Integral Sustainability Consulting

Green Business is a rewarding yet challenging process. The QwertyU mission is simple: to promote sustainability through business by assisting companies and organizations in successfully meeting the challenges and realizing the rewards of “going green”.

QwertyU combines the multi-perspective Integral Approach (Individual, Cultural, and Technological/Physical) with the ecologically informed, sustainable enterprise model of the GreenMBA to create a unique synthesis that can be applied to any business or situation. This provides a framework for identifying intra-systemic causes; evaluating obstacles and opportunities; developing innovative approaches to challenges; instituting designs; and placing the entire endeavor in the greater perspective of the interconnected totality of our experience as human beings.

For more information about Integral Sustainability, click here.

To find out how this synthesis can benefit your business, contact us.

Small and Medium Size Businesses

"I have a small business, I can't afford to be green."

"I have a fiduciary obligation to my shareholders to maximize profits."

Experts in the field of Sustainability have known for some time that "being green" is good for business; both from an accounting and a marketing perspective. Informed by top thinkers in fields such as bio-mimetic design and ecological economics, leaders and innovators in business have been in the process of moving toward a more rational, ecologically informed economic paradigm for some time now. These new models of industry are mutually compatible with both ecological concerns and financial considerations.

One of the greatest challenges the Sustainability Movement faces is overcoming the cultural inertia that years of adversarial dynamics have left on the psyches of both environmentalists and captains of industry. Business can be green, and greens can be in business. Working within the culture of a company; uncovering assumptions about "green business"; providing new tools for evaluating the benefits of sustainable approaches and; disseminating and pioneering best practices are all the scope of the Integral Sustainability Consultant.

A New Era of New (and Old) Challenges

The Boomer generation is the first to live in a truly global culture, and its children are the first to fully appreciate the ramifications. As the reach of human culture and technology encircled the world (both literally and metaphorically) and returned back upon itself, the consequences of our advances have become, paradoxically, the source of our potential to either evolve or dissolve. We live in a time of unsurpassed material abundance and scientific progress, concurrently with unprecedentedly complex tensions and challenges.

At the same time, the passing of the era of "cheap" oil will touch all aspects of human interaction. There is widespread speculation as to how this new era will manifest; as a smooth transition to new technologies guided by market forces, or a fierce competition for ever dwindling resources that leads to economic and cultural crisis. Regardless of which scenario unfolds in our (near) future, one thing is clear: The Sustainability Movement will need to play a leadership role in the transition.

Whether or not an enterprise is ahead of the curve in addressing these challenges will be of fundamental importance to its ability to continue through this potentially tumultuous transitional epoch of industry. As these socio-economic and ecological factors become ever more apparent, redesigning our lives and industries around the need to "push smarter, not harder" will be of fundamental importance for businesses and families and the communities in which they exist and live.

Residential / Family

Like businesses, individuals and families are asking the question "what can I do to bring my values more in line with my actions?" People are realizing that they can make a positive difference with their consumer decisions.

(The most recent example of this is the popularity of the Toyota Prius driving more car-companies to develop Hybrid-technology than any amount of regulation was ever able to accomplish. The lesson? You can lobby against legislation, but you can't ignore opportunities that affect your bottom-line. The other lesson? The profit motive works both ways.)

QwertyU offers residential and community options for living more in line with your values today, and preparing for the potential challenges of tomorrow.

Community

The integral model realizes that individuals do not exist in isolation. (This may seem like a statement of the obvious, but Free-market individualism is actually still a dominant story that influences the Ameriacn cultural “operating system”.) That is, everyone is both an individual and a member of the culture (in “integral speak”, posessing both agency and communion), both having interior (personal) and exterior (shared) facets to their respective roles.

The place where these interactions play out is in community. QwertyU is aware of the importance of addressing and supporting this fundamental aspect of human existence. Without community, the potential of the individual would be limited; without individuals, there would be no community.

Challenges of the future will not be conquored by individuals, they will be addressed by cooperation in communities. QwertyU is committed to supporting the greater unfolding of the human potential through the greater enfolding to community.