I saw renowned environmental author Paul Hawken speak the other night at the City of Canning. Paul is best known for his books on sustainable business approaches, particularly The Ecology of Commerce. For example, this book was credited by Interface carpet CEO Ray Anderson with inspiring him to reinvent how carpet’s were manufactured and sold. The result for Interface was drastically reduced environmental impacts while still doubling profits. See Ray’s TED talk.
However, Paul was here talking about his recent book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World. As the sub-title suggests, the book is about the origins, history and characteristics of the ongoing rise of grassroots groups working to address issues of social justice and the environment.
The book sprung out of Paul’s realisation that there were a multitude of groups working on such issues, and wanting to find out how many there were? His initial estimate of 100 000 soon turned to 500 000 and then 1 million. Now he suggests there are over 2 million groups working for change around the World!
TT Guildford is part of a big community 🙂
Here’s a video where he covers part of his speech from the night.
Transition Town Guildford 