EkoIQ, Istanbul
Interview with Marilyn Mehlmann by A. Bilge Dicleli EKOIQ is the first magazine in Turkey published for “Green Business and Green Life, for a Sustainable World”. The magazine is published by BZD Publishing and Communication Services Ltd., since January 2010 as a bimonthly. A.Bilge Dicleli: Founding Partner of BZD, author of a book on sustainable daily life Nobody Can Say “I Don’t Care”; member of WWF Turkey, of Greenpeace Turkey and of the Initiative for an Ecological Constitution. Marilyn, you have been awarded the Rachel Carson Prize 2011 for your long-term efforts to involve individuals, companies and NGOs in acting sustainability. This prize is awarded to a woman who has distinguished herself in outstanding work for the environment. Can you please tell us your feelings about this prize? I feel deeply honoured. Rachel Carson is widely acknowledged as an outstanding scientist (which I am not!), and as the initiator, with her book Silent Spring in 1962, of global consciousness of environmental degradation. What I find fascinating is that she not only noticed a decrease in the numbers of song birds – not her area of research, but many other people noticed the same thing; but she asked why, and kept asking until she saw a pattern. Most of us have a tendency to accept or absorb even the changes we actually notice, rather than questioning them. In this area, a willingness to look relentlessly at even inconvenient truths, I hope that I and my colleagues at Global Action Plan may be found worthy of the prize. In “Silent Spring” Rachel Carson scientifically exposed the effects of the indiscriminate use of chemicals in pest-control programs. In those days, a big dispute took place in the USA, and she was even accused of being a “hysterical woman” unqualified to write a scientific book. But her efforts resulted in laws against DDT and global treaties to phase out 12 other pesticides. 49 years have passed since then. In regard of sustainability, what has changed and what has not? Well one thing that has not changed is the tendency to attack the bearers of unpleasant news, not least by labelling them unscientific! What has changed, I think, is the growing awareness that the effects of billions of humans on this one planet are not local, know no boundaries, and indeed place in jeopardy the whole future of human civilization: the awareness, though hard to acknowledge, that we are sawing off the branch on which we sit. What has not changed is the slow pace of legislative change in response to this awareness. On the one hand it’s reasonable that legislation is a slow business – representative democracy is and needs to be a slow business. Partly for this reason, I don’t believe that representative democracy alone can meet the challenge. I believe we also need strong movements built on participatory democracy, supporting individuals
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and groups as well as legislators willing to take action. This is beginning to happen, but also slowly. What has also changed is the way business talks about sustainability. 49 years ago it seemed ‘obvious’ that business had no option but to pursue bigger and bigger profits, regardless of consequences that brought costs for others: ruined watersheds, toxic air, destroyed habitat, shattered social structures. The ‘green’ rhetoric began with pollution-control – very local! – and has begun to encompass such concepts as social responsibility, zero waste, carbon neutrality. Some companies, to their credit, are also putting action behind the rhetoric. In a way we’ve come full circle, or perhaps spiralled up to a higher level: current discourse often centres on the need to integrate sustainability issues into overall business strategies, since otherwise they tend to become marginalized within the company. Many books are published on sustainability and many NGOs are working to change people’s and companies’ attitudes towards nature, seeing nature as not a resource to deplete, but as a partner to collaborate with. However, it is not so easy to change the habits of people and companies. According to your experience, how can we create a new basis for developing environmental habits? Do you actually believe that you have a choice, and that your choices are meaningful? If not, it’s very hard to acquire new habits. In fact, it’s even hard to acknowledge the problems. If you feel absolutely powerless to influence the situation – for instance, to contribute to mitigating climate change – then the easiest, the human response is to ‘not hear’ all the news about climate change. To simply not care. This goes for everyone, and starts with us. If I care about climate change AND you, there’s a chance I can inspire or empower you to join me. A workshop participant recently wrote: “I don’t care what you know, until I know that you care.” So caring is the basis. And in order to care, you need to believe you can make a difference. Sometimes the easiest way to find out that you have a choice is to experiment. When you experiment, and see the results, you empower yourself to care some more. In the case of businesses there’s another important factor, the idea of ‘core business’. Funnily enough, business people are sometimes extraordinarily unbusinesslike! A business leader who can save, say, one million euros by investing 100 thousand in energy saving may still choose not to do it. Why? Because s/he is not in the energy business, and investments should go to the core business. This is of course an over-simplification, but I still remember the energy crises of the 1970s when companies began seriously to look for ways to save energy; not in the first place to save money, but to reduce vulnerability. I was working for a big international company that quickly found ways to reduce oil consumption for heating and cooling by nearly 90%, with only modest investments. An amazing RoI! So one wonders: why on earth didn’t they do it earlier? The facts were all known!
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This psychological mechanism may be parallel to the sense of identity of an individual. If my identity is linked to my possessions, for instance the kind of car I drive, then environmental arguments are not likely to persuade me to take the bus instead! Global Action Plan International plays a very important role in developing positive environmental habits globally. As the general secretary of this international network since 1995, you can speak a lot on the positive achievements of GAP International. Can you please mention the most important ones? Well, over the past 21 years we have reached a lot of people in many countries with our programs for sustainable behaviour change. Today they are probably numbered in the millions, though we have no overall statistics. And we know from research that in general those people adopt many new, more sustainable habits – and keep them. But clearly it’s not enough, because on the whole, humanity is still living less and less sustainably. I thought by now we would have engaged ten times as many people! So what may be even more important is that we’ve put a lot of effort into learning from our own experience. And based on that experience, we now have a lot of methods, tools, and models to help our member organizations build even better programs. The latest addition to our programs is a method for learning more rapidly from experience: you can come to one of the ‘Learning for Change’ workshops with your own case study, learn from your own experience, and learn from the other participants. We are in essence modelling the change we want to see: learning faster, and communicating better. Leadership! In business and also in social life much is said about it and there are many books and trainings on being a leader. In your opinion, what are the most important qualities of today’s leader? Whenever we ask workshop participants that question, they come up with a list of qualities that sounds like a cross between Mother Theresa and Bill Gates! So if we limit ourselves to three… Probably the most important quality is one of the hardest to pin down, but easy to recognize: authenticity. Not to copy someone else’s idea of a leader, but to find your own way. In addition I’d say: a certain personal resilience, expressed as the ability to work under conditions of uncertainty. Sustainable development is fraught with uncertainties, and if we wait until every fact is known, it will simply be too late. And then I must include caring! The leader needs to care about the work, whether it’s sustainable development or education or health care or manufacturing. And to care about the people doing the work, and the people who will use the results. And to care about our beautiful planet. Good planets are hard to find!
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