(be) Benevolution
Business
“Synthesis for step change. We’re consciously managing more abstract, longer term goals. We’re assimilating negative feedback. This wins capital in the new world” ― Festina LentÍvaldi*
Conscious collaborative business outcompetes
Today’s significant issues cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them. There’s a new, step change, coming. We’ve had the Industrial Revolution and the Exponential Organisation – iCentered and Information Revolution – is with us.
What’s the next step? Benevolution is already outcompeting the old systems.
Business posts
The Money 2010
Follow the money. It's a famous tradition and there's been lots of impressive 2010 announcements. These include the big picture: India's green domestic product; and, the International Energy Agency calling for the world to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. These...
Green: The money The tech The mind
2010 more than ever before has seen clean green solutions becoming mainstream. Here's a short sweep across the changes, from the more conventional money and technology measurements to the as important, if not driving underpinnings, individual mindsets and our local...
Power for Scotland: Zero carbon
2010 has seen - at least in the first half of the year - a fair bit of pessimism on climate change action, particularly government policy. But, with the US National Academy of Science saying warming is a settled fact, many governments have continued to act regardless...
Your sustainability business case
Most people agree a business case for sustainability is critical. However, the initial findings from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan Management Review 2010 sustainability survey finds nearly half of its responders have not yet developed one. But they...
Google to Shweeb: Clean Transit
Want to fly above traffic propelled by your own legs? That's the inspiration for Schweeb (pictured) inspired from Tokyo.It may sound a little unlikely but Google has invested $1 million in the project. The Schweeb is one of 5 winners, out of 150,000 ideas of Google's,...
What’s it worth? 60 billion AUD?
Valuing natural assets, like near pristine bushland and water catchments, is not always easy. Dr David Suzuki, at a recent Legacy Lecture in Adelaide, put it succinctly saying: 'in his view it was no longer acceptable to damage pristine environmental systems - there...
Sustainability, art and synthesis: sanctuaries
Sustainability is obviously more than numbers and measurements. We know this but sometimes decision making loses sight of our motivations. Consequently, art has a big role to play. The synergy between art and sustainability is strong. The picture above is from my 2005...
Global carbon prices and wind power growth
If Australia puts a price on carbon - tax or trading - we are not going it alone. The Climate Institute commissioned Vivid Economics to look at electricity in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.It compared clean energy...
Content
Business, transforming ~ benefit
Benevolution’s business stories are about today’s step changes. This is like the shifts brought about by the industrial and information revolutions alongside the political/social reformations that co-created them.
It is really hard to see such step shifts while they are occuring. There’s evidence the next phase, call it meta-modern, is underway. Signs include:
- We are living in an era of exponential change. Things are getting exponentially better, other things exponentially worse – simultaneously. Current ways of organising are destabilising.
- Synergy: when we synthesize disparate viewpoints, demands and imperatives new solutions can emerge.
- Climate change is a good example. Addressing it requires new thinking. Businesses that reverse global warming and are more socially and financially profitable, synchronously as they grow, are emerging.
* Quote with thanks to Hanzi Freinacht: We’re moving from the industrial age. We’re enabled by the internet age. In a globalized, post-industrial, market together these mean significant change. That change is a new step – metamodern. See Hanzi’s Listening Society book for an eloquent and compelling read on benevolutionary change.
Catalysing, inspiring ~ benevolution
The stories for positive change on this site are across 3 broad categories:
- Beauty – posts on aesthetic and expansive experiences. Art, poetry, travel and emotions catalyzing evolution.
- Benevolutionaries – superstars, accidental heroes, inspiring intellects and everyone between. People breaking boundaries.
- Business – that’s this page! See above for details and stories.
Background ~ better be…
(be) Benevolution aims to assist our deep longing. We are responding to a pervasive sense of the tragedies of our time and, simultaneously, experiencing an ardent awareness of possibilities. The site, its stories and perspectives are to help our agency and engagement – with the painful and the promising – for practical, ethical flourishing.
Stories from before 2019 are drawn from Kings Catch Fire and Greenmode – some of our previous explorations and engagements in personal, family, species, socitey and global thriving.
Festina Lente
Make haste – slowly, powerfully, minimally
“Hasten slowly” said Augustus. Oh, this is hard. To imagine what can be created, to hold back, to act; to engage means delving into both despair and hope. That’s where we’re challenged to see the powerful in what we do which is always minimal and micro. Feeling adequate in the face of manifest inadequacy. Weaving together the pieces that hasten, slowly and steadily, benevolution.
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