Conscious Choice: Take the Natural Step

September 1998

Take the Natural Step

by Terry Gips

Poet Maya Angelou once reminded the public "to look for the heroes and sheroes in our lives" — the everyday, usually unsung people around us who provide inspiration and make a profound difference in the lives of others. One of mine is Rachel Carson, who changed the world with her 1962 landmark book Silent Spring. Her work led to the first Earth Day, a U.S. ban on DDT, creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.N. Environmental Program, the world’s first conference on the environment, and the development of the modern environmental movement. All of this from one woman with no Ph.D., but lots of common sense.

When Rachel Carson rang the alarm that woke the world, there was an unfilled void about how to create a sustainable future. That began to change in 1989, with the emergence of new initiatives such as The Natural Step — an easily understood, scientifically-based framework for sustainability developed by Swedish medical doctor and cancer researcher Dr. Karl Henrik Robert and other scientists through an extensive consensus process.

By 1994, Robert partnered with well-known author and business leader Paul Hawken to bring The Natural Step to the U.S. They were soon to be joined by a most unlikely ally — Ray Anderson, the head of Interface, the world’s largest commercial floor-covering manufacturer. These three have been joined by the likes of renewable energy guru Amory Lovins,Your Money or Your Life coauthor Vicki Robbins, green architectural genius William McDonough, organizational learning inventor Peter Senge, and thousands of other sheroes and heroes.

Together they are inviting business, government, nonprofits, schools, and communities to take the next step toward what they see as a new industrial revolution — planetary sustainability — an opportunity, as Paul Hawken says, to "create jobs, reduce taxes, shrink government, increase social spending, and restore our environment."

The Dream
Robert’s work began with a dream, literally. In 1989, Robert was struggling to address the surging cancer rates he observed among young children in Sweden and read about in reports from around the world. His research and that of others led him to believe that the one percent a year increases in rates of certain childhood cancers were tied to environmental factors, not lifestyle. He had to explain to parents that their children were dying from what we are doing to the planet.

Robert was frustrated by the scientific community’s endless debate about the causes of the problem. As he says, "The scientists were like monkeys chattering about the leaves of a tree, while the tree was dying. We had to get at the trunk and roots to discover the core principles for addressing the problem."

As Robert struggled with the problem, it began to invade his sleep. Night after night, he had dreams of a beautiful woman, a temptress. And then one night she turned into a witch that clawed and attacked him.

Robert tried to understand its significance. He turned to his wife Rigmor, a professional therapist, who interpreted the dream to mean that he was not acting on his desires to build consensus and start an environmental organization. With this clarity, Robert was inspired to begin a bold quest for science’s seeming Holy Grail — a set of principles for planetary sustainability upon which leading scientists could agree. He distributed a paper for comment from fellow researchers. Comments came back ripping up the ideas presented. Robert thanked them for their comments and simply asked what suggestions they had for improving the paper. He initiated a process by which he incorporated suggestions and continually sent the document back out.

The Breakthrough
After 21 drafts, Robert finally achieved consensus from 50 leading Swedish scientists. Then he shared the findings in easily understood language with corporate heads in Sweden. The corporate leaders realized that their businesses were in danger from the spreading cancer among their future customer base and the destruction of the very resources they needed to manufacture their products. They agreed to help underwrite the distribution of an easy-to-understand, attractive educational pamphlet and audiocassette on the scientific findings. It went to every home and school in Sweden, 4.3 million altogether.

Robert also shared the pamphlet with other groups, including nurses, doctors, lawyers, artists, musicians, teachers, architects, and policy makers. Top performers saw the possibility of using this powerful tool to educate a nation and volunteered to do a major television special, if the network would agree. In short order, Robert not only lined up the network, but was able to get the blessing of the King of Sweden as a royal patron.

The Natural Step (TNS, or in Swedish, Det Naturaliga Steget) was officially launched in 1989 with a nationally broadcast television show featuring Robert with Sweden’s leading musicians, artists, and cultural leaders. This was soon followed by an eco-train, which stopped in cities and towns from one end of Sweden to the other and carried educational exhibits on sustainability sponsored by corporations.

TNS was established as a nonprofit educational organization with the purpose of developing and sharing a common framework comprised of easily understood, scientifically-based principles that serve as a compass to guide society toward a just and sustainable future.

While the idea of TNS was being formed, Swedish communities began creating "ecomunicipalities" by combining economic and ecological development. It didn’t always go smoothly; Swedish eco-municipality leader Torbjorn Lahti found himself sorely limited by a lack of public awareness and official support. To spread the word, Lahti invested his life savings and offered Sweden’s first eco-community conference in 1990 at Orsa. Last-minute registrations, inspired by word-of-mouth, packed the conference, which succeeded in its goal of firmly establishing the eco-municipality movement.

