Impact+Amplify promotes integrated whole systems
thought and proaction at both ecosystemic and cultural scale.

    Impact+Amplify
We seek to enable life-long learning and sustained, productive
collaborations among people of good will to integrate culture within nature.
Green & Ethical Economy

A green and ethical economy for the headwaters region

Narrow consideration of individual elements of an economy apart from others and outside the context of regional and local environments and cultures will almost certainly lead to misjudgments about the full potential of “green and ethical economies.”

The Virginia economic impact projections for a Green Economic Recovery from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts focus entirely on energy. Obviously, energy is an important element of any economy. However in a balanced and inclusive consideration, it is only one among many.

Clean air, water and food fuel a safe and healthy, green and ethical economy more directly, and with as at least as much economic and social potential as energy, industry or commerce.

Eighty-five percent of Virginia land is either forested or farmed. It produces bio-fuel more valuable than that percentage of forest or agricultural production that might be consumed directly by an energy economy.

Timber and food production, tourism, health care and education are major elements of the existing economy in the headwaters region. The development potential of each is enhanced by environmental quality. Along with energy, they should be recognized and developed as compatible elements of our evolving notion of a potential green and ethical economy.

Though it has yet to receive the attention it deserves, water is a critical element of a green economy. That is especially significant for local residents because headwaters of three major river systems define our region and endow it with strategic economic advantages. That gift of topography and geography should be recognized, valued, vigorously guarded, developed and enhanced.

We should resolve to develop our local economy and society carefully to send solutions downstream—both physically and metaphorically. By preserving, restoring and enhancing the quality of our natural and social environment we can enhance the safety, health and well-being of local residents and of people in the watersheds of the Ohio and Mississippi Basin, Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks.

Quite literally, our local economy can be strengthened and made sustainable by being developed to go with the flow. If we are to sustain life, we must respect the fact that the Earth is an enclosed sphere. “There is no away."

Case Studies of low-impact development in the headwaters region and beyond:

Forest

The Blue Ridge Forestry Cooperative

Roanoke Cement

Boxley [Pervious Concrete]
Boxley’s Natural Resource Management Activities
From land reclamation and conservation to recycling and wildlife habitat planning, one of Boxley’s biggest responsibilities is to effectively protect our natural environment and its resources not only for the long-term viability of our business, but for the communities we serve today and in the future.
Boxley’s “Explore the Earth” program introduces kids to the Earth’s geologic wonders and highlights the importance of environmental protection and reclamation.

See Boxley’s “GreenCrete” and Yokohama Tire’s “Forever Forest” under the Form heading, below.

Field

Conservation farming

Grayson Natural Foods

Grayson Landcare “…an opportunity to build widespread support for the ecological restoration and protection of the southern Appalachian landscape.”

Form

General Electric

Boxley GreenCrete

Yokohama Tire’s dB Super E-Spec tires and “Forever Forest,” are parts of the Yokohama Rubber Company, Ltd.’s “Grand Design 100 (GD100),” a twelve year corporate vision culminating in 2018 that calls for evoking a distinctive global identity in building corporate value and in building a strong market presence. Yokohama Rubber’s basic policy for fulfilling that vision centers on “… delivering the best products at competitive prices and on time, on asserting world-class strengths in technologies for protecting the environment, and on fostering a customer-oriented corporate culture that honors rigorous standards of corporate ethics.”

Yokohama Tire’s “Forever Forest” Dr. Miyawaki advocates the creation of “native forests” matched to indigenous soil and climate in the specific area.

Yokohama Orange Oil - Tire Yokohama has developed the first tire ever made from the oil of orange peels. The dB Super E-Spec tires are made with a combination of orange oil and natural rubber. 80 percent of the product comes from something other than petroleum. The tires are being marketed for the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight hybrids, along with the Mini Cooper.

Peel Out: video report

[What is the effect on first flush?]

CertainTeed Corporation, Valley Forge, PA -

A New Generation of Roofing Products with EnerGen Photovoltaic Solar Roofing System

Flow

Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition - working together for smart, clean energy

Coca-Cola
New bottle is partly plant-based

Energy Efficienct Mortgages (EEM) - green mortgages

Climate Science (blog): An insider's view of climate science, politics and solutions

Nature captures energy from the sun to produce food and oxygen. Natural capital services include clean water, recycling of waste carbon and mitigation of the potential for disaster from excesses of weather. All of that is true everywhere on this planet.

The headwaters region of Virginia has a special responsibility to use its natural advantages to explore their potential for safety, health and well-being. We don’t yet have polluting industry or industrial agricultural production upstream. We must work with our neighbors to protect that fortunate situation and to creatively explore its latent value.

As we learn to preserve, restore and enhance local development by low-impact means, major elements of our existing economy (health care, tourism, education, etc.) can be improved by conscious integration within collaborative efforts organized at ecosystemic (watershed) and cultural scales. We must become whole systems thinkers.

For instance, integrative medicine has yet to have an opportunity to work within an environment and society being holistically developed to produce healthy air, water, soil and food. We could create that opportunity here. In doing so, we could advance the frontier of public health and make a contribution to the crisis in health care in the most cost-effective way, keeping people healthy.

We must understand the potential value of our situation before we lose it. In assessing future development proposals, we need the context provided by feasibility studies of the potential of an inclusive and integrated green and ethical local economy and society. Consider this is a call for self-interested proaction.

-- Tom Cain

 

 

 

[See “Sabbath Economics” in the Resources Section of this website.]

 

Impact + Amplify exists to explore the creative and the
destructive potential of the edge between nature and culture

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