Overdue: The next Copernican mindset shift

(Originally published on GreenBiz - Monday, April 10)

By John Elkington and Lorraine Smith

How glorious to be part of one of the great growth industries of this century, the sustainability solutions sector. Even before the $12 trillion-a-year market forecasts for 2030 produced earlier in the year by the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, it was already clear that the current era is likely to prove to be, as a colleague put it recently, one last lash of the dragon’s tail. But as the fossil-fueled dragon tries to ward off the mass stranding of its treasured assets, it is also increasingly clear that sustainability itself is ripe for disruption.

In a world fixated on entrepreneurs such as Larry Page (Google) or Elon Musk (Tesla/SpaceX), it’s easy to forget that there always have been disruptors — whether in philosophy, science, technology, economics, politics or war. One who has popped up in recent conversations is Nicolaus Copernicus, who was in peak form 500 years ago.

By putting the sun at the center of his heavenly model, Copernicus turned the prevailing astronomical paradigm inside out. Click here to see the full original post on GreenBiz...