Frank Boren
Speaks to Chicago Wilderness
Remarks
at launch of the Chicago Wilderness Corporate Council
April 6, 2002
at The Field Museum
When I was asked to speak to
you today to help celebrate the launching of the Corporate
Council of Chicago Wilderness, I couldn't have been more
pleased. What you are doing here — involving the
private sector in the business of preserving the environment
— is exactly what I have devoted myself to for the
past twenty years. I am here to affirm enthusiastically
that involving the private sector works.
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Frank Boren has worked
for conservation issues from within the corporate
world and as former president of The Nature Conservancy.
Photo by Kimberly Mazanek,
courtesy of The Field Museum.
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If I have one overriding conviction
in my life, it is that without the private sector's cooperation
in solving our environmental problems, we who care deeply
about our environment are going to lose. And I do
not want to lose. I want to leave this planet in the best
shape possible for future generations.
I will return to the potential
of your Corporate Council later, but I'd like to state
candidly right now that I believe I did as much for the
environment in my ten years as a member of the Board of
Directors of the Atlantic Richfield Corporation as I did
as president of The Nature Conservancy, where on my watch
we bought more land than the entire Federal government
— over 1,000 acres each calendar day of each year.
I don't have to convince you
of the importance of what Chicago Wilderness has already
achieved — preserving 200,000 acres of rare, natural
communities — prairies, woodlands, forests, and wetlands
— is a tremendous accomplishment. You have
the potential to stop the shrinking and actually increase
the size of the preserved areas or " green islands"
as you call them in your plan. And unlike the uninitiated,
who dismiss the need for large areas and say, "If
you've seen two acres of tallgrass prairie, you've seen
'em all," you know that the larger the area of habitat
protected, the greater the number of species it can support.
When I looked at the goals of
your Biodiversity Recovery Plan, I was excited
because you seem to be on exactly the right track. You
have a responsible, scientifically
based plan that emphasizes a sustainable relationship
between people and nature. You are educating citizens
and local agencies. Your
end game is to enrich the quality of people's lives by
protecting their precious resources. You recognize that
the human spirit needs
to be refreshed by contact with nature. To all of that,
I say, "Congratulations."
So what can I bring of value
to you today? The only thing I know to do is to
give you my perspective on the importance of your work
and the difficulties you face, based upon my experience.
I'd like to share some of that
experience, through true stories where possible.
Why
is your work so critically important? You know why —
your innate common sense
tells you that to allow species to be lost is arrogant
when you actually have
the power to prevent such loss. When talking about biodiversity,
many people argue that biodiversity is more prevalent
in the tropics, and accordingly
our resources should be concentrated in the rain
forests, coral reefs or in the states of Florida, Texas,
California and Hawaii,
where the United States possesses its most abundant diversity
of habitat. I confess
I was not aware that your grasslands and woodlands are
even more rare than the tropical rainforests!
Whether your grasslands and
woodlands are more rare than the tropical rainforests
or not, it is clear to me that you're saving biodiversity
on this planet by EXAMPLE.
Chicago Wilderness's leadership
in preserving 200,000 acres of urban habitat,
while important in its own right as a world class ecosystem,
also has the power to
persuade others what to do by example. You walk the talk.
You are saying to the other human inhabitants of the world:
we will do our part; please
join in and do your part, and we are here to help you.
I'll never forget one time I
was in Brazil on a crusade for the Nature Conservancy
to help the people of Brazil preserve their rain forest.
At a social gathering I found
myself face-to-face with an irate Brazilian who
said angrily, "I am so damn tired of you environmentalists
coming down here and telling
us what to do. We are not stupid. If you want to save
the rain forest, why don't you rent it?" In other
words, recognize the pragmatic, economic needs
we have, and help us solve them! My point is
that because you in Chicago Wilderness are doing your
part, you have credibility
and standing to provide leadership to others on the planet.
We are all connected. I firmly
believe that your actions here are contributing
to the preservation of habitat in China and elsewhere
on the planet. Today the
planet is, in fact, the forum.
When Neil Armstrong looked down
on the earth from the moon and saw the Earth looking like
an oasis in the desert of space, the area that the Chicago
Wilderness is preserving was visible! In that very big
picture, your work with
Chicago Wilderness — ensuring that that open space
remains protected — matters. One ecosystem is related
to all others. The rain forests are connected to the oceans,
which are connected to the prairies, which are connected
to the alpine communities, etc. We all live in the same
house. We need to save that house, live in that house
and hopefully enjoy its beauty and cleanliness.
