After studying more about the issues of debt in many impoverished nations, the question that kept coming to mind was,

Where is all the wealth?

A healthy world would undoubtedly have sufficient resources to feed every person, to provide health care and to give each individual a decent living. But success continues to elude the global community.

The situation of poverty in many countries is deplorable and expecting impoverished countries to get themselves out of poverty is an extremely unlikely scenario simply because there is a causal loop. Poverty removes the possiblity of adequate education, health care and proper nutrition for billions. Each of these factors reduces the probability that children of the next generation will have incomes sufficient to allow them to pay taxes. WIthout taxes, the governments are unable to pay back billions in loans that have accumulated over the years. While they strive to provide security and a minimal form of governance, they are saddled with crippling  interest payments on loans of prior generations.

How should wealth be re-distributed?

» Continue reading “Debt relief of Africa and Impoverished Nations”

Since moving to Vancouver Island, I’ve had many great privileges and opportunities. The first, without question, is the opportunity of being closer to my family. My parents are recognized by many as celebrated community members who have provided many years of constant service, music and friendship. The second is that I have moved to a community where interculturalism is experienced and celebrated. The third is getting to know community and regional leaders who are involved in creating a more sustainable community. The fourth is enjoying the music, the arts and the beauty of the island. And last, but certainly not least, is the opportunity of getting to know many First Nations friends, attending their events, learning of their suffering and challenges, benefiting from the wisdom and the experiences of their elders, feeling embraced by their warmth and friendship, and witnessing the love and compassion that many friends are sharing with them in the healthy development of capacity and culture in their youngest generation. These children are, without any doubt, learning to be both the spiritual and intellectual the leaders of future generations.

Since arriving here, I have also had the great privilege of participating with and offering my assistance to a wonderful organization called Partners for Prosperity which I’ll speak more about later and provide a link to for those who are interested in learning more.

It is said that when you set an intention, pray to God, and put your intention out to the world, in some mysterious way it the world assists you to achieve your goals. For me, my personal goal in life is this; that in my work and in my personal activities, in my building of relationships with people of capacity (and all have capacity), in my prayers and in the depths of my soul, that my focus may continue to be on bridging gaps in understanding; between people and organizations, between countries and leadership, between those who find themselves in conflict who are unable to resolve issues on their own, between those who are privileged in the material sense and those who, though needing assistance, share their own wisdom and the hope of a peaceful and prosperous world, between those who believe the world is crashing down with issues related to sustainability and those who see the marvelous possibilities of the future. My efforts to connect with business, community and religious leaders, my personal studies which range from social and economic development to research papers on practical application of high tech solutions to current human challenges, my future aspirations of a Masters Degree in Human Security and Peace building, my recent visit to Vietnam and my earlier visit to India to develop business relations and link foreign opportunities with North American businesses, my keynote presentations to various organizations on developing a culture of Sustainability, my service on various Non-Profit boards aimed at building business, spiritual and community capacity, my aspirations of sharing knowledge and learning through my services, my work with organizations aimed at building a culture of learning and development of leadership capacity, my continued goal of linking those who are involved in business and community leadership and those who are involved in social development, my desire to connect good hearted privileged individuals with those who would benefit from their assistance; all these efforts are aimed at developing human capacity and building a more peaceful and prosperous world. 

My intention is to continue learning, growing and sharing by offer my services (keynotes, workshops, facilitation, training, building connections and coaching) to business, community and social development leaders, or anyone else who would like better understand the forces that are shifting a rapidly evolving world, whether they share in this vision of the world or are simply curious and want to gain a greater understanding from my experience and the experience of the many people that I’ve met along the way.

Now that my own intentions are “out there”, I’ll say a little more about Partners for Prosperity.

Partners for Prosperity is an organization the is in the business of building partnerships. Whenever a need is perceived, be they local or overseas, Partners for Prosperity begins the process of engaging their growing list of partners who are able to share expertise, learning, experience, material goods, and, in some cases, funding. Partners for Prosperity isn’t just another NGO or Charity. They are somehow a little different than any organization I’ve seen before. They’re like glue to Social Development in the world.

» Continue reading “Partners for Prosperity”

Over the weekend, I had the great privilege of attending a conference on “Rethinking Human Nature”, an incredible array of scholars and activists who, rather than protesting in the streets, demonstrated, by their examples of dedicated service, through their studies and their occupations, their deep and abiding concern for humanity. The conference theme was about evolving and developing the capacities of the higher human nature.

