Can a corporation do no harm?
SustainAbler talks with social entrepreneur Eric Reynolds

Entrepreneur, futurist, activist, guru—it is hard to classify Eric Reynolds. The founder of Nau is uncomfortable with such praise, though, since he feels it is only recently that he has focused his energy on his longstanding goals of positive social change. Reynolds has been concerned about global warming ever since it was the focus of his studies at UC Santa Cruz in the early 70s. And he has been a player in the outdoor apparel world ever since 1974, when he, Dave Huntley and Tom Boyce founded Marmot, becoming one of the first outdoor sport companies to use Gore-Tex fabric in 1976.

But he had loftier goals for Nau. He wanted to create a company with a core sustainable business philosophy, but more importantly his goal was to build a corporation with a mission in its charter to embrace the joy of giving. Through giving—including allowing retail customers to direct the gift of 5 percent of each sale to a social change organization—Nau, the corporation, could become itself an instrument of positive social change.

Since Nau has gotten off the ground, Reynolds has moved on to an even more ambitious project. He is beginning what he expects to be a 30-year state-by-state campaign—and eventual amendment to the U.S. Constitution—requiring all corporations to include the Code for Corporate Citizenship in their corporate charters. Originated by corporate attorney Robert Hinckley, the code’s 28 words (“… but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public health or safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.”) would put into the foundational documents of all corporations a legal requirement that they must not just turn a profit but also do no harm.

Recently, Reynolds sat down and talked to SustainAbler from his Boulder, Colorado, home on how we change the world, what challenges lay ahead, and how profit and compassion can combine to create a sustainable world.

How urgent is the need to change the structure of our society so that we can reduce our consumption?
Very. There is a strong scientific consensus that we have to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the range of 80 to 90 percent by 2050 to avert serious and harmful climate change. And we have to achieve close to half of that reduction over the next 10 years alone. We’ve already locked in massive change that will occur even if we could wave a magic wand and immediately cease all CO2 emissions because it takes about 90 years for CO2 to rise through the atmosphere and into the layer where the greenhouse effect takes place. Personal incremental change on the order of —paper or plastic, energy saving light bulbs, organic materials—is just not going to do it. We are going off a cliff.

What type of conscious choices do people have to make to lead a more sustainable life?
Many people won’t want to hear this, but the changes required are huge. We need to start today to consume less—much, much less. The solutions of buying green and “offsetting our carbon footprints” will, in the light of history, be seen as tragic delusions of our time. We must start with an acceptance of the truth of the science and the consequences of what we are now doing. Societies worldwide need to become focused like never before on the common goal of steering away from the cliff. Sacrifices must be made—especially by those of us in the industrialized, developed countries, since we bear the burden of responsibility for creating most of this mess.

Why do corporate charters need to change?
The first corporations, only a few hundred years ago, were almost entirely groups of people being brought together to build a bridge or a canal or another major undertaking that was such a big investment that a single person did not want to take the risk. When they were first established, corporations did not behave the way they behave now—externalizing every possible cost that the law doesn’t require them to internalize. The tragic omission was that as the corporation evolved, there was no language initially in the charter that gave any kind of moral or ethical guidance to its conduct. Imagine if you are a member of a family or a neighborhood and your charter is to look out only for yourself. What kind of neighbor are you going to be? Corporations are ethical deserts.

But isn’t the for-profit corporation an important part of America? Do Hinckley’s 28 words run contrary to American ideals?
Not at all. Abe Lincoln famously made a comment some months before he died that while he was saving the republic during the Civil War he was dreadfully fearful that the republic would be in peril soon because of the rising power of corporations. That was in 1865, long before corporations were anything close to the powerful institutions that they have become today.

And you really think it is possible to add these 28 words to do no harm to corporate charters? You really think it can happen?
Yes, of course. It will take several decades and involve the concerted effort of thousands to mobilize change this vital and basic. But, this has occurred many times in history—the Civil Rights Movement, India’s non-violent overthrow of British imperialism, the women’s suffrage movement. One of the wonderful things about The Code is that the 28 words are similar to what you find in the Constitution. They are brief, aspirational, idealistic, and fundamentally focused on protecting our individual rights. What we have with The Code is language that will finally restrain corporations from hurting us through their self-interested conduct.

Yes, but how can you take on entities as powerful as corporations?
When I look at the most powerful social reformer all time, Mahatma Gandhi, who overthrew the most powerful empire in the world without an army, I can ask how did he do it? His first step was to recruit a band of satyagraha warriors, truth-force warriors, warriors of the power of love. And he trained these people deeply in the principles of nonviolent active resistance. Don’t be violent, but don’t be passive either. Stand in front of the machine, take a beating, but don’t fight back. Lots of people got beat up, some got killed, lots got thrown in jail, but it exposed the hypocrisy of the British system. It played out as this powerful social drama on public stage.

So you expect a fight?
Almost all of the most powerful corporations in the world are going to fight this change. We can expect that in the course of trying to get the law changed in all 50 states and in the Constitution itself that corporations will spend tens of billions, if not more.
And we may also expect that the more they spend, the more we’ll be able to use the fact that they are spending so much, such an obscene amount in their own self interest, that we’ll be able to use that against them. Fifteen to 20 years in the future that will be the pivotal moment.

What is the first step?
Complete the organization’s foundational planning and then recruit the leadership and staff. Get it funded. The organization will likely be staffed with people from the business community rather than the philanthrophic/non-profit world, because the effort to change corporate charters is the “branding” of an idea. For the first five to seven years, the central focus will be to get corporations to voluntarialy adopt The Code and revise their charters. Over time, as the number of corporations that have adopted The Code increases, society at large, community by community, will see the appeal of what a world will look like when it is our universal law.

How can you get the funding to undertake such a major project?
Over time the funds required will be vast. Millions of citizens will need to support the movement. But in the early stages, I believe that the idea will attract a few visionary hyper-wealthy supporters. Just because someone has become exceedingly rich doesn’t mean they have abandoned the kind of idealism we all have. There are people out there who are billionaires who are just as radical as they were when they started whatever venture made all that money. They can see the problem just as well as anyone. They want the world to be different, too.

Is it really possible to be sustainable? To do no harm to the world?
Yes. If we are mindful and act with an eye out for those who will follow us in ten thousand generations.