We all agree that your work is important. But,
why is it so difficult? A lot
of the difficulty lies in egos. So many people from so
many institutions are
involved in the mission of the Chicago Wilderness and
each one of them possesses an ego. What I
mean by "ego" here is the urge to
protect one's own turf and one's pride of place. "
MY institution is more
important and better than your institution." "
I deserve more credit."
etc. But this is the challenge, THIS IS THE FUTURE.
How can I help? I think the
best thing I think I can do is to be brutally honest
and tell you how it is as I see it and not gloss over
this subject with romantic,
poetic statements. This is serious work, and it can be
very frustrating. However, the work can be
extremely gratifying, both from
the accomplishments achieved and the relationships developed.
The secret of successful partnerships,
I believe, is for each of the partners
and participants to make an all-out effort to understand
where the other partners
and participants come from, before such partner seeks
to have his or her own
position understood. For example, what is the reasonable
expectation of the contribution from the Corporate Council
we are launching today? Do I understand my
partner from business? Can I change
the way my business partner thinks so that he sees the
world as I see it? If
not, why not? The same questions can be asked of the government
partners, the non-profit partners and the volunteer partners.
I will focus primarily on your Corporate Council: what
is reasonable to expect from it, what is not, and the
Council's potential. This is my perspective and may not
be yours.
When
I started working in the environment in 1968, I thought
of business as a source
of destruction and as a source of money. Today, in the
year 2002, I think of
business as an indispensable partner in saving our environment.
The
Council is already providing resources. We always look
to business for financial
assistance since it is the sector of our society that
provides the wealth. Having said that, I have found that
there is a limit on the amount that the business community
can contribute financially to charity. In fact, business
is way behind individuals, foundations and government
in providing money to causes. Why? Because if you do not
make as much money as your competitor, your CEO runs the
risk of termination.
Furthermore, most states, even
the popular choice, Delaware, mandate that a corporation's
main purpose is to produce profits for its shareholders
— period. So, while
you can seek reasonable financial support from all profitable
businesses in the community, don't create unrealistic
expectations and set yourselves up for disappointment.
I used to think, "Why can't
I get more money from these rich guys to buy precious
preserves?" Now I know why — but I did get quite
a bit of money in the
learning process.
Almost all businesses own or
lease land. Some of this land is within the area
of your vision for protecting biodiversity. Through the
use of conservation easements,
and the resulting tax benefits to the donor business,
much of this precious habitat can be preserved. Members
of your Corporate Council
can open the doors to businesses located within the scope
of your vision to protect biodiversity, to explore these
conservation easement ideas and others.
The Sierra Club cannot open
these same doors for you. That is the way it is.
Having said that, one should also be aware that it is
a non-starter to ask a
public business to donate its land without compensation
or tax benefits, which
benefit its stockholders. That is also the way it is.
Business insists on a
return for its capital. It is not in the atonement business.
The real magic of the Corporate
Council might be the people on it and their
minds. When business minds are challenged with a problem,
they often see solutions
that those in government or the non-profit sectors overlooked
or were unaware of. Never forget to tap this resource.
A couple of quick examples.
Arco discovered oil in the Ecuadorian rain forest.
I pleaded with Arco to work with environmental groups
to be as sensitive as
possible in the development. Arco challenged its engineering
department and magic happened.
A junior engineer named Lou Swallow, while driving to
work, came up with the notion "Why can't we treat
the rain forest like the
ocean?" This led to the development being brought
in by helicopter, similar
to drilling platforms off shore, with no roads to the
field. Roads lead to colonization
and development. Because of this idea, not
only was the rain forest saved, but also the indigenous
tribe in the area was
able to continue its way of life.
My second example involves the
cooperation of environmental groups and business.
Arco had developed a reformulated gasoline. It was felt
that this gasoline would
take 1/3 of the emissions out of the air in Southern California.
However, Arco could not make the $600,000,000 investment
in its refineries and
remain competitive in price with non-reformulated gasoline.
