Cultivating Ecological Intelligence

Many years ago author Daniel Goleman wrote a book entitled “Emotional Intelligence” in which he examined the importance of emotional awareness. He maintained that an awareness and understanding of one’s own, as well as others,’ emotions is essential for effectively interacting with those around us. Goleman continued the discussion with “Social Intelligence” in which he examined the importance of understanding social relationships, and applying that understanding to social interactions. Later Goleman addressed the negative environmental impacts associated with consumerism and the importance of this awareness in “Ecological Intelligence.”

“Ecological Intelligence” examines the need to incorporate environmental practices and habits into everyday life. Our seemingly harmless consumer habits are teeming with hidden consequences. Goleman focuses on these impacts because they’re less obvious, yet equally urgent and substantial contributors to climate change. Excessive consumerism has caused companies to cut costs to fuel the bottom line as consumers continue to demand. Cost-cutting efforts translate not only into environmental damage, but also unethical human resource practices in regions where regulations are lax.

Products that appear to be cheap and convenient may actually be highly costly and incredibly inconvenient for the natural world and surrounding communities. To practice ecological intelligence, according to Goleman, is to apply an understanding of this cost and inconvenience into everyday life so as to mitigate negative impacts. Yet in order to make ecologically responsible decisions, consumers need access to information about the products they buy. Access to such information is limited, but is acquired through the study of industrial ecology. In turn, that information can be simplified and shared with consumers through radical transparency.

The study of industrial ecology is the process through which environmental impacts caused by vast and complex industrial systems are examined and solutions for improvement suggested. The subsequent use of radical transparency, or simplifying and sharing with consumers the information gathered through industrial ecology, would arm consumers with the information necessary to make responsible decisions. Presumably, because the true costs of what we buy are hidden, the average consumer is unaware that the palm oil in a bottle of shampoo may have come from an illegal clear-cutting operation in Asia that reduces biodiversity and requires an excessive amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Nor may it be apparent that such operations take place simultaneously for countless products and their components every day all over the globe, destroying elements of the natural world that may never fully recover.

Cultivating the inherent* connection we share with the natural world to develop a sense of ecological intelligence would no doubt create a new and powerful consumer. Consumers are already powerful; no company or corporation can profit without them. If consumers, armed with the information necessary to make responsible shopping decisions, refuse to buy certain products because they carry hidden and unacceptable costs, companies will be forced to adapt or fail. Consumers possess a great deal of power, yet to this they currently remain unaware.

*The connection is inherent because we cannot survive without the natural world. It provides us with every biological requirement we demand for survival. To destroy the natural world is to destroy ourselves, and the world’s poor feel these impacts long before the wealthy.