Siegfried Reich

Change of (business) perspectives in the light of the financial crisis

April 17th, 2009

Trigon Consulting invited to an inspiring talk by Dr. Karner on the effects of the financial crisis with respect to sustainability. The event took place at Commend Intl, Salzburg.

There were some key phrases that I took from the talk and the discussion

• Mankind’s ecological footprint means that each human being is allowed to use the equivalent of 1,8 hectare. Needless to say that Americans and Europeans are using much more, Austria e.g. 4.9 …
• Bhutan uses the concept of gross national happiness as an indicator for development (rather than the gross national product).
• and, most interestingly: Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson coined the term “cultural creatives” as a third category of people (besides Modernists and Traditionalist). “In our chaotic world hurtling towards an uncertain future, three kinds of responses have emerged. The fundamentalists are clinging to or going back to values of a distant past. The neo-fundamentalists, represented by global corporatism, are trying to substitute the reality of chaos and change by an artificial form of reality. Then there are Cultural Creatives, whose saner and evolutionary response is to forge a new, higher and integral synthesis.” (see http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Cultural_Creatives/id/9460)
• Only cancer cells grow unlimited, all other growth processes stop at some point.
• Metamorphosis was mentioned as a metapher: we may (need to) change fundamentally
• SEKEM – an associative way of doing business (don’t know whether the translation is correct, see e.g. http://www.sekem-freunde.de/DerWirtschaftsImpulsVonSEKEM.htm)
• Aldo Leopold: thinking like a mountain (i.e., longterm)

Overall this was a very colourful presentation, some reminiscences to the “Clube of Rome”, etc. At the end, I believe, the conclusion was that the current financial crisis is fundamental and thus may lead to changes in our overall behaviour. However, this will depend on the critical mass(es) to be motivated … (it is hard to abandon the amenities)

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