But it achieved far more. This event will perhaps be marked as a watershed in human history because it was there that Dr. Karl Henrik Robert met leading physicist Dr. Karl-Erik Eriksson and his young Ph.D. student John Holmberg. Their interaction led to the development of The Natural Step’s basic principles for sustainability (see box).

A Dream Come True In Only Nine Years
The Natural Step, coupled with the United Nations’ Agenda 21 action plan for the 21st Century (developed at the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio), the eco-municipality movement, and other initiatives, helped bring about an impressive series of shifts in Sweden.

The emphasis on educating people of all ages is at the core of TNS, and this resulted in government-funded adult study circles, eco-daycare facilities for children, and school programs — run by school children — that offered "natural cycle" greenhouses with organic produce, hens, and composting toilets. Learning is facilitated through humorous TNS plays and songs, interactive board games, community environmental calendars, eco-fairs, and self-teaching CD-ROMS. Hundreds of thousands of young people learned how to become conscientious consumers of the 3,000 eco-labeled products in Swedish supermarkets. They have created their own environmental projects, computer networks, video programs, and Youth Parliament.

Under the leadership of Lahti and his partner Gunnar Brundin of Esam Utbildning, more than half of Sweden’s 289 municipalities have been trained in TNS as a way to decrease costs and waste while creating more jobs and building community. Seventy have gone on to become eco-municipalities utilizing the TNS four system conditions and Agenda 21 action plans. These communities range from large cities like Stockholm to medium-sized and small rural communities all over Sweden. To further these efforts, the King of Sweden awards a bi-annual award to the most environmental municipality.

More than 60 corporations also are implementing TNS, including the world’s largest manufacturers of appliances (Electrolux) and furniture (IKEA), Swedish Railways, three major supermarket chains (ICA, Konsum and Hemkop), largest hotel chain (Scandic), and even McDonald’s (see sidebar). The corporations were joined by professionals, such as the doctors, lawyers, architects, and consultants who created 20 professional groups addressing environmental concerns of their specialties. There even is a successful Swedish mutual fund based on TNS principles, which, by the way, is outperforming the market.

For years there was a pitched battle between Sweden’s organic and conventional farmers. TNS trainers sought to modify their polarized positions using a modification of its original consensus process. In what Swedish Ecological Farmers head Inger Kallender described as "more than a challenging process," the farmers achieved agreement from both sides on a forward thinking "TNS Agricultural Consensus Document." The Farmers Union declared themselves: "on our way to the cleanest agriculture in the world." Incorporating TNS ideas, they transformed their Sanga-Saby Conference Center into the world’s most environmentally clean conference facility - while becoming profitable. They also turned both their model farm and restaurant completely organic and have gone fossil fuel-free, with green electricity, biofuel heating, and vehicles run on farmer-grown canola fuel.

To top this off, Swedish farmers achieved a 75 percent reduction in pesticide use within a decade. First, they met a national 50 percent pesticide use reduction goal, which they achieved in five years; then they initiated a further 50 percent reduction goal, which they achieved in only four years. This benefitted both the environment and the farmers’ bottom line.

Using a similar approach, Robert and TNS also have developed consensus processes and papers on other thorny topics, such as energy, forestry, mining, and municipalities. TNS is currently engaged in its first open international consensus process to address the challenging issue of genetic engineering.

TNS Crosses the Ocean
Gradually TNS has spread to England, Holland, Australia, Japan, and across the Atlantic to Canada and the U.S. One of the first people to help popularize TNS in the U.S. was progressive entrepreneur Paul Hawken. The Natural Step came to U.S. audiences through introductory articles and talks by Hawken and Robert, who made a powerful team with their mutual ability to pack rooms and deliver an articulate, inspiring message.

In 1995, Hawken helped establish The Natural Step U.S. as a nonprofit based in Boston. He served as its unpaid, often full-time Chair, strategist, editor, and teacher. The mission of TNS/U.S. was nothing less than training one million people within five years. Sweden had no instructor training program, just a year-long apprenticeship, so TNS/U.S. forged ahead with an intensive three-week instructors course for 20 outstanding leaders. The effort was perhaps premature; the training and support materials still needed work, and the response of participants was mixed. Moreover, the small organization was deluged with requests for information. Hawken and the Board decided to retool completely for U.S. audiences.

Hawken, TNS staff, and the original instructor group improved their basic materials. Then, in February of 1997, the U.S. EPA and Johnson Wax Foundation sponsored a meeting in Racine, Wisconsin, where top North American scientists and engineers undertook a consensus process regarding TNS and its principles. The meeting was headed by widely respected biologist Dr. Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists concluded that the TNS scientific framework was "valid" and could be an especially useful tool for "organizing information" about sustainability. The Natural Step gained influence, though it still lacked legitimization by a major U.S. corporation.

