CATALYZING
Genuine Leadership, Innovation and Sustainable Profitability™
Volume 3

Making the Case for the Sustainable Development of DaLat and Lam Dong Province: Exploring the Path to Innovative Solutions, Business Models and Markets
Tara Kimbrell Cole

Summary of the white paper published on the occasion of the International Seminar,
CONSULTATION & MASTER-PLANNING FOR DALAT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY IN LAM DON PROVINCE; DALAT AS A SHOW CASE OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
Host Institution: Lam Dong People’s Committee, Peoples Republic of Vietnam
14 July 2006

"If the entire world were as materially-intensive as North America, it would take more than three planet earths to support the material requirements of the current world population" ⁱ This is not a model to follow.

A famous American author and socialist politician Upton Sinclair, said "It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends on his not understanding."

This statement encapsulates the core issue for already industrialized countries. The challenge facing emerging economies, like Vietnam is to find an alternative path to the conventional industrialization.ⁱⁱ

In this talk, I will review the recent history and business landscape setting the stage for DaLat & Lam Dong province to grasp the opportunities in sustainable development. I will make the case and explain why this opportunity exists now and how it may be grasped. The opportunity, in short, is to serve the underserved with sustainable innovative solutions through which commercially viable business models are engaged and local markets are developed. Guidelines of engagement in exploring the path will be proposed and five economic sectors of the underserved will be identified as targets. DaLat & Lam Dong province’s unique competitive value will be defined. The various channels of development explored in the master planning session are applied as a means to serve the identified underserved markets, providing a road map through which DaLat and Lam Dong could bring forward their unique value proposition.

I will now turn to look at two channels of the journey that have brought us to our current collective condition. One is the path of philosophical thought and the other is the recent industrialization. Both of these are worth your consideration as you make your decision on whether to follow the conventional path of industrialization or the alternative path of sustainability.  The world is at a particular turning point in history that provides Dalat and Lam Dong with the special opportunity to come forward to lead and to set an example for all the world by delivering a prototype of a sustainable community.

Consider that from the beginning of the industrial revolution some three hundred years ago, Newtonian science ruled western thought. This now outdated theory viewed the universe as a machine-determined, fixed, predictableⁱⁱⁱ and fragmented. From this perspective nature was created to serve mankind. It is no wonder that in western society today, the majority of the people who still engage in this system of thought are experiencing a sense of meaninglessness and disconnection from themselves, their communities and the rest of the world.

It is in the last forty years, based on thoughts seeded by Einstein that western physicists began to question the Newtonian perspective. In 1968 a Swiss physicist proposed that if you take a two particle system, separate them by 10,000 kilometers and change the spin on one particle, the other particle will simultaneously change its own spin. ^iv In 1972, a physicist at the University of Paris, conducted such an experiment which scientifically confirmed ^v that all phenomena are essentially interrelated and interdependent. Thereafter, a study commissioned by the US government and undertaken at the University of California at Berkeley concluded that this experiment had brought forward "the most profound discovery in the history of science".^vi

Whole systems thinking, western terminology for the understanding that everything is connected and indeed is a whole system, as you know, is rooted in early Asian^vii thought and deeply rooted in Buddhism. It had however not emerged as part of western thought (other than in esoteric studies of Asian philosophy) until the 1950s , when aspects were engaged to maximize business performance.

It wasn’t until 1980 that Dr. David Bohm, a professor of theoretical physics in London and the man Einstein thought best qualified to carry his work forward, proposed^viii that "both the material world and consciousness are parts of a single unbroken totality of movement."^ix "The world in effect is fundamentally inseparable."^x

For the western world this represents an unprecedented convergence of thought all across the disciplines of physics, science and philosophy. The significance of this is gradually permeating through various parts of western society.

These developments mark the beginning of an era in which science is confirming what religion and age old Asian spiritual disciplines have long espoused. Indeed this journey brings leading thought in the west full circle in alignment with Buddhist philosophy and such Asian proverbs as 'If you cut a blade of grass, you shake the universe.'

So while we bear in mind this journey of philosophical thought underway on one track, let’s review the journey of industrialization that has been underway on a parallel track. Industrialization and modern capitalismxi put very simply, views the purpose of business singularly to produce profits and growth. This philosophy contends that in so doing, business improves life by increasing GDP and per capita income. This economic philosophy exists separately from any concern for the quality of life and the well being of individual people which it views is best addressed by development aid and charity from the entities who reap the profits, if they chose to provide it.

Industrialization and Modern capitalism have indeed increased per capita GDP in capitalist countries. Nevertheless, by the 1960s, voices of dissent against pollution emerged with the onset of Cancer and the noticeable destruction of the environment. As the environmental objections grew in the United States, so did stricter regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). From the 1960s to the ‘80s these regulations forced the major polluting corporations to clean up and to export their manufacturing facilities to the developing countries where they would not be hampered by environmental regulations. The multi-national corporations (MNC) were also driven by their expectation that the former Soviet Union, its allies, China, India and Brazil would enable the next great business bonanza for them.^xii While the last decade has seen the explosion of cross border trade, life expectancy and literacy rates,^xiii the challenges and problems that globalization have created are equally as great.

