I had the great honour of hosting a session at the Tallberg Forum in Sweden a week ago – the discussion was one of the richest I have had the joy of sharing, which was in large measure due to the alchemy of key note contributions from Ray Anderson, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Shailja Patel, but was also made possible by the wonderful group who co-created such a rich conversation together.  So much so that when we had to break up for lunch, we all stuck together, to continue talking!

Ray is an icon of the sustainability movement – and he makes carpets, produces floor tiles, weaves dreams, and fashions rich insights.  We got talking about the purpose of business: for Ray “we are in the business of making comfort and beauty”, such must be the test of purpose for business in the age of sustainability. 

Dianne spans a depth of sensibility and experience and embodies a special quality of grace – four generations back, her great-great grandfather and great-great grandmother were born into slavery, he in 1841 and she in 1850.  And she is one determined lady, overcoming tornadoes which had grounded flights in Iowa to get to Sweden.  For Dianne, her-story is honouring a generational line that at once goes back and looks forwards: she lives at once as steward of past and future.  “Hospice of the industrial system of the past, midwife to the industrial system of the future.”

Shailja is a poet, but then so was everyone who contributed to the session.  CNN says of her, she “exemplifies globalisation as a people-centred phenomenon of migration and exchange”, which sounds about as formidable as she is herself.  I think I prefer “one woman poetic explosion”, as the South African Broadcasting Corporation pretty accurately describes her.

Think about the precious reality of this conversation shaped by these three remarkable people – Tallberg is special and brought us together to share this memorable dialogue.  (Thanks Bo and Team!)

Shailja had earlier performed her poem, Drum Rider: A Tribute to Bi Kidude, which contains the powerful phrase ‘if God embraced irony’ and is reproduced further below – I would encourage you to click on the link and read it in full.

Ray concluded by asking us this:-

“If I own a tree, do I also own the bird on the tree; and if I own the bird on the tree, do I own the water falling on the bird and the air above the bird …

… And if I own all of these, then when I cut down the tree that I own, do I own the soil erosion that results, the silting of downstream waters, the mosquitoes now flying overhead”

There’s rich, rich irony in this question and much else besides.

I won’t do justice to all that was said, but here are a few of the most powerful thoughts.

Firstly, all countries are developing, argued Dianne – none of us have achieved sustainability, we are all learning what this means in practice and none therefore can claim the mantle of assumed superiority that comes with being described as ‘developed’.  (And to reinforce the argument, there are developing sections of society in the North, with pockets of deep poverty and exclusion; and elites in the South)

Secondly, throwing money at a problem ranks as one of the least effective ways of changing a system, argued Ray borrowing from Donella Meadows – she provides the following league table of leverage points for places to intervene in a system: 

1. The power to transcend paradigms
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system arises
3. The goals of the system
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organise system structure
5. The rules of the system – incentives, punishments, constraints
6. The structure of information flows – who has access to what information
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against
9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change
10. The structure of material stocks and flows – such as transport networks
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilising stocks, relative to their flows
12. Constants, parameters, numbers – such as subsidies, taxes, standards

Now I think this is one of the most profound papers I have read – read it, think about it, learn from it!  It’s a profound and deeply insightful piece of work, written by someone who is clearly in the zone. 

If you want to change a system, change the mindset out of which the system arises: amen and hallelujah. 

Ray went on to ask what mindset creates a system where 99% of industrial throughput produces only 1% of value 6months after production – a staggering, mind-boggling condemnation of the system of which we are all part and sustain.

He answered, a system resting on the mindset that …

… the earth is big, and will never run out

… we can’t hurt the earth, it will absorb everything we throw at it

… works on a timeframe set by my working life or my lifetime

…assumes the market is an honest broker

… celebrates a linear model of technology (take, make and waste) and cannot contemplate a circular model of ‘life after life’

… calls on our left brain, where everything can be reduced to and codified in numbers

… the earth is ours to do with as we please.

Thirdly, “aid is an outgrowth vestige of the missionary model”, in Dianne’s immortal words.  She quoted, echoing Shailja’s poem without knowing it, ‘If you have come to help me, go home … if you have come to me knowing my future is tied to your future, let us go forward together”

Fourthly, the crisis of our times arises because we elevate private wealth above the public wealth – and if we want guidance on what we must hold in common, we should start with the sacred elements: fire, air, water and soil.  Which takes us back to Ray’s rich in irony question I began with.  Fittingly, as I recall, this conclusion was co-created through the discussion

To conclude with that passage from Drum Rider which for me has powerful resonance – an uncanny expression of the God that I have come to know and some times do joyfully glimpse:-

If god embraced irony, lust, contradiction
heartbreak, imperfection;
if god flaunted her struggles like a velvet cape,
rearranged the atoms of the world
with the rhythm of her gut

then maybe I would believe
in that god.
That god who is only a name
for the genius in all of us
that makes us our own imam and prophet
our own divinity.