:52:00
And it really disturbed
many of our people
:52:03
not me so
much as them
:52:05
and a group in our
research department
:52:07
decided to convene
a taskforce
:52:11
and bring people from our
businesses around the world
:52:14
to come together
to assess
:52:15
our companys world wide
environment position
:52:18
to begin to frame answers
for those customers.
:52:21
They asked me if I would come
and speak to that group
:52:24
and give them
a kick off speech
:52:26
and launch this new task force
with an environmental vision
:52:30
and I didnt have
an environmental vision
:52:33
and I did not want
to make that speech.
:52:37
And at sort of
the propitious moment
:52:40
this book
landed on my desk.
:52:41
It was Paul Hawkins book
The Ecology of Commerce
:52:45
and I began to read The
Ecology of Commerce,
:52:48
really desperate
for inspiration
:52:51
and very quickly
into that book
:52:53
I found the phrase
The death of birth.
:52:57
It was E. O. Wilsons expression
for species extinction
:53:01
The death of birth
:53:03
and it was a point
of a spear into my chest
:53:07
and I read on and
the spear went deeper
:53:09
and it became an
epiphanal experience
:53:12
a total change
of mindset for myself
:53:14
and a change of paradigm.
:53:22
Can any product be
made sustainably?
:53:24
Well not any
and every product.
:53:27
Can you make
landmines sustainably?
:53:30
Well I dont think so.
:53:32
Theres a more fundamental
question than that
:53:35
about landmines.
:53:37
Some products ought
not to be made at all.
:53:39
Unless we can make carpets
sustainably you know
:53:43
perhaps we dont have a place
in a sustainable world
:53:47
but neither does anybody else
making products unsustainably.
:53:53
One day early in this journey
it dawned on me that
:53:58
the way Id been
running interface