Stuart Hart, the world’s leading expert on sustainable global enterprise and professor at Cornell’s Graduate School of Management in his latest book "Capitalism at a Crossroads" concludes that after a decade of economic globalization, privatization and growing free trade, (quote), "where as the wealthy in industrialized countries have grown richer, the vast majority of nations and people in the world have yet to benefit from the apparent triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy. The forty trillion dollar plus economy is simply not growing fast enough to provide the jobs for the tens of millions of young people from around the world joining the work force every year.^xiv Contrary to popular belief, the decade of the 1990s was actually the slowest-growing decade in the world economy in the past forty years".^xv The middle class in industrialized countries shrank and the underclass grew. "The poorest countries in the world have had zero to negative growth since the early 1980s."^xv

Stuart Hart contends "In the process, the industrialized and industrializing countries’ abuse of natural resources have exponentially increased and put entire underlying systems that support human economies in crisis.^xvii It is not only the climate change effected by carbon emission but entire eco-systems that have been degraded including forests, fisheries, soil, resulting in dire consequences."^xviii Add to these, the challenges of an increasing population and of keeping food production up with that growth in the face of soil erosion and the expansion of deserts.^xix Cows are Mad, the birds have flu, plastics have entered the food chain through our fish, a chemical compound of Teflon has been found in the umbilical cords of babies and in most Americans’ blood streams and new strains of strange diseases are increasing.

According to Stuart Hart, (quote) "The so called Washington consensus; The International Monetary fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization are all under increasing fire.^xx Most importantly by insiders that have made their objections loud and clear such as Joseph Stiglitz^xxi, Jeffrey Sachs^xxii, and George Soros^xxiii. A rising anti-globalization movement is supported by wealthy protestors from industrialized countries that organize major demonstrations against the MNCs, and the institutions of global capitalism: THE WTO and the World Economic Forum."^xxiv

The significant diversity of opinion within the United States (USA), may not be as apparent to those living outside it. The American public has been polarized for more than a decade in two contrary channels of philosophical thought. For instance, President Bush’s refusal to sign the KYOTO protocol has not stopped those in the USA that wanted it signed from pursuing the inherent goal by other means. Twelve states, several cities and environmental groups filed a law suit against the American EPA, arguing that under the US Clean Air Act, the agency is obligated to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will rule on the issue of whether the EPA is legally required to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

It is useful to bare all this in mind as well as the significance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the industrialized countries, in the course of your deliberations. In all industrialized countries up to seventy percent of new jobs are created by SMEs^xxv and ninety-five per cent of all radical (disruptive) innovation^xxvi emerges from SMEs. SMEs represent the fastest growing segment of The United States GDP and a surprisingly significant percentage, an even higher percentage in Europe, and up to 80 percent of the GDP in India, China, and Japan.^xxvii The importance of increasing and sustaining SME participation in GDP can not be under estimated.

Notes:

1. Mathais Wackernagel and William Rees, Our Ecological Footprint (Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers, 1996)
2. Thai Quang Trung , email to Tara Kimbrell Cole (June 2006)
3. Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital (Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc. USA 2004)
4. Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 1996) P. 79
5. Joseph Jaworski, SYNCHONICITY. In the 1964 a Swiss Physicist, J.S. Bell performed and experiment which was confirmed eight years later in 1972. Alain Aspect, a physicists at the University of Paris conducted an experiment that scientifically proved in the field of physics that "the world is in effect is fundamentally inseparable" it is a whole system. By 1980, Dr. David Bohm, professor of theoretical physics at London’s Birkbeck College published a book entitled wholeness and the implicate order. P.79
6. Ibid p.78
   
7. First appeared in Asia in Taoist thought.
   
8. David Bohm, Wholeness and The Implicate Order ( Routledge & Kegan paul, London, UK,1980)
   
9. "How the Universe Hangs Together" London Sunday Times Article on David Bohm Professor of theoretical physics at London’s
   Birbeck College (27 July 1980)
   
10. Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity: the inner path of Leadership, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. ©1996)
    
11. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois,© 1962)
    
12. Stuart L. Hart Capitalism at the Crossroads, (© 2005 Pearson Education , Inc. publishing as Wharton School Publishing, Upper
    Saddle River, N.J. 07458, USA.)
13. Allen Hammond, Which World? (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1998.
    
14. Stuart L. Hart , Capitalism at the Crossroads, (© 2005 Pearson Education , Inc. publishing as Wharton School Publishing,
    Upper Saddle River, N.J. 07458, USA.)
    
15. Thomas Paley, "A New Development paradigm: Domestic Demand-led Growth", Foreign Policy in focus (September 1999)
    www.fpif.org/papers/development_body.html.
    
16. William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2002)
    
17. Stuart L. Hart, Capitalism at the Crossroads", (© 2005 Pearson Education , Inc. publishing as Wharton School Publishing,
    upper Saddle River, N.J. 07458, USA.)
    
18. Ibid
    
19. Ibid.
    
20. Ibid p. xxxviii
21. Joseph E. Stigliz,, Globalization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton and Company, 2002) copyright © Joseph E. Stiglitz
    
22. Jeffrey Sachs "Helping the Worlds’ Poorest," The Economist (14 August 2000):17-20
    
23. George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (New York: W.W. Norton,2002)
    
24. Stuart L. Hart Capitalism at the Crossroads, (© 2005 Pearson Education , Inc. publishing as Wharton School Publishing,
    upper Saddle River, N.J. 07458, USA.) p. xxxviii
    
25. InternationalEntrepreneurship.com 2003
    
26. Ibid.
    
27. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/305222/305222.htm, June 2006

The contents are not to be cited or reproduced in any form without prior and explicit permission of the author. Views expressed herein are entirely those of the author.

Copyright © 2006 Tara Kimbrell Cole