Apr 20, 2018
L. Hunter Lovins is an author and the President and Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS), a non-profit formed in 2002 in Longmont, CO. A renowned author and champion of sustainable development for over 35 years, Hunter has consulted on sustainable agriculture, energy, water, security, and climate policies for scores of governments, communities, and companies worldwide. Within the United States, she has consulted for the Presidential Cabinet, Department of Defense, EPA, Department of Energy and numerous state and local agencies.
Hunter Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:
- What has changed since writing Natural Capitalism in 2000
- Sustainability as a competitive advantage
- Regenerative economies
- Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals
Hunter's Final Five Question Responses:
What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?
This comes from my friend Kate Wolf, the folk singer who said, "Find what you really care about and live a life that shows it." There is so much important work that needs to be done. Whether in early childhood education or cleaning fossil fuels and carbon emissions out of our economy or getting plastic single use plastics out of our lives. Whatever it is that you're passionate about, commit to it and commit to adopt. Do one thing. Every day, what's your dot? At the end of the day look back and say, "Did I do my dot?" If every day you do a dot, you will move the world.
What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability and regenerative development?
With a group from around the world, we created a new organization called We-All( Wellbeing Economy Alliance). There's so many groups around the world. What we did was take a number of them and combine them. There are now about dozens of new economy groups literally from all over the world who are committing to work together to spread this concept of an economy that works in service to life. An economy that works for a 100% of humanity. Watch this space. We've just launched the website at the moment it's just a landing page, but in the coming days we're going to be flushing it out. I'm also pretty thrilled about my new book, A Finer Future. We're going to be launching a website for that, where I will be having an ongoing discussion, posting all the cool new things that keep happening. I put the book to bed the end of January, and since then, so much stuff has happened and continues to happen. That is good news. Things that individuals can do that we can all make a difference with. We're going to make it a living website for the book. It'll be www.ourfinerfuture.org.
Then the work of Natural Capitalism Solutions. My little NGO, which is part of We-All, part of Fullerton's Regenerative hubs. We're working with groups like the Savory Institute on Regenerative Agriculture. We're resurrecting work. We did a few years back for small businesses to teach students how to go out into their community with a set of tools we develop that enable small businesses to cut their carbon footprint profitably. We're just going to give it away. Watch this space. Watch the Natural Capitalism website. Watch for my book A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life.
What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?
I believe it's called A Finer Future coming out in September. If you don't want to wait for that one, Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics and Freya Williams' Green Giant's. Freya lays out a whole set of principles that the next billion dollar companies are following to build their profitability.
What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do?
SASB - Sustainability Accounting Standards Board should hit the streets this year. This is a effort by Bob Eccles at Harvard to transform accounting so that sustainability practices that are material, which is to say a reasonable investor would want to know about them, will now have to be accounted for as part of financial accounting. When this hits the streets, it's going to transform everything. The Savory Institute's ecological outcome verification. How do you know if a product is regenerative? Savory Ins. is developing this with scientists to enable ranchers, farmers to be able to demonstrate year on year that what they're doing is increasing the carbon in the soil, is increasing biodiversity, increasing a whole range of ecosystem indicators, and then certifying it so that when you go to a grocery store, when you buy a fashion brand, there'll be a little label on it. This is regenerative. If you as a consumer preferentially buy products that are certified regenerative, you'll be part of the solution.
Where can our listeners go to follow you and learn more about the work that you do and learn about all these exciting things you're working on?
Keep listening to your podcast. Our website is www.napcapsolutions.org Natural Capitalism. The Finer Future website is www.finerfuture.org. Also, www.wellbeingeconomy.org. I'm on Twitter @hlovins. I'm on Facebook and come September, I'll have a new book out.