Sustainable Speed Dating at RMI
August 30, 2007
Posted by: johnsoncontrols 09:39 PM
By Marc D. Andraca
Director, Global Energy & Sustainability
Johnson Controls Building Efficiency Business
The Rocky Mountain Institute's mission statement isn't modest: "We foster the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining."
RMI turned 25 this year and celebrated the milestone with a two-day party in the Colorado mountains. Although there was music, dancing, movies and food, you'd be hard-pressed to explain the event in the generally understood definition of "party."
Imagine instead a kind of parallel-universe speed dating session. In the average person's universe, speed dating is about going to an event and moving from station to station, meeting someone for 5 minutes, nervously fidgeting around to find common ground and assess mutual chemistry (or so I'm told...I've never been).
In the RMI 25th anniversary celebration, Amory Lovins, the founder and Chief Scientist, was the fellow at the event, and at each table were stationed a set of billionaires, policy specialists, military advisors, think-tankers, inventors and activists. Instead of "small talk," each conversation focused instead on "smart talk": extracting the greatest amount of wisdom, knowledge, vision and perspective per minute as possible. In the viewing gallery were about 200 folks with the unique opportunity and pure privilege of watching these quick conversations unfold.
Former President Bill Clinton got things started with a full-throated synthesis of the central challenges facing the planet today: security, poverty, resource depletion, species destruction and climate change; how each and every one can be tied to energy; how RMI has helped to set the agenda and lead the world in thought and action for 25 years on this front.
Four 'speed dating' sessions were to follow, with a continuing stream of insights, comments, and pronouncements - smart talk. Here are a few of the ones that I managed to capture:
"We didn't have a vision. 'Comply' is definitely not one. Sustainability turns out to be a better way to bigger profits."
Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface
"Our customers used to ask us if our products were 'good for me.' Now they also ask us if our products our good 'for my community, and for the planet.' We see ourselves in a race to the top. And that's a good thing."
Jeff Seabright, The Coca Cola Company
"Our customer research actually tells us that we have not reached the tipping point on sustainability. We still see ourselves in the very early days. But we have made huge progress in three years, and now just see it as good business."
Rob Walton, Wal-Mart
"I want my people to get a 'save the world bonus,' not feel like they need to make sacrifices to apply their talents on important work."
Michael Potts, CEO of RMI
"Companies make risky investments, but not uncertain ones. We are in the business of transforming uncertainty into risk."
Jesse Fink, MissionPoint Capital Partners
"Forty to fifty countries in the world are essentially blank slates. Making them secure and successful states requires connecting the green revolution with alleviating global poverty."
Clare Lockhart, Institute for State Effectiveness
"We have been having a dialogue of the deaf. Our motivations don't have to be similar, if the actions they provoke are the same."
James Woolsey, former CIA Director
"Companies make a profit to exist, not the other way around."
Anonymous
"Innovation is often the sudden cessation of stupidity."
Anonymous
Tom Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, closed out the celebration. He asked himself and the audience "if we have enough time." Enough time to address climate change. To change the course of poverty. To make the U.S. into a green country. To reverse species depletion. And in response he quoted a colleague with a closing answer: "We have just enough time...but only if we start right now.
And thanks to Johnson Controls for helping support this incredible event. The company was a silver sponsor.
