Paul Hawken (born February 8, 1946, in California) is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, and author.
Life
Paul Hawken had a Swedish grandmother and a Scottish grandfather with a farm. His father worked at
UC Berkeley. As a teenager, he "roam[ed] the peaks of the
Sierra Nevada, the dry eastern valleys that sprawl down to
Mono Lake, and the
White Mountain area above
Owens Valley." He received no formal degrees but attended
UC Berkeley and
San Francisco State University.
He worked in the Civil Rights Movement.
He currently lives in or near Sausalito, California, a neighbor of Stewart Brand.
Writing
Hawken has authored six books including
The Next Economy (1983),
Growing a Business, and
The Ecology of Commerce (1993), wherein he coined the term the "restoration economy."
His book,
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999) coauthored with
Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, popularized the now-standard idea of
natural capital and direct accounting for
nature's services.
Natural Capitalism has been translated into 26 other languages.
Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming published by Viking Press (New York) in May 2007, argues that a vast world-changing “movement with no name” is now forming, which Hawken believes will prevail. He conceives of this "movement" as developing not by ideology but rather through the identification of what is and is not humane, like an immune system.
The following passage, introducing the appendix on the WiserEarth project (which is not mentioned in the book itself), gives an idea of his conception of the movement: “It is axiomatic that we are at a threshold in human existence, a fundamental change in understanding about our relationship to nature and each other. We are moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by community. The current thrust of history is too supple to be labeled, but global themes are emerging in response to cascading ecological crises and human suffering. These ideas include the need for radical social change, the reinvention of market-based economics, the empowerment of women, activism on all levels, and the need for localized economic control. There are insistent calls for autonomy, appeals for a new resource ethic based on the tradition of the commons, demands for the reinstatement of cultural primacy over corporate hegemony, and a rising demand for radical transparency in politics and corporate decision making. It has been said that environmentalism failed as a movement, or worse yet, died. It is the other way around. Everyone on earth will be an environmentalist in the not too distant future, driven there by necessity and experience.”
His books have been published in over 50 countries in 27 languages.
Growing a Business became the basis of a 17-part PBS series, which Mr. Hawken hosted and produced. The program, which explored the challenges and pitfalls of starting and operating socially responsive companies, was shown on television in 115 countries.
Business
Hawken took over a small retail store in Boston in 1966 called Erewhon (after
Samuel Butler's
utopian novel published anonymously in 1872) and turned it into the Erewhon Trading Company, a natural-foods wholesaler. With Dave Smith, he co-founded the
Smith & Hawken garden supply company in 1979, a retail and catalog business. He heads PaxFan, which uses geometries found in nature to increase the efficiency of industrial fans, turbines, and electronic thermal management. In 2008, he co-founded Biomimicry Technologies with biologist Janine Benyus, the author of
Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, HarperCollins, 1997.
Activism
Hawken founded and directs the
Natural Capital Institute (NCI) located in
Sausalito, California. Its main focus is
WiserEarth, an open source database of activists and
civil society organizations focused on environmental and social justice.
Mr. Hawken has served on the board of public organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, Friends of the Earth, and National Audubon Society. He was the founder of The Natural Step in the United States.
Recognition
As of 2009 Paul Hawken had been awarded six honorary doctorates.
In 2002, Fortune called him “the original hippie entrepreneur, the merchant of Marin County who got turned on to business when others were still dropping out,” adding: “Today Hawken occupies a unique niche in the American landscape, combining bottom-line business credentials [he regularly addresses corporate audiences] with credibility among environmentalists and social critics. He once wrote, and stands by, the following sentence: ‘There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.’ Yet he also believes, passionately, that business―with its restless energy, imagination, and creativity―will one day get us out of the mess it has made. Says Hawken: ‘I believe business is on the verge of . . . a change brought on by social and biological forces that can no longer be ignored or put aside.’”
Paul Hawken was hired by Ben & Jerry's to perform a social audit.
Other recognition and awards received listed on his website biography are:
Green Cross Millennium Award for Individual Environmental Leadership presented by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003
World Council for Corporate Governance in 2002
Design Futures Council Senior Fellow
Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year in 1990
Utne One Hundred Visionaries who could Change our Lives in 1995
Western Publications Association Maggie award for Natural Capitalism as the best Signed Editorial/Essay in 1997
Creative Visionary Award by the International Society of Industrial Design
Design in Business Award for environmental responsibility by the American Center for Design
Council on Economic Priorities’ 1990 Corporate Conscience Award
American Horticultural Society Award for commitment to excellence in commercial horticulture
Metropolitan Home Design 100 Editorial Award for the 100 best people, products and ideas that shape our lives
The Cine Golden Eagle award in video for the PBS program Marketing from Growing a Business
California Institute of Integral Studies Award For Ongoing Humanitarian Contributions to the Bay Area Communities
Esquire Magazine award for the best 100 People of a Generation (1984)
See also
Blessed Unrest
WiserEarth
Pigovian tax
Marion Institute
References
External links
Official Paul Hawken website
Natural Capital Institute NCI
Wiser Earth - World Index for Social and Environmental Responsibility
*Paul's user page at WiserEarth.org
Natural Capitalism - Website about the book of the same title
Natural Capitalism - Mother Jones article that inspired the book of the same title
Paul Hawken piece on Worldchanging
Official book site for Blessed Unrest
Video
Paul Hawken interview from Democracy Now! program, May 23, 2007
Hope: an interview with Paul Hawken by elephant journal
Category:Living people
Category:1946 births
Category:American businesspeople in retailing
Category:American business writers
Category:American environmentalists
Category:American non-fiction environmental writers
Category:American journalists
Category:Sustainability advocates
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)
