humanity is “spiralling into self destruction”… covering symptoms such as pollution, waste, throw away culture, climate change, depletion of water, loss of biodiversity and global injustice and inequality.
- A Dutch court that ruled the government had a legal obligation to protect its citizen’s from climate change.
- The growing fossil-fuel divestment movement and reports indicating that investment in socially responsible investments are providing better financial returns than non-socially responsible investments.
- Growing calls from business groups in alliance with environmental groups – even in Australia – for climate change to be urgently addressed.
- More reports confirming we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction – that may include humans.
And the big question of what agreement may be signed at COP 21 in Paris this December may finally answer the question:
Is 2015 a turning point for matters related to human sustainability on Earth?
How will you respond privately and organisationally?
Collectively these responses recognise that sustainability issues are near a tipping point and are:
1) Very important – and becoming very urgent.
2) Broader and deeper than planting more trees.
3) An interconnected set of challenges that join up human and environmental wellbeing (including species diversity); the way we relate with others – social justice; and the degree to which we each enjoy inner meaning and peace as we live authentic lives.
To resolve the issues that are being highlighted requires a profound change in the way in which we live and work.
One way of viewing the fundamental nature of that profound change is seeing it as a shift from exploiting resources – to nurturing resources – human and environmental.
As you nurture your people more, nurture your communities more and nurture the natural environmental systems more, you will also nurture bottom line financial returns. Investment analysis confirms this now. But that’s not the reason to do it – it just makes it easier.
Exercising your leadership is right and surprisingly rewarding
The reason to do contribute towards a better world now is because its the right thing to do and as Peter Drucker said, “Leadership is doing the right thing.”
For an appreciation of what may be possible when we start nurturing natural systems, instead of working against them; and an appreciation of the surprising outcomes that may spring because the world is interconnected, have look at the the film clip, How wolves change rivers – the link is shown below.
Anthropocene Transitions Blog 