Efficiency, sustainability and abundance are enemies of profit. It is scarcity that creates profit....We do not pay for air because it is abundant. Selling it would be pointless...If there is abundance, there is no profit...Scarcity is needed to make profit...The film clearly went on in length to demonstrate in a very graphical way that wealthy people are antagonistic towards any form of sustainability and renewability as their wealth is derived from artificially creating scarcity and by encouraging wastefulness.
On a different occasion, a new temp at our Advice Centre shyly confessed his initial disbelief that the staff did not in any way fit into the stereotype of long bearded and greyly dressed environmentalist.
These two typical examples make you wonder if there is really any contradiction between entrepreneurship and sustainability. Is charm and wealth inconsistent with love and passion for the environment?
While I believe there are many dubious and greedy business people, I do not see any reason why there should be any conflict between the willingness the acquire wealth and the desire to be sustainable. On the contrary, I believe it is wastefulness and lack of resource management that leads to poverty. There is a big difference between creating scarcity and creating demand or even helping people meet their needs which good business should be all about. It is our demand for cleaner forms of energy, fair trade goods, energy efficient and environmentally friendly products that will force businesses to change. It is creating the demand for a sustainable lifestyle and well informed choices with our hard earned cash that we should all be encouraging. It is this increase in demand that will lead to profit.
As regards scarcity, it is not the abundance of air, water, sunlight or wind that creates wealth. It is rather our ability to harness these resources and put then into meaningful use. Despite their renewability, we still require wind turbines, solar panels, and hydro plants in order to generate electricity from these sources. These are all capital intensive and can hardly be achieved without financial stimulus. Our whims and passion alone are not likely to help.
Even in situations where we use abundant resources like air directly in it natural form, we still have something to worry about as we want it clean. If the air we breathe becomes polluted, we run the risk of creating a demand for bottled air just as we have bottled water.
Sustainability offers a lot of wealth creating opportunities. The only catch is understanding that we live in a cyclical world everything has a value rather than a linear world where most things end up in the landfill.
 |
| Waste or Raw Material? |
A good person I would love to discuss this issue with would probably be Harv Eker- a self made millionaire and writer. His best selling book, “Secrets of The Millionaire Mind”, written in a very religious style with lots of declarations, is a real eye opener. I really enjoyed reading this book. Just a couple of his declarations:
I focus on opportunities over obstacles.
I always think "both". Both Money and health, not money or health. Both Money and family, not money or family. Both Money and Love, not money or love.
No comments:
Post a Comment