For a Healthy Economy, We Need a Healthy Planet
By Mary Casey
With the Regenerative Economy Collaborative
Many of us are feeling a generalised anxiety about the future. That is understandable — we are experiencing an unprecedented shift, with the Earth unequivocally sending us signals that its systems can no longer compensate for our behaviour. We are seeing the limitations of the assumptions underlying our economic models; planetary-scale systems are collapsing under the weight of our sustained barrage.
But is this a moment for fear and doubt? One choice is to respond by insisting everything is fine and pushing down the intuition that we are at a significant turning point. Another choice is to listen to that inner bell that just keeps on ringing — and become curious about what might be possible if we accepted the invitation to approach this another way.
Encouraging signs
In face of past crises, economists have been agile — adapting to new information, and applying their insights in the service of prosperity. And indeed, economists have been leading participants in the discussion of this crisis since the 1970s. Nicholas Stern’s reports on climate change in 2006 has been unsettlingly accurate about our current trajectory.
There is fierce debate across a full spectrum of opinion, from Richard Tol and William Nordhaus, who say that this is totally survivable, ‘move along, nothing to see here’; to Steven Keen who points out that using past data to predict future outcomes is flawed, as we have never designed economic models in an extinction event, and furthermore, a goal of ‘survivable’ is just not good enough. Others are proposing entirely new models, such as donut economics and the OECD’s ‘Beyond Growth’ framework.
I take heart from this, because this lack of consensus in the face of crisis is not unique to economics. It has been shown by science to be the precursor to a big leap (and we need one).
A cycle of evolution
Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions holds that our understanding of the world advances through an ongoing, natural cycle of revolutions, through which we evolve. It begins with what he calls ‘normal science’, the accepted view. Then comes an ‘anomaly’, a moment when the accepted view is shown to be inadequate. At this stage, the scientist blames the apparatus or sets aside the problem and continues to work according to ‘normal science’. When the anomaly persists, we arrive at the ‘crisis’ point in the cycle, where the anomaly has been demonstrated to not be an anomaly, but a recurring phenomenon. This then leads to the ‘change in worldview’ moment, when the phenomenon is seen from different perspectives and new theories are put forward for consideration which incorporate the new data. We then come to the ‘paradigm shift’ moment when consensus begins to form around one of the alternative theories. Once this is achieved, the new theory becomes ‘normal science’, and we go round again.
Economists are accustomed to this cycle: regularly reviewing data, honing models and reconsidering their structures when results are not as anticipated, or unintended consequences or new dynamics arise.
If we apply this cycle to the current crisis, our ‘normal science’ since the industrial revolution has held as true the idea that we are separate from ‘nature’, and that we operate upon the ‘things’ within ‘nature’ as ‘resources’ and are free to manipulate the ‘things’ to ‘increase output’ like working the levers of a giant machine.
This has alienated us from our place and led to a lack of ownership for the results of our design.
What results are these? There is a substantial suite of data to review, but I am going to focus on one aggregate indicator: the creation of the term Anthropocene. Human beings are creating changes to the earth’s ecosystems at such a significant level that we are naming a geologic age after our species.
This ‘age of humans’ is the 6th mass extinction. Some have described the loss of biodiversity we are currently witnessing as biological annihilation. Our behaviour in relationship to the place that supports our life is causing degradation to the systems upon which we depend for our existence.
This is not an anomaly. We have arrived at crisis.
You may agree this new term is appropriate, or you may consider it unnecessarily provocative. Its utility comes from its potential to help us see the scope and nature of our impact.
Here is the crisis:
• The scale of the impact we have is planetary.
• The character of the impact is damage.
Returning to Kuhn’s cycle as our guide, seeing the debate about the appropriate response shows that we have begun our shift into the ‘change in worldview’ moment when we can see things from a new perspective.
Our chance to evolve
It is tempting to rush through this moment to ‘fix it, quick!’ but that will likely result in a re-badging of existing thinking, not lead us through to paradigm shift. Instead, let’s take this slowly and further examine current thinking.
A fundamental issue arising from the ‘we are separate’ norm is the convention of externalities. In its definition of ‘externality’ the Corporate Finance Institute notes: ‘The ambiguous ownership of certain things may create a situation when some market agents start to consume or produce more while the part of the cost or benefit is covered or received by an unrelated party. Environmental items, including air, water, and wildlife, are the most common examples of things with poorly defined property rights.’
Including in the definition of externality the issues it creates for the environment was great, but the best part of CFI’s definition, for me, was the statement: ‘Economists generally view externalities as a serious problem that makes markets inefficient, leading to market failures.’
Our new way forward must resolve this problem. This is an opportunity to shift to a wholly different framework which does not assume this separation — happily, such a model exists in living systems thinking.
