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Jonathon Porritt. Earthscan, £18.99. www.earthscan.co.uk
Bleak and inspiring by turns, Jonathon Porritt’s latest book offers reasons for despair and grounds for hope in roughly equal measure.
The chairman of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission presents a three-stage argument that ‘sustainable development provides the only intellectually coherent basis upon which to transform contemporary capitalism’. The earth’s life support systems are under intense pressure from human activity. A ‘sustainable variant of capitalism’ based on a framework of different kinds of capital – natural, human, social, manufactured and financial – is achievable through reform rather than revolution. But how to get there? The final section, ‘Better Lives in a Better World’, offers pointers. Porritt sees the role of business as crucial and grounds for optimism in the commercial opportunities of the period of transition to a sustainable world.
In a notoriously fuzzy field, one of the book’s strengths is its clarity, particularly in the definition of the concepts discussed. Sustainability is ‘the capacity for continuance into the long-term future’, sustainable development the process by which we move towards sustainability.
But there is room for fun along the way and Porritt delights in taking a swipe at almost everyone, and everything, involved. Including corporate social responsibility, that ‘empty, seductive illusion’ which he views as a ‘self-contained box’ into which companies ‘pack all their good stuff’.
Yet Porritt can’t seem to decide whether that’s right. His analysis may be a bit harsh, he says later on, because CSR may enable ‘people to reach the first base camp along the road to sustainability’. Self-evidently, CSR is not ‘there’, but nobody credibly claims that it is. Later on, Porritt concludes ‘there is a lot going on in the business world, which is genuine (not driven by public relations), substantive and long term’. Porritt sees no contradiction: both statements are valid because there is good and bad CSR and companies are at different stages. On a larger theme, he is unsure whether the transition to a sustainable capitalism will happen ‘calmly and peacefully’ or be a descent into a ‘Hobbesian nightmare’. When writing about the future, it pays to keep your options open.
Alistair Townley
Bleak and inspiring by turns, Jonathon Porritt’s latest book offers reasons for despair and grounds for hope in roughly equal measure.
The chairman of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission presents a three-stage argument that ‘sustainable development provides the only intellectually coherent basis upon which to transform contemporary capitalism’. The earth’s life support systems are under intense pressure from human activity. A ‘sustainable variant of capitalism’ based on a framework of different kinds of capital – natural, human, social, manufactured and financial – is achievable through reform rather than revolution. But how to get there? The final section, ‘Better Lives in a Better World’, offers pointers. Porritt sees the role of business as crucial and grounds for optimism in the commercial opportunities of the period of transition to a sustainable world.
In a notoriously fuzzy field, one of the book’s strengths is its clarity, particularly in the definition of the concepts discussed. Sustainability is ‘the capacity for continuance into the long-term future’, sustainable development the process by which we move towards sustainability.
But there is room for fun along the way and Porritt delights in taking a swipe at almost everyone, and everything, involved. Including corporate social responsibility, that ‘empty, seductive illusion’ which he views as a ‘self-contained box’ into which companies ‘pack all their good stuff’.
Yet Porritt can’t seem to decide whether that’s right. His analysis may be a bit harsh, he says later on, because CSR may enable ‘people to reach the first base camp along the road to sustainability’. Self-evidently, CSR is not ‘there’, but nobody credibly claims that it is. Later on, Porritt concludes ‘there is a lot going on in the business world, which is genuine (not driven by public relations), substantive and long term’. Porritt sees no contradiction: both statements are valid because there is good and bad CSR and companies are at different stages. On a larger theme, he is unsure whether the transition to a sustainable capitalism will happen ‘calmly and peacefully’ or be a descent into a ‘Hobbesian nightmare’. When writing about the future, it pays to keep your options open.
Alistair Townley
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