What Van Jones’ resignation can teach the green business movement.
He’s been two trending topics on Twitter for several days. His google hits by now topple 12,000. He united the cause for getting poor African Americans with the environmental movement. He raised over $125 million for green collar job development and got him all the way to Washington. He challenged all of us with the elitism of the environmental movement – with terms like “eco-apartheid.” His grass-roots organizations, Green For All and the Ella Baker Center, influence legislation, business leaders and kids, giving us hope that the green movement includes and effects everyone, peacefully.
Van Jones, the same luminary who is helping the green business movement spread its influence, is apparently, also danger to American ingenuity. He represents something that many of us aren’t used to: ambiguity.
Entrepreneurs may not admit it, but ambiguity is part of the framework for developing a business. Particularly a green business. Green leaders are really concerned about a myriad of complex values coming together at the same time. These include: prosperity, social justice, peace, sound science, good environmental practices, education, awareness and transparency. In Van’s case, transparency wasn’t really working for his image but he was about the other stuff. And he certainly has never been about hatred or bringing the country down.
He’s an activist. A visionary. A political leader.
Labels can be limiting. They don’t often describe who we are, and what we do, or even what we stand for. Green business leaders need to continually educate and discuss the vision of what we stand for. And back that up with the benefits of our actions. And this makes way for change.
When I was getting my green MBA, a former ivy-league educated colleague of mine told me I had “drunk the Kool-Aid “ when I told her about the coming of companies adopting sustainable initiatives. The $3 billion dollar corporation she’s a senior manager for made green a priority in 2007. I’ve taken hits from my own family for years about how “un-informed” I am about human impact on the environment. The more the companies my family invested in participate in sustainability, the faster the family changed opinions on people they once vilified. Admitting, that maybe – just maybe - Al Gore deserved the Nobel Prize after all.
When people see a vision of the future match their beliefs; they will support what you stand for. Even if it’s a variation on what you personally believe.
“ I’ve often said that going green is not an issue for one side of the political spectrum or another, said Glenn Croston founder of StartingUpGreen.com. “ Going green is viewed as a moral, economic, and security imperative, and as a business opportunity, by people across the political spectrum. But politics is a dirty game to be sure, so I’m not surprised by the latest events. I just hope that dirty politics does not equate with a dirty, and down, economy.
The sustainability movement urgently needs outspoken heroes. But we can’t do that with green-colored glasses on. Like it or not, we have to deal with a much more vicious, hateful and racist landscape than we bargained for a decade ago. Those leaders who are adapting green and including green collar jobs in their workforce need to pick up where this media-frenzy left off to create a healthier economy.
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