Thank you for your kind words Henk :)

>>> ...to fully contribute to the mission of The Natural Capital Institute and Paul Hawken's vision (BTW, where are the concepts of natural, human, social and built capital in this taxonomy ?, :)

In the taxonomy, there is an area of focus called "Natural Capitalism". The concepts of "natural, human, social and built capital" is embodied in the many areas of focus (such as on education, gender equality, biodiversity conservation, etc.). However, I don't recall to have read anywhere that WiserEarth's vision is officially and specifically linked to the concept of "Natural Capitalism", though it is a project of NCI. In my opinion, it is more suitable to link WiserEarth with Paul Hawken's latest book "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming" @ http://www.blessedunrest.com/

If you're interested in stewarding the "health-portal", please feel free to join the "Area of Focus steward" group @ http://www.wiserearth.org/group/aof anytime and suggest improvements for the portal.

Thanks again for your kind words and for your willingness to spend time suggesting improvements to the site. Looking forward for more fruitful conversation and collaboration with you Henk.

Bowo

Hey all,

Hey Henk. An interesting title with interesting discussions.

I would however only comment on the following sentence for now: "For me WiserEarth AoF seemed to be somewhat flawed, as it just doesn't seem to accommodate human learning and social sustainability; it's focus seems to be mainly on natural adaptivity and ecological sustainability issues ."

I once did a simple analysis of reclassifying WiserEarth's Areas of Focus (AoF) taxonomy into Earth Charter's "taxonomy" (which was divided into three major themes: "Ecological Integrity", "Economic and Social Justice", and "Democracy, Non-violence and Peace"), and found that half of the AoF can be categorized under "Ecological Integrity", while the remaining AoF was split to the other two themes. You can view the reclassification @ http://www.wiserearth.org/article/f1800201c074b24c9c18cb1e8275e9c6
So, I agree with your observation. There actually are important topics not yet included in the taxonomy, for example "Interfaith Dialogue".

As David suggested however, if we want to call it "taxonomy" then there must be a rather strict and clear categorization of AoF, where duplications or overlaps can be minimized. Otherwise, we should call it "tags", which is a much more flexible way of assigning multiple keywords to an entity (keywords, by the way, have been included under each AoF).

To my understanding, everything about and within WiserEarth is (or will be) changeable by the community (of WiserEarth users). Imho, the AoF taxonomy is one of those that need further improvements, and discussions such as the one we're having here will surely help toward that end.

So, I support the addition of "Social Footprint" AoF. I'm not quite sure though about "Sustainable Innovation", because it is very much about "education", as you use "human learning" to describe it. And currently there are several AoF which resemble that description ("Social Justice Education", "Sustainability Education", and other I can't quite remember at the moment).

Another thing Henk. You can add these suggestion in the "List of Proposed AoFs" discussion @ http://www.wiserearth.org/forum/view/38a11e23de96d5bfb55510763ed09bf2
(another thread in this "Suggestion for Areas of Focus" forum).

If you're considering to create a group on this, I would suggest that you set it up as a sub-group of the "Area of Focus Stewards" group @ http://www.wiserearth.org/group/aof (it's a recently set up "working group" of the WiserEarth Editors group @ http://www.wiserearth.org/group/WiserEarthEditors).

Bowo

Dear James

Thanks for your reaction. With my post, I just wanted to have my knowledge claim tested by WiserEarth editors, that "sustainable innovation" and "the social footprint " are missing in your ontology and that both should be added (preferably or let's say, most certainly not associated with "green" or "greening"). I've not read a clear answer in your reply, so it seems to me that you are still contemplating on this idea, although you do seem to subscribe to the importance of both concepts. For me WiserEarth AoF seemed to be somewhat flawed, as it just doesn't seem to accommodate human learning and social sustainability; it's focus seems to be mainly on natural adaptivity and ecological sustainability issues . I didn't intend to answer your reaction, as I'm just awaiting your final reaction. As the purpose of my post was just to to make a contribution to your AoF. Therefore, I hesitated to respond to your request to explore these issues further, but finally I decided to write this post, which I didn't intend to post.

My claim is that our learning systems are dysfunctional and unsustainable , and that therefore it’s no wonder that the outcomes of our actions are not ecological and social sustainable (measured by a footprint method). I prefer to speak about "knowledge" and not about "wisdom". Let me put it an other way, our actions are "existing knowledge in use" , and its performance in the world is measured by an ecological and social footprint. As our impacts are mainly negative, we should try to close this gap by creating new knowledge (which is everybody's job). For me, the result of an ecological or social footprint is not the application or use of knowledge based on a trust , but knowledge based on the position (and power) of those who decide what "true knowledge or ideas" are. It's not about philosopher Kings; we live in a corporate world. Let's focus on organizations; corporate epistemology dictates that managers decide "what true knowledge" or "what conventional wisdom" is (which is "'justified true belief"), and we see the detrimental effects daily. So we just add old, biased information or knowledge to our distributed organizational knowledge bases (on which we act). Managers just "harvest" knowledge assets , and they are not inclined to invest in creating new knowledge, as the ROI of this is less compelling to them, as it's uncertain and doesn't produce a short-term profit (it's far of their radar-screen). So, where are the other humans, in their instrumental role as workers and their role of stakeholders , developing knowledge ?

Here we are …..with managers, who are "the hired guns" for short term organizational profit, exploiting and tapping knowledge as if they were oil-wells. The cultural archetype of corporations seems to be nothing more than nomadic tribes. One of my American friends Steve Cavaleri once said " that they are much like the Anasazi Indians, that consume resources, leave their garbage behind, and move on to new grounds. They are hunters, not farmers. They "harvest "the buffalo, the whale- they are in the business of commerce. They do not want to learn to become farmers because that would require that they learn how to live sustainably".

Ultimately for me ," the source" that has too much influence are "managers" and I agree with you that when a source is too influential, the ecological world and our society is threatened. So in the end for me it all comes down to what the epistemology is in place (in organizations and society). I'm in favor of "open individuals", "open enterprises", "open societies "and "open innovation", and "fallibalism (Karl Popper) as the epistemology to be used "……..to kill our worst ideas, before they kill us (Joe Firestone)".

James, what I'm actually saying, is that I'm quite willing to explore the issue of the relationship of (sustainable) innovation and social sustainability (and its footprint) with you any further , although I don't think this discussion forum (which is about changing AoF's) is actually the right place for this discussion; we should take our discussion elsewhere. I will than ask you also some questions to clarify your position and some of your statements . So is there a suitable group in existence, or should we both create a new one (how about naming it "sustainability of knowledge and knowledge of sustainability") ?

With kind regards,

Henk Hadders (Holland)

Dear People of WISER Earth,

I’ve just discovered your existence, and I’m now beginning to have a slight understanding of how your complex platform works. I’m conducting a PhD research on the relationship of population health, sustainable innovation, social sustainability and the social footprint (in the health care domain). For me there are two concepts missing in your ontology: (1) sustainable innovation and (2) the social footprint.

Social sustainability issues are equally important as ecological sustainability issues. Its right to encounter the ecological footprint under the area of “Greening of Industry”. But that’s not the place to include the social footprint. So where should we add a “social footprint”?

The same goes for “sustainable innovation” (= learning by humans). The twin of “sustainable innovation” is “sustainable production” (which is part of “Greening of Industry”). But industry needs to be both ecological and social sustainable. So we need a different colored hat to include “sustainable innovation” as human knowledge & learning (= the often forgotten human dimension). ……“just ideas”.

With kind regards,

Henk Hadders