Let’s start with a truism: financial results are the success metrics of corporations. People who make daily decisions on creating and executing corporate policies are trained (and paid) to think in ways that improve the performance of the corporation.
As such, it is not surprising that the success of our technocratic society so far has not been based on an ecosystem justice but rather on developing efficient ways of converting “natural capital” into “man-made capital.” Martin Herbert Kijazi in the recent issue of Idea&s magazine proposes that an ecologically compatible economy would embrace a wide range of objectives beyond economic profitability.
However, the old saying, “what gets measured gets managed,” always applies. So, how to measure the integrity of an ecosystem? Or the vitality of an urban centre?
“The first order of business is conservation,” writes Eric Janszen in in a Wired interview. “Real political leadership means putting together long-term interest ahead of short, and it’s clearly in the long-term interest to look at the environment.”
Eric is an angel investor and founder of the contrarian market website iTulip.com, which The New York Times credited with “accurately predicting that the [internet] bubble would pop.” Now Janszen believes the American economy needs a fundamental restructuring away from its foundations in finance, insurance and real estate. His prescription: a new bubble based on green technologies.
Interestingly, Eric proposes a new organizational structure to bring together these seemingly opposing objectives of perpetual economic growth and long term sustainability. He proposes that part of that transition would include “… public-private corporations that have the deep pockets of government but the obligations to shareholders of a private corporation. There are going to be market mechanisms, so you don’t end up years late and billions of dollars over budget.”
Read more: “The Next Bubble: Priming the Markets for Tomorrow’s Crash,” Harper’s