Columnist Nicola Patrick ponders our future and the moves being made to make it a better one
What is coming in our future?
Is it going to be a dystopian nightmare with broken cities suffering in mass heat waves, warfare over water, millions displaced from their homes, or can it be something else?
Sometimes it feels like these horrors are already upon us, but I don't want to believe we've passed a tipping point that makes those movie screens real just yet. We human beings are quite a resourceful lot – plus we made this mess, we can clean it up.
There are alternatives already in motion.
There is proof that another way can give us the quality of life we seek – and I'm not talking about going off grid and growing all my own food, tempting though it can be to want to hide away sometimes.
It's time to get serious about how we can change the drivers we created to flip our human impacts back into something more gentle on the earth.
The good news is that there are so many voices getting greater airtime sharing fresh approaches – we just need to listen and take action.
Last week on RNZ, author Kate Raworth was interviewed about her book Donut Economics and spoke to the flawed idea that we've fallen into – the idea that the economy is separate to the environment, separate to society.
"I drew a picture of the economy and it comes out looking like a donut: the purpose is to meet the needs of all people within the means of this incredible delicately balanced living planet."
Just this week, released by that renown group of hippies the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO designate Antonio Zappulla wrote: "Profit with purpose is set to become the new norm. Up to this point, social enterprise and impact investment have been driving this concept, which has somehow remained confined to a niche. Not anymore.
Now, it's all set to change: the CEOs of the future will want their companies to be recognised as forces for good."
What does that even mean, particularly in a New Zealand setting?
A good example is the Waipā Agri-Impact Fund, which is set to achieve significant environmental gains (40-50% reduction in water quality contaminants like E.coli, Nitrogen and sediment plus reduction in carbon emissions, over a relatively short 10 years) while retaining profit for investors and farmers.
It involves acquiring and converting dairy farms to organic status to access price premiums, reducing herd size and reducing inputs.
I wrote about it for a future of investment piece on www.pureadvantage.org.
Wearing my Thrive Whanganui hat, I recently submitted to Whanganui District Council on the draft economic development strategy and highlighted the flaws with GDP (gross domestic product) as a measure of economic success.
That other group of well known hippies, The Treasury, has been working on a living standards framework to better inform and guide investment.
It's all about the four wellbeings and the value of assessing outcomes beyond GDP.
GDP is simply a measure of our raw production and consumption. Negative activities that generate economic activity are included – more smoking means GDP goes up.
A short online documentary (18 minutes) is worth a watch – Enough is Enough is based on the book of the same name by Dan O'Neill and Rob Dietz.
More inclusive alternatives exist. In New Zealand, at least in the Wellington region, they've developed something broader – a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).
It does that radical thing of counting beneficial activities as positive and harmful activities like crime, pollution and soil loss as negative.
The resulting indices demonstrate there is a clear and reliable way to integrate economic issues with environmental, social and cultural concerns. And it's an easy read – www.gpiwellingtonregion.govt.nz.
So there is hope for the future – we just need to step away from this trap we've created and get back to looking at the actual benefits that can come from a healthy economy.
Otherwise, as the saying goes, if we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got.
*Nicola Patrick is a councillor at Horizons Regional Council and leads a new social enterprise hub, Thrive Whanganui. A mum of two boys, she has a science degree and is a Green Party member.