Paul Hawken: Really, the proper study of economics is fulfilment, not...

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.

Paul Hawken

top-management business art

All is connected ... no one thing can change by itself.

Paul Hawken

environmental change rivers

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

Paul Hawken

optimistic odds order

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

Paul Hawken

encouragement odds order

Business is the only mechanism on the planet today powerful enough to produce the changes necessary to reverse global environments and social degradation.

Paul Hawken

degradation powerful today

The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive.

Paul Hawken

future intelligent inspiring

The great thing about the dilemma we're in is that we get to re-imagine every single thing we do...There isn't a single thing that doesn't require a complete remake. There are two ways of looking at that. One is: Oh my gosh, what a big burden. The other way, which I prefer, is: What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world.

Paul Hawken

this-generation change two

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

Paul Hawken

religious inspirational life

My advice for people is to love the world they are in, in whatever way makes sense to them. It may be a devotional practice, it may be song or poetry, it may be by gardening, it may be as an activist, scientist, or community leader. The path to restoration extends from our heart to the heart of sentient beings, and that path will be different for every person.

Paul Hawken

practice heart song

Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

Paul Hawken

giving-up people needs

his planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken.

Paul Hawken

future broken air

Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor.

Paul Hawken

success happiness life

The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them

Paul Hawken

future vision trying

Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations. It can also be expressed in the simple terms of an economic golden rule for the restorative economy: Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do.

Paul Hawken

simple trying people

If they [companies] believe they are in business to serve people, to help solve problems, to use and employ the ingenuity of their workers to improve the lives of people around them by learning from the nature that gives us life, we have a chance.

Paul Hawken

nature inspiring believe

We have an economy that tells us it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet.

Paul Hawken

bail business real

Only caring individuals can restore the places we inhabit. The 'simple act of planting a tree' not only restores the places we live, but makes us whole and powerful again.

Paul Hawken

powerful caring simple

We subsidize the disposal of waste in all its myriad forms — from landfills, to Superfund cleanups, to deep-well injection, to storage of nuclear waste. In the process, we encourage an economy where 80 percent of what we consume gets thrown away after one use.

Paul Hawken

nuclear waste use

When the planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce. Maybe one thousandth of this aerial insecticide actually prevents the infestation. The balance goes to the leaves, into the soil, into the water, into all forms of wildlife, into ourselves. What is good for the balance sheet is wasteful of resources and harmful to life.

Paul Hawken

dark water order

I'd rather fail at something important than succeed at something trivial.

Paul Hawken

succeed important meaningful

Really, the proper study of economics is fulfilment, not consumption... It doesn't even matter if it's a green product or a green house... It's still consumption. What matters in this world is the fulfilment of people's needs and the fulfilment of their aspirations.