Social Responsibility

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Permalink Reply by TC on March 26, 2008 at 4:52pm

What is meant by Social Responsibility? Is it the juncture between the Green Movement and Social Justice? Or is it being kind to the neighbor's dog? Is it an either/or rather than a this and that? I love toying with words and thinking about things - please don't take this as anything other than that.
My day is spent working on the intersection of renewable energy, social justice, and the localization of the food system. The primary focus is on the State of New Mexico where I live, love and laugh.
I also get paid by the Bioneers to do it so I lucked out - I spent the past 10 years doing the same thing but as a passionate volunteer who was paid by someone else to do something else. One of my concerns is the arts are being left out of the conversation. Who will make the pottery to cook in? Who will weave the clothes? Who will celebrate the spirit through color and dance? - of course, the wind outside my window is doing a fantastic job of that right now. I live in a rural part of Northern New Mexico where community is the most important aspect of sustaining. Whether it be sustaining a household, a community, a way of life or the food system; we recognize that we are all in it together. So - back to your question about social responsibility: i think it comes down to the way we choose to share our lives with those around us.

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Permalink Reply by Afriendof B on March 26, 2008 at 6:59pm

Briliant TC!!!!!

Now I don't have to jump on my soap box. At least for another day. I have some opinions on this topic, but I'm tired from prepping garden beds and milking goats. Will chime in later (probably tomorrow). If your want to see my garden beds or goats you can look at http://robertsroost-alan.blogspot.com/.

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Permalink Reply by Kimberley on March 26, 2008 at 9:01pm

Kimberly, I love this question. There is no social responsibility without sustainability and no sustainability without social responsibility, is there? The complete dependency of one upon the other is a little overwhelming.

I work in the Oil and Gas industry (hard to say without apologizing), and we work with these concepts all the time. It is painful work because it is really not a real focus on fixing anything, more of a how do we make it look like we did. We are working toward finding and supporting the leaders in these organizations who are genuinly working for change (they are in there and terribly undersupported) and figuring out how to support them and get their agendas supported byt the larger community before they can be scuttled.

We are in deep conflict now because we are working on two different workshops for the same clients conference...one on sustainability, the other on how to control public perception. The president of our company has started a blog about the deep conflict of changing how you interact in a world like ours...check it out.

http://balanceouttheyinyang.blogspot.com/

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Permalink Reply by Kimberly Maria Newton de Klootwyk on March 27, 2008 at 10:49am

Folks, thanks for each of your comments.

I cannot reply in depth to some great points you each made right now but I am following the conversation with much interest.

I'm deeply satisfied to know that the forum/conversation has begun on this important topic.

cheers,

Kimberly

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Permalink Reply by Harald Wegner on April 19, 2008 at 10:41am

I think its pretty easy from my perspective....you have each day several decisions to make...and in each decision you have the choice to do something nice or with or without a social responsibility...
The only big difficulty is, that you need to have the right and trustful informations to make the right decisions. So my target is easy....to get day by day more informed about the background and how products are produced, and how companies act....jsut to look at the price is in this case not enough...if you don´t have enough money..choose the best of the bad solutions...
I think, we as a consumer have a bigger power than we believe right now....just let it make happen.

So thanks for this forum to get maybe better informations....

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Permalink Reply by memecaster on May 17, 2008 at 5:26pm

I read the response by the "other Kimberly" from oil and it was on spot. I think the larger nexus is the Tripple Bottom Line. Profit, People, Planet.. And yes, do beware the greenwash of looking nice by deviousdesign, not by deed and result!

Profit is needed to sustain the enterprise. It must sustain the customer, the worker and the community where it exists in the actual (virtual not symbolic- how did virtual get to meaning fake?) world. Dito for impact on our mother earth. Its product manufacturing and use must be low impact, hopefully a closed loop with no trash left over to :"throw away"

The metric is still in developement and already the fake it is being designed by those who want to come along without dooing the real work. Whats needed is a very proactive and enquiring bunch of transparency/ certification techs- people who can measure the hype and reality of sustainable claims, separate them and publish them to a place we all can read.Again we need metrics so we can make market Comparisons, not just absolute numbers not related to alternate products to choose.("w uses x galons water per widget" is not enough. we need to know what the figures are like for x and y widget brands, the average widget, the best etc...) We can't simply outlaw corps who we don't like...the power is too diffuse. We can help one another make informed choices. That is a power of all consumers, but now we can act in concert.

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Permalink Reply by Kimberly Maria Newton de Klootwyk on May 18, 2008 at 1:18pm

I started this topic because, as a Latin American, I have noticed that the "sustainability" discourse, when applied on the soil of "developing nations" is too often lacking local participation and leadership, can cause social alienation, and there is sometimes a general lack of equity and empowerment of the most marginalized sectors of society impacted by these "green" initiatives.

This is common in the non-conscious sectors coming in, but it is beyond ironic when it is under the guise of "conservation," "sustainable development," "green investment" or "fair trade."

The following article explains a bit more what I mean (based on a Costa Rican experience):

http://institutoconexiones.blogspot.com/2007/03/hidden-impacts-of-c...

I would love to start or find a website showcasing postive models that have all three pillars equally developed. Please send me your ideas/comments at: kimberly@connectionsinstitute.net

If you have already responded to this topic, I would like to get in touch as part of some applied research on this issue. But it may take me a while, as I have a newborn these days so my research is going rather slow.

Gracias!

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Permalink Reply by Afriendof B on May 18, 2008 at 2:01pm

There seems to be a level of rhetoric or linguistics that exists somewhere above (i.e. slightly removed from) the real world. That seems to be where most of the discussion and "science" in the realm of 'sustainability' takes place. For myself, I have been looking for a model of sustainability for the past 20 years. I haven't found one in the human realm. However, if you accept a definition of 'sustainability' as being "a way of living that can continue forever without causing effects that cause system crash," then one only needs to look at the laws that underlie the rest of the community of life on this planet to find a workable model. If you want to develop a sustainable way of living look at the way trees, frogs, lions, cockroaches, and all other living things on this planet live. At a level underlying all of the differences you will find laws that are universal and that have been tested by an infinite number of species in an infinite number of environments. They work. Develop (or accept only) programs that stay true to these laws, and you will achieve sustainability. Anything else is just a sham. That's what I'm doing where I live. (Of course, I have no funding and little support, but we are moving forward....)

Lots of luck,

Afriendof B

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