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Adapt and Thrive
“We do not really expect to achieve Utopia, but some place in that general direction — perhaps like Finland, which comes out top of world league tables of both competitiveness and environmental stewardship. This small country is only part-way along the journey to a truly sustainable future, but has gained a significant head start. I have chosen to live in Finland to write this book and I use Finland as a recurring example to show practical ways that we can succeed.”
Regular readers of this column will know that I am passionate about the sport of skiing. None of my English friends share this passion and most Finns think I am crazy. It was against this background that I decided to join the British Master’s Cross Country Skiing Association (current membership 106) in 2004. I have now skied in two Master’s World Cups, most recently in Rovaniemi in 2007.
Numbering only seven, the British team included Peter McManners an engineering graduate/academic and former officer with Britain’s Parachute Forces. Married with two children (his young son is already a very capable skier) Peter lives in Espoo. A very modest, calm and laid back individual (contrasted with my more excitable personality) the moment I met Peter, I immediately liked him. In addition to being a skiing and all round sport enthusiasts we also share a common interest in environmental protection (I studied Environmental Management at university).
In Rovaniemi, when not competing or training, Peter constantly had his head buried in his laptop. Eventually, I enquired who was he chatting to? To my surprise, Peter explained that he was writing a book about sustainability called Adapt and Thrive – The Sustainable Revolution.
This book was published in February and two weeks ago a signed complimentary copy dropped through my letter box. A book about business and the environment with numerous examples from Finland has an obvious appeal – and made the book interesting and easy to read. But is it any good?
“Even though Finland is not perfect and the Finnish way is not universally applicable, if we could all adapt to our piece of the globe as well as the Finns have to theirs, that would be a great step towards a sustainable world.” This is of course true, but plays down the fact that Finland’s heavy industrial base and cold climate means energy consumption is high. As reported in the Helsingin Sanomat International Edition, the Finns require 7.6 hectares per person of ecological capacity, while the planet can sustain no more than an average of 1.8 hectares per person. In effect this means that Finns are consuming four times the sustainable global level. The controversial argument that Peter makes is that, in his opinion, it is a country’s capacity to live within its own ecological capacity that matters most. On this measure, he calculates that Finland is running a surplus of 4.4 hectares per person.
Peter also argues that “business is the primary agent for change” in the long term, he is probably correct, but in the short term his forward thinking and many innovative ideas and design challenges will undoubtedly meet stern resistance from big business.
In a country with a high corporation taxation rate (28%) and industry shedding employees at an alarming rate, one suggestion championed by Peter really captured my imagination. “Government could consider offsetting a fixed figure per employee against corporation tax. This might be at a similar rate to the residual liability to the state of the workforce if they were out of work. This would link the issues of a potential responsibility to pay unemployment benefit with corporation tax…… The overall effect is that such a tax regime would reward profitable companies that make an explicit effort to employ people.”
To criticise Peter’s book, I would like to have seen a chapter on environmental education but at 250 pages the book already struggles to fully cover all the issues. Whereas personally I would have liked to have read more detail, it is the ideal introduction for someone new to the subject.
One thing seems certain, government and business who are currently unable to see beyond the current political term and their share price will oppose this book, but in twenty years they will be quoting it as the ‘Bible for Survival’.
Mike Bangle is the owner of Talking English language consultancy and can be contacted at mike.bangle(at)phnet.fi
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