|
 Dassault Systèmes President and CEO Bernard Charlès sums it up simply: What a company takes from the planet’s resources to create and deliver a product must be surpassed by the value that product or service delivers to the people it serves. According to the Fall issue of Contact Magazine. What’s wrong with this picture?
Actually several things. First it is human centric. It is a form of “the ends justify the means.” Most of our human centric focus carries the same kind of thinking. If it is good for humans then that justifies the death and destruction of anything else. Tar sands anyone?
Secondly, the “taking” is a one-way street. That kind of action is desecration, pure and simple. This is the problem that is at the heart of sustainability – taking. Taking IS unsustainable! The natural world functions as well as it does and for as long as it has (3.8 billion years) because there NO taking.
All ecosystems function from the foundation of reciprocity. Reciprocity is about giving and receiving, not about taking and manipulation, not about power grabs, but mutual support. Reciprocity ensures that both/all parties get what they need and that the health of the whole is paramount.
In nature the health of the ecosystem requires the health of all. No species lives at the expense of another species – except humans. Nature is distributive, only humans have designed systems that serve a few of the species at the expense of the rest. A process that is showing the cracks of its unsustainability.
If the products Dassault Systèmes makes are non-polluting – great. If there are no toxins in those products or in the making of those products – great. If there is no waste generated in the making and selling of those products – better. But until there is a giving back, a restoring of the Earth of what was taken, they are not sustainable.
|
FaceBook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Permalink