That appropriation of resources and the transformation of them into goods and services through the European production system characterized, and characterizes to this day, all industrial systems including the information age. – Paul Hawken
Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done. – Paul Hawken
Intelligent policies will be largely self-regulating in the sense that the system of incentives and standards makes it absolutely ludicrous to not move towards clean, internalized systems of cost and production. – Paul Hawken
We’re trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That’s who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We’re awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela. – Paul Hawken
Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them. – Paul Hawken
We need to revise our economic thinking to give full value to our natural resources. This revised economics will stabilize both the theory and the practice of free-market capitalism. It will provide business and public policy with a powerful new tool for economic development, profitability, and the promotion of the public good. – Paul Hawken
Thus, the forces and value systems that are most threatened by this shift are becoming the most coherent and are rising to the top as minority or plurality powers. But they do not represent either the shift, the change, or the future. – Paul Hawken
We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital – the resource systems upon which we depend to live – instead of our human capital. – Paul Hawken
Interestingly, the oil companies know very well that in less than 30 years they will not only be charging very high prices, but that they will be uncompetitive with renewables. – Paul Hawken
If, as is natural, you focus on the corruption and on those threatened institutions that are trying to prevent change – even though they don’t really know what they’re trying to prevent – then you can get pessimistic. – Paul Hawken
Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no voice other than our own. – Paul Hawken
It is possible for the assembly-line worker consigned to tightening the bolts on the transmission and the office worker who processes medical insurance claims to work with pride and efficiency, but it’s not easy to maintain that attitude. – Paul Hawken
The United States prides itself on being the richest country in the world. Yet we can’t balance the budget, pay for education, or take care of the aged and infirm. – Paul Hawken
Somewhere along the way to free-market capitalism, the United States became the most wasteful society on the planet. – Paul Hawken
There is no cost difference between incarceration and an Ivy League education; the main difference is curriculum. – Paul Hawken
Local companies don’t have to internalize their costs, and few actually do, but they tend to more often because the owners live there and they have to show their face in town, and their kids play with other kids. – Paul Hawken
Most floods are caused by man, not weather; deforestation, levee construction, erosion, and overgrazing all result in the loss of ecosystem services. – Paul Hawken
People are naming it the Third Wave, the Information Age, etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions, and this next shift is not about technology – although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies. – Paul Hawken
Commercial institutions, proud of their achievements, do not see that healthy living systems – clean air and water, healthy soil, stable climates – are integral to a functioning economy. As our living systems deteriorate, traditional forecasting and business economics become the equivalent of house rules on a sinking cruise ship. – Paul Hawken
What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. – Paul Hawken
The atmosphere does not fathom whether CO2 comes from U.S. oil or Chinese coal, nor do hurricanes lose force because the Heritage Foundation doesn’t believe global warming is a problem. Living systems operate on laws over which we have no say. – Paul Hawken
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Civilization needs a new operating system. – Paul Hawken
And also, more and more businesses really want to do the right thing. They feel better about themselves, their workers feel better, and so do their customers. I think this is equally true in the transnational corporations, but it is harder to express in those situations. – Paul Hawken
Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor. – Paul Hawken
Throughout the industrial era, economists considered manufactured capital – money, factories, etc. – the principal factor in industrial production, and perceived natural capital as a marginal contributor. The exclusion of natural capital from balance sheets was an understandable omission. There was so much of it, it didn’t seem worth counting. – Paul Hawken
Really, the proper study of economics is fulfilment, not consumption… It doesn’t even matter if it’s a green product or a green house… It’s still consumption. What matters in this world is the fulfilment of people’s needs and the fulfilment of their aspirations. – Paul Hawken
For the developed world, there is a choice to be made: to promote economic policies that despoil indigenous lands or to support cultures and the remaining biological sanctuaries. – Paul Hawken
Businesses who are members of Businesses for Social Responsibility or the Social Venture Network are internalizing costs on a voluntary basis and therefore raising their costs of doing business, but their competitors are not required to. – Paul Hawken
We assume that everything’s becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that’s true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources. – Paul Hawken
