It's people! Green business is people!

I don't know if people see what I write in terms of sustainability and environment as "negative" or "pessimistic" or not. In fact, I was just setting out to sanitize my blog tonight, taking away anything that might be "mis-construed" by anyone who may find the time to google my name after a conference I am working at tomorrow related to IT and sustainability. (I actually gave up after re-reading the posts which I was a little worried about and realizing that what I wrote was not especially negative or pessimistic at all)

But that's not the point of this post.

The other day high-up from large organization somewhere in Europe stopped by the office. His organization is in the process of writing their first CSR report. In fact, I am told that it's the first CSR report ever published in that particular industry.

Now, the psychopathically pessimistic and negative Kevin would have thought "yeah, right... a lot of little cosmetic changes and all of a sudden you are 'socially responsible'."

But what struck me was that this visitor *really wanted to be responsible*. He wanted his organization to be responsible. He talked about how he was surprised to find that some of the things he had never thought of as effecting his industry, such as work-place safety, actually *did* matter, and there were real issues that needed to be addressed. He talked about how even though his organization does not actively produce ecologically harmful products, he was surprised to find how much of a "passive" or "second-hand" impact they have on environmental issues.

I have to say again though, that what struck me most was how much he really seemed to *want to be responsible*.

When I was in Sweden, my thesis group's project centered on applying a sustainability framework to the life of the individual (or family unit as the case may be). My reason for choosing this was two-fold. One was that I was trying to figure out my own roll in creating a better future, and trying to figure out what I could do, and the other is that I felt that although we are currently locked into an unsustainable system, it's not by choice. Most people, on an individual level, *want* to do good. Conservatives, liberals, capitalists, communists, terrorists, whatever... we all *want* to do the right thing. Sure, we all have different ways to go about it, but for the most part, it's the system we have grown to depend on forces us to act against our will. I mean, who really thinks that the suicide bomber would willingly kill himself just for the fun of it? Or, that the CEO of an oil company really wants his or her decisions to destroy the lives of people in Nigeria or anywhere else?

It's not the people that are broken, it's the system. As much as I made fun of my thesis partner every time she said "We just have to get to the people's heart", it's true. And the visitor this week reminded me (or taught me) that if we as people want to, we can take control of the system that has been controlling us for way too long.

And on a somewhat to very related note (although I am still very skeptical). WorldChanging reports that

on Monday, BP announced the launch of BP Alternative Energy, a new business unit that will manage BP's investments in solar, wind, hydrogen, and combined-cycle-gas-turbine power generation, which could amount to $8 billion over the next decade, the company says.