It almost goes without saying that growing the U.S. economy is upfront on most people’s minds these days.  A lot of people want this to happen, but how does one go about growing the economy?  While it seems like a big job that only government can do, in fact, it’s not so hard if we look carefully.  

My motto is “Think like an ecosystem”.  How can this idea relate to the economy?

Growth has two key aspects – sheer volume of growth, and annual percentage growth.  Take a forest, for example. Big trees add a lot of volume each year, but they have a slower annual percentage growth compared to small trees which have a greater annual percentage growth rate, yet each tree individually adds relatively small amounts of volume per year.

In the economy, streamlining big old-line companies can have a big impact on the economy – but there’s a catch to focusing on just the big fish.  In the economy, the biggest companies tend to be the slowest to respond to changing values in society.  If we look at the 1990’s, the highest growth companies, both in percentage and volume, came from tech sector firms that were teaching society whole new ways to get things done.

Today, the green economy represents similarly huge shift in how to meet our needs and desires. The explosive growth of organic foods is just the tip of the iceberg. While greening up old-line companies can have a substantial positive impact, there are thousands of small pioneering companies that are on the cutting edge of the green value-driven economy who play a catalytic role – fostering economic shifts and growth far beyond their own bottom line.  Like the tech companies of the 1990’s, these new-era green companies are changing society’s core values, and providing new goods and services. As entrepreneurship guru Guy Kawasaki says, “Create meaning!”  Today’s green companies have a huge global advantage when it comes to that, and that advantage can translate into growth for the U.S. economy.

Any gardener knows that some basic things are essential for success – good seeds, good soil, sunlight, and water.  Likewise, EcoSector is providing the green economy a new framework for supporting all emerging green companies.  We look at the common needs of green entrepreneurs and seek to meet these needs via a community-driven approach.  Individual members and expert associates of the EcoSector community provide the basic essentials to these companies:  good advice, good strategies, good systems for success, and “water” via membership gifts to the EcoSector Industry Association.

During the 1990’s the tech sector had many soup-to-nuts “launch shops” for tech companies, especially in Silicon Valley that provided similar types of support for tech entrepreneurs. Today, the number of green startups is astounding.  EcoSector is one of the first start-up shops for the green economy, and we bring a new twist to the old model. The green sector is actually too big to be served only by the methods that worked in the 1990’s. By adding a community-based approach, EcoSector aims to foster a broad base of environmental-economic leaders who can launch scores of green companies that in turn will help green up and grow America’s economy city by city, state by state, and region by region.

EcoSector is working to expand society’s commitment to ecosystems to equal its commitment to other essential infrastructure systems like transportation, communications, and health care. As part of that expanded commitment, we propose the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Ecosystems in the U.S. federal government.

The creation of a Department of Ecosystems will offer many benefits. It will:

• Promote and symbolize society’s recognition of the importance of ecosystems to peoples’ lives and health, and our role in assuring their vitality.
• Increase and solidify access to the President for our nation’s top environmental official.
• Improve intra- and inter-governmental relations.
• Enhance international relations.

Promoting the Importance of Ecosystems

Our society and our government invest greatly in many important large-scale systems, including highways, agriculture, telecommunications, etc. By comparison, we pay very little attention to the health of our ecosystems, systems on which all life depends.  That the U.S. government has Departments of Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, etc., but no Department of Ecosystems illustrates society’s gap in its commitment to ecosystems compared to other interests.

Protecting public health and the environment by assuring the vitality of ecosystems is a mission of at least equal importance to the missions of other cabinet-level departments. Recognizing this, and undertaking a serious commitment to ecosystems will create a fundamental shift in our society and our economy.

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