Among the many brilliant presenters was a young lady who is working on her PhD thesis whose presentation was entitled “What Can Justify Duties of Global Economic Justice? Individual Responsibility, Human Consciousness, and the Oneness of Humankind”. Her name is Shahrzad Sabet. In asking the question, she began by sharing with us the globally accepted UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. She the began to dissect the responsibilities for the implementation of these rights. To be fair to Shahrzad, I will state that the remaining text is my perhaps feeble understanding of the arguments she so simply and brilliantly presented and perhaps, at some point, I will have a chance to speak with her further to clarify or to refer on-line to her thesis work, but I can only say that after hearing what she had to say, I was completely overwhelmed by her convincing arguments recognizing that there really isn’t a minute to lose in beginning to bring this argument forward on a wide basis, and I am also quite convinced that someday this young lady will be amongst the Nobel Peace Prize winners because these same arguments will force all nations and all people of conscience to take action. Such action will come in the form of adopting laws and practices which will require all citizens of the world (or at least those who have the freedom to vote or make buying decisions), all business leaders and all government leaders to act forcefully in upholding these Human Rights by taking practical, direct and personal responsibility for implementing Global Economic Justice through their votes for responsible government representatives, those who will make the necessary revisions in government institutions, and in turn, through laws which will require all people to make these Human Rights a reality.

In nations such as Pakistan, Haiti, India, Indonesia and many others, billions suffer under the oppression of poverty, the lack of a suitable infrastructure, and through catastophic environmental impacts, while much of the world continues to enjoy their freedoms without paying much attention and governments pay immense amounts of money towards military spending and the expansion of environmentally destructive practices which only serve to further human suffering.

Her arguement goes something like this: » Continue reading “Individual (Legal?) Responsibility and Liability for Global Economic Justice”

For the past 10 or so years, I’ve come annually to British Columbia to visit members of my family. I’m writing from Victoria, which for those who don’t know is on Vancouver Island.

My current home is in Bolton, Ontario which, for those who have not visited,  is a great place to live. Ontario has been a wonderful home to me and my family most of my life after starting off in Saskatchewan. In fact, if you have lived in any part of Canada, you know that you’ve been blessed.

But British Columbia, for many reasons, is where my heart is. This is where my parents are, as well as my sisters and their families, and it is difficult to express with the limited words of the English language the intense love I feel for them all.  B.C. is also where my entire family, including my brothers (one from China and the other also from Ontario) gather when we have family get-togethers. One of my brothers is also here right now. And I have some very dear friends here as well.

But there’s much more to British Columbia than family, as the many hundreds of thousands if not millions of annual visitors will attest. British Columbia is rich in resources; forests, mountains, clear glacial waters, fisheries, minerals, and the most spectacular scenary you will find anywhere on earth with it’s blend of rich green forests, majestic grey snowpeaked mountains and jagged coast lines reaching into the green-blue oceans all filled with life. The Okanogan region is a fertile ground for growing fruits of many varieties and the climate is temperate and ideally suited for vegetation and farming. It’s incredibly rich with green growth everywhere along the coastlines and in the valleys. They have old growth forests that boast some of the tallest trees in the world and rainforests in the northern regions of Vancouver Island that are rich in wildlife and biodiversity.   » Continue reading “Beautiful British Columbia”

Many cities and companies are promoting carpooling as an easy way to reduce carbon emissions. There is little doubt that their are enormous benefits to carpooling but from a commuters point of view (i.e. someone trying to get to work in the least amount of time) it seems like carpooling will take additional time. However, if we do a little commuter math, we can determine that, on average, carpooling actually saves time. Why? Let’s say, for example, that every commuter made an effort to car pool. An average communiting time to downtown Toronto during rush-hour from surrounding community is about 1.5 hours. If we were able to reduce the number of cars by even 1/4th there would be a significant decrease in average commute time, possibly 30 minutes. And even if we don’t succeed in that amount of reduction, there are carpool lanes for cars with more than one person. The time saving becomes more significant over time because congestion is increasing with even more severe impacts on commuting time. There is a certain volume of traffic that the road ways can easily handle. Up until that point, there is very little impact by adding traffic. But after that limit is reached, the congestion increases considerably for every additional car. So removing even 5% of the cars would reduce commute time by more than 5% on average. It only stands to reason then that every car we get off the road will make a positive difference in reducing commute time and CO2 emissions. For the individual commuter, sometimes there is a trade-off if they have to stop and wait for a carpool or go out of their way to drop someone off, but as more people opt for carpooling, there will be better matches. Imagine if 25% of the vehicles were taken off the road. Commute times may be reduced by 30 minutes which would easily make up for any inconvenience.

