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The Service Leader message first appeared in SR Inc’s Quarterly Newsletter.

As we in the Northern Hemisphere head into the heart of our winter, I think it is helpful to examine the history of two words: “emergency” and “happiness.” My goal in exploring these two words is to provide Sustainability Professionals (yes, I think it is time for proper noun capitalization of those in our field) with a powerful new way to understand both the atmospheric “emergency” driving human-caused climate breakdown and the possibility of deep “happiness” in a time of always mounting and always more urgent ecological crisis.

The nouns “emergency” and “emergent” both derive from the Latin root “emergere” which means to “rise up” or “bring to light.” Emergency means, of course, an often unexpected disruption of an existing order that requires immediate action. “Emergent” refers to something coming into existence (or emerging) from a state of potentiality. 

The new federal government’s hostility to climate science and dismissal of the need to move away from the world’s most lucrative and politically influential industry, along with the more than 420 PPM of long-acting heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere, seems now unquestionably an emergency. The trend to exceed the Paris Accords’ goal of staying under a 2C rise in temperature seems very clear. That goal was established because it was an ecological limit beyond which, according to the UN IPCC SP 1.5C, it would be “more likely than not” we will be exposed to “tipping points” to possible self-accelerating ecological collapse. 

Consequently, the fact that the world ten years after the Paris Accords seems certain to exceed its commitment to staying under 2C is an emergency. Even just reaching 2C is expected to end most of the world’s coral, which is the basis of ocean ecology. So, is it possible this dangerous disruption will help precipitate a new and needed emergent ordering? I think so. 

Many may think it is too optimistic, but I am persuaded that it is only more likely than it was ten years ago that the emergency initiated by human-caused climate breakdown, because of its darkness, can help throw into high relief our universal and inalienable dignity as human beings. This will occur not despite how climate breakdown threatens all humanity but because climate breakdown threatens all of humanity as it tempts us towards the convenience of denial. 

So, how in this context can “happiness” be relevant . . . or even possible? Well, Charles Handy recently passed away. He was one of the first corporate sustainability visionaries. I learned from him the classical Greek concept of “Eudaimonia,” which Handy asserted Thomas Jefferson was referring to when he wrote about “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. It’s derived from “eu” meaning good, and “daimonia” meaning spirit, and was understood in classical Athens to be a flourishing (which was often poorly translated as a “happiness”) that resulted from using one’s strengths or virtues in the service of others. In other words, Eudaimonia is the highest form of human good.

Since this is core to Aristotelian ethics, it almost certainly informed Victor Frankl’s famed “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Frankl was an Austrian psychologist who survived the Nazi death camps. He argued humans could endure any “how” with a sufficient “why.” That, indeed, our unique human need is for meaning and that meaning is essentially a wage paid for self-chosen, creative self-sacrifice for something greater than oneself. This argument finds deep and increasing support in emerging science regarding human nature. 

So, even as global oil and gas pushes back hard against any attempt to legislate and regulate its demise, and climate-induced migration helps propel more nationalistic leaders to power, it is possible to envision a decisively important renewal of universalist Enlightenment principles. It’s worth noting that conservative thinkers around the world have used appeals to classic thought and Enlightenment universalist principles to criticize the “new left” and its enthusiasm for “identity politics.” Meanwhile, this “new right” paradoxically champions a nationalistic identity that is in no way universalist. 

Herein lies the opportunity. Global business and, particularly global business management is a child of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Mainstream business managers never embraced what is sometimes described as “identity politics” and will always be uncomfortable with nationalistic identities that argue for growing tariffs over growing trade. Consequently, global business management is a natural champion of the Enlightenment’s universalist principles reflected in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to self-determination and the recently recognized right to a livable environment. 

Indeed, in an increasingly polarized political environment worldwide, global business managers can find a needed refuge in the global human rights framework, institutions, and intellectual tradition. Businesses can support disruptive leaders to the extent they vindicate universalist principles of human rights. They can distance themselves from those same political leaders when they violate universal rights, including, critically, the right to self-determination and the rule of law that personal autonomy requires. 

So, in this emergency, a new order can be thrown into high relief: an emergent ordering that recognizes what we all share in global business is not only a commitment to “efficiency.” That was always a mistake that assumed we, our companies, and our markets were more machine than human. We are now coming to see we share the need to establish that it is self-evident we were all created equal with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of meaningful happiness. 

After Europe and the world suffered through the horrific emergency caused by the Nazis, Germany created its Basic Law (i.e., constitution) of 1948. Section one, clause one recognizes: “Human dignity is inviolable; it shall be the duty of all public authority to protect and promote it.” As human-caused climate breakdown accelerates and nationalist governments increasingly call for ruinous tariffs, now is exactly the time for global business to become the champion of establishing in every way (including in corporate charters) that it is: “self-evident we are all created equal with certain inalienable rights including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of meaningful happiness.”

Jim Boyle is the CEO & Founder of Sustainability Roundtable, Inc.  For more than a dozen years, Jim has led full-time teams of diverse experts to assist nearly 100 Fortune 500 and growth companies in their move to more sustainable high-performance.  Specifically, SR Inc has helped world-leading corporations, real estate owners, and federal agencies to set goals, drive progress, and report results in their move to greater Corporate Sustainability.  Mr. Boyle led in the creation of SR Inc’s Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB), which advises and represents Fortune 500 and fast growth companies across the U.S. and internationally in the development of renewable energy strategies and the procurement of both on and off-site advanced energy solutions.  Before founding SR Inc, Mr. Boyle co-led Trammell Crow Company Corporate Advisory Services in San Francisco and returned to his native Boston and Trammell Crow Company’s market leading team in Greater Boston where he received the Commercial Brokers Association’s Platinum Award for the highest level of commercial real estate transactions.  Earlier, he advised companies on real estate and environmental matters as an attorney at a large law firm based in Boston.  Jim is a graduate of Middlebury College, where he co-captained the football team, and Boston College Law School.  Early in his career, he served as a federal law clerk, an aide to John F. Kerry in the U. S. Senate, and on Vice President Al Gore’s campaign for President.  Jim lives in Concord, MA with his wife and kids a half mile across the street from Emerson’s house and museum on the route to Walden Pond.