Spreading the Word

I spoke last week at the Western Regional Conference of the American Accounting Association. This was a group of accounting educators and researchers, most of whom hold PhDs and teach accounting to college students.  My talk was on Sustainability and the Triple-Bottom Line.

Since you are reading this blog I suspect you have an interest in sustainability.  Living in Portland and working in my regular circles, I usually assume a fairly high base level of sustainability knowledge in the people I meet.   Maybe you do as well. 

However, when I lecture or teach classes on sustainability, I’m typically shocked at how low the level of understanding is regarding the issues driving the need for change.  For example, I typically include something about peak oil as one of the phenomena driving change.  At this point, I usually ask the audience if they’ve heard of peak oil in order to gauge how to proceed with the discussion and I’m usually shocked that only 5-15 percent of the people are aware of peak oil.  No wonder change is happening so slowly.

While simply knowing this information isn’t usually enough to drive change, it is an important first step.  Accordingly, we must find ways to engage with more people, outside our normal boundaries.  I am going to schedule more classes and presentations so I can get out and engage more people.

Please contact me if you would like me to give a presentation or teach a class in your area or to your firm, or if you need help developing your own presentation so we can go out and help business leaders understand the urgent need for change.