Benefits of Carpooling

What are the other benefits of carpooling? First, you make friends, get to meet someone new and get to know them well because you see them on a regular basis. Second, you get to share costs of commuting. If you still have a car, at very least you save on gas. If not, you may get to save on repairs, insurance and other costs. Third, if you’re riding with someone else, you may get a little more time to sleep before getting to work. Fourth, in many cities you save time because you get to use designated carpool lanes. Fifth, if your company supports carpooling, you get to leave at a regularly scheduled time(and for reasons I’ll explain later, this is also good for the company). Sixth, you help to save the planet. In the battle against climate change, you get to reduce carbon emissions by sharing a ride directly (more riders is better) and by reducing average commute time for everyone, you help every vehicle on the road because all of them enjoy a slightly shorter commute time. Yes, as even one car comes off the road, there is just a little less congestion and every other car benefits a little and contributes a little less carbon.

Getting your Company Involved

There are many ways to participate in car-pooling and there are many direct and indirect benefits to the company for doing so, not the least of which is your company’s contribution to reducing CO2. But before you roll-out a carpool plan, it is like many other projects, you need think about how to inform staff and management on the benefits to them and to others. Following are a few steps to consider: » Continue reading “Reducing Company CO2 the easy way, Carpool, Flex-hours and Telecommuting”

After returning from an open house at the office of Berteig Consulting, I’m having an opportunity to reflect on the depth of conversation held with members of the Berteig team and the learning derived from these conversations.

Bertieg Consulting is run in a way that is more sustainable and quite different than most organizations.  It is based on a methodology called Open Agile, developed by the company, and which is implemented and continuously evolving within their organization.

Open Agile is a new method of Organizational management based on Agile principles but which are adapted for Organizational activity. One part of the process which is very different from traditional Organizational methodologies is the systematization of reflective learning which is much deeper and more consistent than with traditional approaches.

Learning about the methodology is one thing, becoming a skilled practioner is something else.

As an advocate of continuous and systematized learning, I congratulate the Bertieg team for their accomplishments and have offered to contribute to them in their efforts to evolve their process.

For business leaders interested in creating sustainable organizations, reflective learning followed by pragmatic value based actions are practices which ensure that goals are established, acted upon and learned from.

Open Agile promotes concepts of transparency, truthfulness and consultative decision making all of which are essential elements in building a truly sustainable organization. While holding these principles as core to the process, it also incorporates a framework for holding and sharing the learning. The result is a continuously improving organization.

For more information on Open Agile and Bertieg Consulting, see http://www.openagile.com or http://www.berteigconsulting.com

Garth Schmalenberg
416-919-6598

An interesting project for promoting a culture of sustainability is one initiated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development who, along with participating companies, has created an Eco-Patent sharing project called Eco-Patent Commons. This project encourages companies wishing to participate to share patents which are beneficial for the environment. These patents are free to use and may be used by any company which might benefit from them.  Among the participants our companies such as Ricoh, IBM,Taisei Corporation, Dupont, and others.  Each of these companies has shared a number of their patents for the benefit of the environment.

As the severity of the earth’s situation becomes more apparent and the benefits of sharing are recognized, more and more companies are participating in this project knowing that they stand to benefit from utilizing each other’s intellectual property. Rather than starting from scratch, they are able to more quickly find solutions to some of their challenges add their own intelligence to ideas which have already been patented by another company.  A similar concept has been used in the IT world through open source.

Creating a culture of sustainability will require new ways of thinking for all of us.  As the requirement for answers to our shared the dilemmas becomes more critical, companies will have less time and less resources available for their own individual research. It will be those companies who are willing to work together to find solutions, that will ultimately dominate the market. 

Similarly, within companies, the need for cooperation between individuals and departments is at an all time high.  Organizations who have developed cultures of unbridled internal and external competition will suffer the consequence of falling behind to who have developed a culture of consultation, teamwork, sharing, joint venturing, knowledge management and continuous learning. 

Municiple, regional and national governments who have learned to work effectively with other government organizations, NGOs and Businesses, who have learned to foster cooperation and respect, who have mastered consultative decision making and who share the responsibility of decisions made, will ultimately lead those who are underdeveloped in these capacities.

The call to action for all of us, is to learn and discover new and better ways work together, to recognise that the solution to many of our challenges, both economic and environmental, are  global in their nature. Let’s view our shared dilemma as an ideal opportunity to learn how to work together. 

Whether we like it or not, much of our fate on this planet will ultimately be shared.

Till next time,
Garth Schmalenberg

PS: Web-sites related to sharing initiatives
WBCSD Eco Patent Commons – http://www.wbcsd.org/web/epc/
HBI Leadership – http://hbi-leadership.com