Ecological
Intelligence
Ecological
Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
PB AUD33.00
As I started to read this book
the Australian Government announced they were
dropping a key election promise of Grocery Watch.
"So what" you may well be asking.
The thesis of Daniel Goleman's latest work is
about transparency in making purchasing decisions.
His research and argument go much further than
the price focus of Grocery Watch however the
message is one which organizations need to heed:
the phenomenon of radical transparency, the
availability of complete information about all
aspects of a product's history is about to transform
the power of consumers and the fate of business.
Goleman makes a disclosure that
he is as clueless about ecological intelligence
as most of us. What becomes apparent as you
read is his admiration for the virtual network
of people who have the skills to build the human
store of ecological intelligence and to let
that guide our decisions to better directions.
My sense is that Goleman is passionate
with the possibility offered by ecological intelligence
and this makes the book more readable than some
of his earlier work. His research allowed the
combination of psychological skills with a scientific
journalist sense of inquiry as he speaks with
people up and down the life cycle chain of a
product.
What intrigued me was how
much work was already being done by a couple
of groups. For example in 2008 Goodguide Inc.
was founded and its mission is to build tools
that "transform how people see and interact
with products and companies by delivering comprehensive
and rigorous information at the point of purchase".
Goleman spends a number of pages digging into
the philosophy behind and the challenges ahead
for this project.
Another is the website "Skindeep".
This group has evaluated the health risk of
55,000 personal care products. Since its launch
in 2004 there have been 64 million unique visits
to the site. When Goleman mentioned the site
to a brand manager for a global hair care company
he found they were unaware of the site!
Case studies presented by Goleman
to illustrate both the necessity and complexities
of full transparency in a product life cycle
are thought provoking. One case is Coca- Cola.
In India, farmers near a Coca-Cola plant were
given sludge, a bottling by product, to fertilize
their fields. The resultant activist exposure
of the heavy metals resulted in a court ordered
shutdown of the plant and a drop in coke sales
across India. The manner in which Coca-Cola
responded is all about this book. The gathering
of 'ecological intelligence' by the company,
has resulted in massive changes in their whole
operating system with the measurable goal that
by 2010 all wastewater from coke plants worldwide
is returned to the local water supply, clean
enough to support aquatic life.
When I finished reading
I was left with the feeling that 'this all makes
sense'. Will it be easy, probably not, although
to ignore ecological intelligence may well be
the death knell to many of the global brands
we know today. Maybe the management teams of
our major grocery chains need to read this book!
Make your purchase 
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more reviews - July 2009
