FLYER OVER POPOCATEPTL   Is he falling or flying?   Could this be a metaphor for environmental entrepreneurship?   How do we change our reference points?   If your impression is that the figure is flying you can probably accept that environmental concerns are important to the business community

Environmental Entrepreneurship Seminars

Is being a good neighbor good business?

 

There is more and more concern about the carrying capacity of our communities, and the survival of life on Earth as we know it.  This escalating concern has driven many efforts to find solutions.  Given the way that our lives are compartmentalized the solutions that are proposed focus very often focus only on an environmental perspective or on a social justice approach.  As well, they may be defined in ways that are so academic that the average person has  difficulty understanding them.  In addition, business activity is seldom seen as an integral part of the solution to environmental problems.  It is usually seen as the obstacle.

 

For almost two decades CES has concentrated on fostering the concept of economic prosperity; we see this as a key ingredient in changing the course of the environmental abuses.  As Abraham Maslow pointed out in “His Psychology of Being”, the first order of survival is to provide food and shelter; it is only after these are taken care of that can we concentrate on our relations with each other and conserving the environment.

 

From this experience CES has developed a number of practical workshops and seminars that triangulate Economics, Environment and Social Justice topics.  This triangulation provides an opportunity for each of the participants to discover the value of common ground. Common ground provides an opportunity for diverse points of view and opinions to flow into solutions that are invariably better than those generated by merely one person, or a point of view that dominates the decision or, if the outcome is manipulated.

 

This program is designed so that the participants can initiate the process of discovering common ground and develop a tangible plan of action for economic opportunities within their communities.

 

An essential ingredient of this process is a commitment to follow through on the decisions reached at the workshop.  The participants must organize and create the mechanisms for continuing the initiatives generated during the workshop.