The first time I met Karl-Henrik Robèrt, the ecologist and founder of The Natural Step foundation, he was driving an electric vehicle donated by a corporate benefactor. At the back of The Natural Step offices there was another vehicle - this one powered by bio-fuel and presented to The Natural Step by the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF). In using such vehicles, Robèrt was setting 'the good example' - proving it is possible by doing it.
The Natural Step is really a methodology of how to define and reach for sustainable development. In a sense, it is more of a concept than an organisation, a way of binding people together in a meaningful way. Environmental 'debate', so often a euphemism for 'dissent', always needed a systemic way of gathering the dissonant voices into one calm and powerful stream. It is for this method that The Natural Step foundation is becoming well-known. Recognition has come from all quarters - currently, Karl-Henrik Robèrt is training a core group of officials at The White House, Washington DC. He is in good company; ecologists like Paul Hawken, Herman Daly and Peter Senge are enthusiastic about the potential of The Natural Step method in training up an ecologically conscious generation.
The Natural Step has at its heart a conviction that even the immense complexity of nature can be understood by reaching an understanding of the basic conditions that govern life. In 1991, Britain's Institute for Social Inventions awarded Robèrt its prize for the best social innovation. The Institute, in its words, recognised the value of 'his method for achieving consensus on tricky, complicated, often highly scientific matters ...'
The Natural Step procedure is to use the spirit of initiative to form a strategy for environmental change. Each individual can take part and do what is possible. Once new ideas permeate the whole business community, the government will no longer be able to deploy the current argument: 'the cost of environmental regulation makes it prohibitive for industry ...' Larger companies will already be hammering on the gates of parliament, demanding that their progressive investments be rewarded with legislation and changes in taxation. Why should old, regressive and polluting companies be protected by the law and by fiscal policy?
The Natural Step has its beginnings in business. In 1989, a central group of ten large corporations was vital in providing the finance (some 40 million SEK) for the initial Natural Step mail-drop of 4.3 million educational packs. One of these corporations was, surprisingly, OK Petroleum. Petroleum companies are not known for their radical outlook on environmental issues, but after attending a Natural Step training course, OK management decided to make an initial investment in bio-fuel technology. Their managing director, Sven-Erik Zachrisson, is now lobbying the Swedish government to raise taxes on fossil fuels. His company is well placed to take a lead in this new market, and it now wants the government to recognise that the change-over from fossil fuels is irrevocable. It is not if but when.
A commonly perceived problem with sustainable business is the high unit cost of products, which, in a large part of the business sector, is used as an argument for doing nothing. The Natural Step has started a national scheme called The Challenge to attempt to break down such corporate dragging of feet: as well as giants such as IKEA, Electrolux, Scandic, and Swedish State Railways (SJ), The Challenge scheme has taken on board some sixty municipalities and organisations like The Federation of Swedish Farmers and The Swedish Consumers' Co-operative Union (KF).
The Challenge companies have a their brief to 'co-ordinate their work towards an ecologically sustainable society'. The ten largest Challenge corporations (referred to by Robèrt as 'the point of the javelin') are in an especially strong position to seek out new solutions. On account of their size, they can pool their purchases and thus reduce the prices for sustainable products. Gripen, the conglomerate that owns Poggenpohl kitchens and Kähr's floor products, has struck a deal with Scandic Hotels, one of Europe's largest hotel groups, to discontinue all plastic materials in floors. Gradually wooden floors will be laid down in hotels all over Europe. This will drive down the price of Gripen's wooden floors across the board, and make them affordable to others. Because all things have repercussions, the plastics industry will finally come to the strategic insight that it must stop using non-biodegradable compounds in its plastic floors, or no one will buy them.
This market pressure is a vital factor in the whole philosophy of The Natural Step. Karl-Henrik Robèrt has spoken many times of the need to create a global culture of sustainability. Solutions will not come from above, not from government and not from the EC either; solutions can only come from people who are applying all their skills from the deepest of human instincts.
The best way of fostering this global culture, Robèrt continues, is by seeing 'good examples' functioning brilliantly all around us. Once companies are working in harmony with nature, morale among their employees will rise. After all, who really wants to work in a polluting industry?
Networks, in other words, will inevitably apply pressure on those who stand outside them. IKEA and SJ (Swedish Rail) have struck an innovative deal which drastically cuts down on road haulage. Meanwhile, Bilspedition (another company to have attended the Natural Step corporate training programme), one of Europe's largest truckers, seems to be going mad. Far from acting like a mere trucking company, it is taking on the mantle of a logistics expert: the aim is to carry long-distance freight by train, and make only the shorter journeys by truck. Even more worrying for the competition, Bilspedition is planning to rely increasingly on bio-fuels. This will make it an ally of OK Petroleum.