Corporate Heroism
A serendipitous combination of events turned Interface Inc. into the corporate hero TNS needed. The company’s Chair, Ray Anderson, had been struggling with what to say to an Interface global task force regarding the company’s environmental position. Anderson recounts, "The word sustainability meant little or nothing to me. For the first 21 years of Interface’s existence, I never gave one thought to what we took from or did to the earth, except to be sure we obeyed all laws and regulations. Frankly, I didn’t have a vision."

In July 1994, someone sent Anderson a copy of Hawken’s Ecology of Commerce. He picked up Hawken’s book and, as he says, "It was an epiphany." He described the experience as feeling like "someone putting a spear into my heart." For the first time, Anderson realized the horrible impact he and his company were having on the planet and its implications for future generations.

Anderson agreed with Hawken’s central thesis: "While business is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution....Business is the largest, wealthiest and most pervasive institution on Earth and responsible for most of the damage. It must take the lead in directing the Earth away from collapse, and toward sustainability and restoration." He appreciated the fact that TNS offers a framework for change, while allowing each organization to come up with its own creative response to environmental problems.

Anderson met with Hawken, and in January 1996 Interface sent a research mission to TNS in Stockholm. They then became the first major company in the U.S. to utilize TNS. Ultimately, he challenged Interface "to become the first sustainable corporation in the world."

While Anderson describes their challenge of transformation "as a mountain to climb that is higher than Everest," they have already begun to see the fruits of their labor. Interface estimates that by the end of 1998 they will have achieved savings of $76 million, all of which is being reinvested to achieve even greater sustainability savings.

Interface now has more than 400 sustainability initiatives underway, including efforts to produce their first carpet made using solar energy. As an alternative to conventional floor covering purchasing, Interface developed their Evergreen Lease, in which the customer leases the carpet tile for the services it provides (functionality, aesthetics, etc.) and Interface remains responsible for its maintenance, replacement, and ultimate reuse of resources.

Interface has since been joined in using TNS by a number of other American companies, including Mitsubishi Electric U.S.A, Collins Pine (sustainable forestry products), Placon (plastics), Sisters of Mercy of the Americas (hospitals), and Fredric’s (an Aveda Corporation distributor of natural personal care products). Others are on the way, such as the Aveda Corporation (now owned by Estée Lauder) and Intelligent Nutrients (direct marketer of organic nutritional supplements).

A range of other institutions have become involved, including the University of Texas at Houston Health Science Center, the San Diego Museum of Natural History, Georgia Tech, the University of Tennessee, the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and a range of communities from California’s Alameda County to rural Faribault in Minnesota.

As for Anderson, he has entered the speakers’ circuit to reach any CEO he can find. His pulpit was expanded last year when President Clinton named him Co-Chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, a highly visible position allowing him to help guide the nation’s efforts at bringing about sustainability in business and the rest of society.

Today, TNS has a new office in the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in San Francisco’s magnificent Presidio. It is headed by Catherine Gray and co-chaired by Kate Fish and Dane Nichols. There is an extensive regional network from the Pacific Northwest and Southwest to New England and the Southeast. In the Midwest, there are active networks doing extensive work in Minnesota and Madison, Wisconsin, as well as in Michigan. The Alliance for Sustainability and Science Museum of Minnesota led a tour of TNS efforts in Sweden and have begun an exchange with Swedish TNS community leaders.

In Minnesota there are monthly TNS network meetings and seminars offered by the Alliance for Sustainability (see contact information below).

The Natural Step’s vision of creating a sustainable planet within our lifetime may seem outlandish to some. But scientists, corporate leaders, and ordinary citizens in both Sweden and the U.S. have proven it possible. We can protect the environment while increasing profits and meeting basic human needs. It’s time to fulfill the dream of a sustainable future.

Terry Gips is an author, economist, ecologist, Natural Step facilitator, President Emeritus of the Alliance for Sustainability, and President of Sustainability Associates. He will be giving an introductory TNS presentation and "Sustainable Sweden" slide show at River North Center on September 24 at 7:30 pm, followed by a complete, day-long seminar September 25, with registration beginning at 8:30 am. For more information, call 800-818-7890 or 612-374-4765.

Resources
Terry Gips, 2584 Upton Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55405; Tel: 612-374-4765; Fax: 612-377-6019; E-mail: tgips@mtn.org

The Alliance for Sustainability: 1701 University Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55405; Tel: 612-331-1099; Fax: 612-379-1527; E-mail: iasa@mtn.org Website: www.mtn.org/iasa

The Natural Step USA: P.O. Box 20372, San Francisco, CA 94129; Tel: 415-561-3344; Fax: 415-331-7690; E-mail: tns@naturalstep.org, Web site: www.naturalstep.org

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