Paul Hawken

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Paul Hawken (born 8 February 1946) is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author. At age 20, he moved to Boston to study macrobiotic philosophy under Michio and Aveline Kushi. He then dedicated his life to changing the relationship between business and the environment, and between human and living systems in order to create a more just and sustainable world. His work includes starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce upon the environment, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. His principle of comprehensive outcome (see below) was influential in full cost accounting and the eventual emergence of ecological footprint and triple bottom line standards for sustainability. He lives in Northern California.

Contents

[edit] Writing

He is author and co-author of dozens of articles, op-eds, papers, as well as six books including The Next Economy [1] wherein he coined the term the "restoration economy", Growing a Business[2], and The Ecology of Commerce[3]. The Ecology of Commerce was voted in 1998 as the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools. In this book, he introduced the comprehensive outcome principle - taking account of the entire result of an event or process to all parties, not just the immediate participants. When considering a decision to build a factory, for instance, it would include the natural resource depletion, the pollution, and any side effects of the production, distribution and consumption processes. Hawken contrasted this to a merely culminative outcome which is simply the obvious result visible to the buyer at the moment and point of purchase, and the profit made thereby by the supplier.

His book, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution[4] with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, has been referred to by several heads of state including President Bill Clinton who calls it one of the five most important books in the world today. It popularized the now-standard idea of natural capital and direct accounting for nature's services. The book includes a price of Earth analysis.

His latest book is entitled Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming[5] was published by Viking Press (New York) May, 2007. In it Hawken describes a convergence of the environmental and social justice movements as the largest social movement in history, and the fastest growing movement, comprising over 1 million organizations in every country in the world. He also talks extensively about his new project Wiser Earth, which is a wiki-based social network surrounding organizations in the environmental and social justice fields.

His books have been published in over 50 countries in 27 languages and have sold over 2 million copies.

Growing a Business became the basis of a 17-part PBS series, which Mr. Hawken hosted and produced. The program, which explored the challenges and pitfalls of starting and operating socially responsive companies, was shown on television in 115 countries and watched by over 100 million people. His piece on Seattle and the WTO entitled N30[6] was published on over 100 websites and by 13 magazines.

[edit] Business

Hawken worked for Erewhon Trading Company, a natural-foods wholesaler, created by macrobiotic pioneers, Michio Kushi and his wife, Aveline, in 1966, relying solely on sustainable-agricultural suppliers. He later co-founded the Smith & Hawken garden supply company in the late 1970s, a business with both catalogue and "bricks & mortar" dimensions. More recent companies he has founded or co-founded include Metacode, a software company specializing in proprietary content management tools; Groxis, a graphic information delivery provider for search engines, libraries, scientific repositories, and databases. He currently heads the Pax Group, which includes PaxIT, PaxAuto, and PaxFan, three companies associated with Pax Scientific [7], a California-based research and development corporation focused on proprietary technologies involving fluid dynamics and convection and flow form geometry. The firm applies geometries found in nature with its primary focus on industrial fans, turbines, and electronic thermal management.

[edit] Activism

Mr. Hawken also heads the Natural Capital Institute (NCI), a research oriented NGO located in Sausalito, California. NCI's projects include the documentary film "Blessed Unrest" based upon Mr. Hawken's recently published book, and WiserEarth the first open source database of the hundreds of thousands of civil society organizations around the world dedicated to environmental restoration and social justice. NCI recently conducted a large research project [8] on the subject of socially responsible investing (SRI) and created the first public database of SRI funds in North America, displaying complete company portfolios and screening categories. The research report describes the current state of SRI, and presents several recommendations to improve the industry.

Mr. Hawken has served on the board of many public organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, Friends of the Earth, and National Audubon Society. He was the founder and Chair of The Natural Step in the United States as well as The Natural Step International[9] in Stockholm.

[edit] Awards

Among recognition and awards received are:

  • Green Cross Millennium Award for Individual Environmental Leadership presented by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003
  • World Council for Corporate Governance in 2002
  • Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year in 1990
  • Utne One Hundred Visionaries who could Change our Lives in 1995
  • Western Publications Association Maggie award for Natural Capitalism as the best Signed Editorial/Essay in 1997
  • Creative Visionary Award by the International Society of Industrial Design
  • Design in Business Award for environmental responsibility by the American Center for Design
  • Council on Economic Priorities’ 1990 Corporate Conscience Award
  • American Horticultural Society Award for commitment to excellence in commercial horticulture
  • Metropolitan Home Design 100 Editorial Award for the 100 best people, products and ideas that shape our lives
  • The Cine Golden Eagle award in video for the PBS program Marketing from Growing a Business
  • California Institute of Integral Studies Award For Ongoing Humanitarian Contributions to the Bay Area Communities
  • Esquire Magazine award for the best 100 People of a Generation (1984)
  • four honorary doctorates

[edit] References

  1. ^ Next Economy. Ballantine, 1983. ISBN 978-0-345-31392-8
  2. ^ Growing a Business. Simon & Shuster, 1987. ISBN 978-0-671-67164-8
  3. ^ The Ecology of Commerce. Harper Collins, 1993. ISBN 978-0-887-30704-1
  4. ^ Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Little Brown, 1997. ISBN 978-0-316-35300-7
  5. ^ Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. Viking Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0670038527
  6. ^ N30 by Paul Hawken
  7. ^ Pax Scientific, Inc.
  8. ^ Socially Responsible Investing:How the SRI industry has failed to respond to people who want to invest with conscience and what can be done to change it, by Paul Hawken
  9. ^ The Natural Step website

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Video

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