Soon the Swedish government will not be able to resist lobbying pressure for taxes in favour of non-fossil fuels. However, before the government caves in, the forestry industry had better get into gear for its future role, which will be absolutely vital for bio-fuel production. Anticipating this, the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) with The Natural Step scientists' network has already produced a consensus document on land-use in the sustainable society. As part of this drive, the LRF has also started a resolute campaign aiming to make Swedish agriculture 'the cleanest in the world'. A whole host of measures has been introduced. The use of pesticides will have been cut by 75% by 1999, and government is being lobbied to clean up its sewerage treatment plants to make slurry (at this time containing high levels of heavy metals) available for agriculture. The key is to take action and thereby create momentum for further change.
The Natural Step vision in Sweden has been to focus on decision-makers and business people, to help them lift their gaze into the future and realise their vital contribution to society. As Paul Hawken put it in The Ecology of Commerce, it is no longer enough for a company to feel virtuous about sponsoring 'a new production of Don Giovanni' Yet before there can be a significant shift in business ethics, people have to be 'de-programmed' out of the old economic orthodoxy.
Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline MIT), has characterised Natural Step as one of the best 'learning organisations' in the world. This, of course, is its strength. It is a participatory organisation, and everyone can take an active part. There are now networks for scientists, artists, doctors, teachers, economists, engineers, psychologists, lawyers, company directors, local councils, school pupils, farmers, and publicans. In combination, these groups embody a formidable professional competence. Each group draws up its own 'consensus' document. Gradually, sustainable ideas gain a foothold in every sector of society.
In March, 1995, the Presidents of the ten core Challenge companies met the Swedish Prime Minister. Their agenda was to tell him that the goal of economic growth was illusory - time was ripe for focusing on the challenges of sustainable business. Politicians do not often have to deal with environmentalists who are also industrialists. Yet this will increasingly happen as the latter start to appreciate the material benefits of pursuing a real future, and not some discounted dream. Karl-Henrik Robèrt has repeatedly stressed that we have to help our politicians. For all their protestations to the contrary, there are times when they simply do not know what to do.
In fact, in his book on The Natural Step (published in English 1995-96), Karl-Henrik Robèrt suggests that it is probably futile to expect central government to undertake effective environmental reform. For this reason, the foundation has channelled much effort into local government, which tends to be less hampered by political bickering. A number of local councillors attended seminars at Miljöinstitutet, the foundation's training organ.
An initial network of 17 'eco-councils' was set up, and a further 23 are now part of their number. One million people in Sweden, an eighth of the total population, live in municipalities committed to sustainable development. The city of Stockholm, with a further one million inhabitants, is now considering the option of joining up. A whole host of bodies, notably Kommunförbundet (The Association of Local Councils), has furthered the development of eco-councils. Pressurised by this growing 'culture of sustainability', the government has now ordered the country's 286 municipalities to draw up sustainable action plans - although not enforceable, these will be stringently assessed and must be ready for presentation by 1996.
The work is being undertaken in line with Agenda 21 of the 1992 (UNCED) Rio Conference, which recognises the vital contribution of local municipalities in achieving an eco-cyclic society. In practice, local schemes will centre on areas such as waste handling and treatment, composting, building standards, eco-tourism etc.
Many of the Natural Step initiatives in Sweden are aimed at schools and youth. The Youth Parliament for the Environment is an educational scheme that has been running in Sweden since 1989. In 1995, for the first time, the project went international - pupils from Finland, Denmark, England, Ireland, Holland and Switzerland all took part in the two-day event. In all, there were 150,000 participants from schools in seven countries. Delegates communicated by fax, phones and e-mail. The idea, in the words of The Natural Step project organiser, Johan Strid, 'is to stop young people from just talking, and get them out doing things instead ...'
Local projects were undertaken - sewerage plants examined, forestry methods scrutinised, and local politicians and business people interviewed. Each class produced its own magazine, from which one definitive national magazine was refined and printed in a run of 150,000 copies. A scheme like this, though sceptics will think it a drop in the sea, is an integral part of the whole process of underpinning and encouraging a fragile new consciousness. All in all, the vision of a sustainable world may seem leagues away, receding as we move towards it; but The Natural Step, dynamic and so fundamentally a child of its time, is surely part of the force that will turn the tide and set the course for a new millennium.
- Henning Koch is a writer, translator and poet. He is presently translating Karl-Henrik Robèrt's book on The Natural Step.
- Karl Henrik-Robèrt, the founder of Natural Step, lecturer at the Schumacher Lecture on 21st October '95 in Bristol. For further information ring 0803 865051.
- John Pontin et al, The Natural Step for Britain, Leigh Court, Abbots Leigh, Bristol BS8 3RA (tel 01275 373393; fax 01275 374681; e-mail: <natstep@ecos.demon.co.uk>).
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