Paul Hawken quotes

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)
All is connected... no one thing can change by itself. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
Information from destructive activities going back a hundred years right up until today is being incorporated into the system. And as that happens the underlying framework of industrialism is collapsing and causing disintegration. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
A local company has more accountability. View quote
Paul Hawken
The financial capital is being concentrated by corporations, institutional investors, and even our pension funds, and being reinvested in companies that repeat this process because it provides the highest return on that financial capital. View quote
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)
I think an old style of addressing environmental problems is ebbing, but the rise of the so-called conservative, political movement in this country is not a trend towards the future but a reaction to this very broad shift that we are undergoing. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
In short, industrialism is over. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create. View quote
Paul Hawken
What we are missing, utterly and completely, in this government is accountability. View quote
Paul Hawken
At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. (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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Paul Hawken
Sustainability, ensuring the future of life on Earth, is an infinite game, the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all. View quote
Paul Hawken