The living systems thinking approach holds that we are not separate from nature, we are entwined with it, as wholes within ever-larger, nested life systems. When working on something, rather than make it smaller to understand it, we start with the biggest whole we can define, which in this case would be planetary. It is appropriate for us to begin here, based on the scale of our impact.
If we agree that we are in a closed system, and that we are nested within that system, let’s propose and test the assumption: if we want a healthy economy, then we need a healthy planet.
What are the operating rules of a healthy planetary system? Based on the behaviour of ecosystems, we can say:
The purpose of ecosystems is the creation of ever-increasing levels of complexity in the expression of carbon-based life.
This is the literal ‘law of the land’. What if, as part of that system, humans saw our role as being invited to use our creativity and ingenuity to enable that development?
Here’s a possible new perspective:
• The difference we can make if we change our behaviour is planetary.
• The character of the impact can be life-generating.
To change behaviour, shift mindset
Our behaviours are the manifestation of our perspective, or ‘worldview’. For the most part, we are not consciously aware of our worldview. It is a collection of assumptions running automatically in the background. We start here to focus on the underlying causes of behaviour, to get to meaningful change.
In living systems thinking, worldviews are classified into 4 levels. Each one builds upon the one before, such that each successive level both transcends and includes the previous:
1. Machine: This worldview arises from the Industrial Revolution and the success of utilising machines for increased productivity. It focuses on ‘outputs’ and ‘efficiency’. This perspective has unfortunately found its way into management practices even though it is not appropriate for application to anything alive.
2. Behavioural: a refinement of the previous worldview, it’s essentially ‘Machine Mark II’, re-badged as an upgrade because it’s managing ‘things with brains’. It posits that humans are mammals and can be manipulated like rats in a maze. If ‘leaders’ point to a path of achievement, and provide the appropriate incentive, people will do what the ‘leader’ wants. Again, this one is applying a perspective onto something where it doesn’t quite fit, and again is an external input focus.
If operating from either of these perspectives, you are trying to force an outcome by applying external pressure or inducements which may influence people to modify their behaviour for as long as the external pressure or inducement is in place.
These worldviews have been the predominant mode of working to date, and if we want to embrace this possible new perspective of planetary impact which is life-generative, we need to go further.
3. Human potential: in this worldview, humans have self-awareness and can become sensitive to our impact. Humans can, through development, see their own thoughts, actions and the effects of those, without feedback from outside sources. However, it is focused solely on humans and excludes non-human beings and ecological systems.
This is better, but it still won’t get us there, as it is still carrying some lower-order baggage of only looking at ourselves. What would be possible if we saw our role as contributing to life systems?
4. Regenerative/Evolve Capacity: in this worldview, there is an awareness that living systems are constantly evolving and changing, and that there is the potential for all systems to co-evolve, rather than one at the expense of, or at a different pace than the others. Creating and maintaining this state of awareness in ourselves allows us to participate in and contribute to the living systems within which we are nested. This requires building capacity for reflection and evaluation, progressively discovering the role we can play in these larger systems. The purpose of our work is healthy humans and a healthy planet, with a co-creative evolution of both. This can apply to societies and cultures as well as ecological systems.
What could be our future?
The fundamental economic question from worldviews 1, 2 and 3 (going back to Kuhnian terms, from ‘normal science’) is: how can humans optimally distribute scarce resources?
If we were to embrace the idea of a disruptive shift to worldview 4 (the ‘paradigm shift’), we might ask: What if economies were an expression of our awareness that we are an essential player in the success of living systems, behaving as an engaged participant towards a co-created evolution of self and system?
Taking the economists’ Kuhnian perspective of ‘being in crisis means we are learning’ will be useful in considering how to build the structures to support the practice of economics as a means of increasing understanding about our interactions with Earth and whether or not they are going in the direction of co-evolution.
In a space of uncertainty, anything is possible. There is still time to choose what the word ‘Anthropocene’ will mean. Let’s use this crisis as an invitation to evolve, do the hard work of owning the planetary scale of our impact, and consciously shift ourselves into relationship with Earth so that the character of our impact is life-generating.
With thanks to my thinking partner from The Regenerative Economy Collaborative, Dan Palmer, for our conversations as I was drafting this article, which were essential to clarifying my thinking and questioning.
About the Author:
Mary Casey leads HKA’s Social Infrastructure Team, with over 25 years of experience in Australia and internationally across projects in nearly every building type.
She has worked as an artist, architect, trainer, facilitator, sustainability consultant, project manager, and management consultant. What she does is help people break through barriers, both internal and external, helping her clients do more than they thought was possible.
A Founding Director and past Chair of the Board of the Living Future Institute of Australia, she was named a Living Building Hero by the International Living Future Institute in 2014.