Arco, being considered "Big Oil," did not have
the standing to raise the standards for air quality
in California. But our friends at The Environmental Defense
Fund and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
did. They went to the California Air Resources Board
and got the standards changed on a 5 to 1 vote. Arco made
the investment and the other oil companies followed. California
now has cleaner air.
And talk about personal satisfaction:
when the then-CEO of Arco, Lod Cook,
was an intensive care unit after undergoing a triple bypass
operation, I called him
to see how he was doing. Lod replied, "Frank, when
I woke up, I was euphoric to be alive — and the next
thought I had was how
proud I was that we helped clean up the air in California
with our reformulated
gasoline." Lod did not talk about his net worth or
stock options.
In conclusion, ask the members
of the Business Council to come up with solutions
to the barriers you face in implementing your vision.
You may be shocked to
see what comes out of such a challenge. If the business
partners feel responsible
for achieving the vision, I predict magic will happen.
Problems with business involvement
in environmental efforts generally result
from a lack of passion in the representative appointed
to the Council or a disconnect
between the representative and the power base of the
corporation. This is something that needs to be
talked about. You need real participation,
not veneer.
For instance, in the nineties,
I worked on creating the California Environmental
Dialogue for five years. This was a group that grew out
of frustration: 12 corporations
in California and 12 environmental groups started
to meet monthly to seek solutions they could agree on
because the California
legislature had been deadlocked for over 18 years on environmental
issues. We were getting nowhere.
We wrote an initiative to put
on the California ballot that would give California
tax credits to businesses that reduced diesel emissions
beyond what was required
by law. The law work was done by lawyers from Chevron,
Arco, NRDC, and the Planning and Conservation League.
When it came time to raise money for some TV spots, I
called for a meeting with the then-CEO of Arco, Mike Bowlin.
The first question he asked ARCO's then senior VP for
the environment was, "What is this California Environmental
Dialogue?
After five years of having a
representative in this group, the CEO was totally
unaware of what his legal and other people were doing.
I was head of the Environmental
Health and Safety committee of the board and had not briefed
him on the subject, and neither had anyone else. That
failure to make sure that
connection was made and that the CEO was up to speed resulted
in no financial support from ARCO for TV advertising.
Political considerations might
have overridden it anyway, because Pete Wilson
was then thinking about running for President. The initiative
was not his idea, and
the environment was considered a negative for him politically
in the early presidential Republican primaries. The oil
industry wanted to preserve
its good relationship with Wilson, so they wouldn't
put up any money up for TV advertisement, and so the initiative
was doomed to failure.
But the POTENTIAL OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND BUSINESS WORKING
TOGETHER IS EXCITINGLY POWERFUL. TRUST
ME.
I tell you this to show you,
you don't always win, but you do always learn
something that will help you succeed next time. In my
case, I realized that
I should have communicated earlier to the CEO of Arco
and the Wilson Administration.
Let's
now look at the government sector. I congratulate USDA,
the US Forest Service,
US Fish & Wildlife Service and the other governmental
participants, especially
Mayor Daley and the City of Chicago. This is as good
as it gets. The government is not only providing leadership,
science and technical
support but also funding important projects.
My experience with Government
comes from my years with The Nature Conservancy
and my nine years as a member of the California Fish and
Game Commission. Believe it or not, we could never get
this far in California. When I left the Fish and Game
Commission, we still did not have a vision for the Klamath
River or the Cosumnes River watershed. Multiple agencies
would never give up turf. Illumination and accountability
are the only tools I know of to work this problem. It
is a big problem, which your leadership shows can be overcome.
The media is an indispensable partner when turf problems
arise. Only the media can illuminate to the voters what
is going on.
While I have not field-tested
the literature on the Chicago Wilderness, you
appear to be way ahead in providing leadership and, from
my perspective, you seem
to be doing what needs to be done. You have the vision,
and you have put together all the right pieces:
You are Science-based. This
is your rudder. Good science allows behavior change
in how the habitat is treated and gives justification
to people for changing
the way they interact with nature.
You have an Education program.
How wonderful to give the urban community an on-the-ground
feel of nature.
You have a recovery plan, which
you monitor. You communicate your example and thus provide
leadership. You don't have to "spin" the facts.
The data is there, it is real, and it is impressive.
So, when government and the
community know what the standards are, if they
are worthwhile (like preserving natural diversity), great
things happen, such as
the Chicago Wilderness. I have found that the private
sector will meet those
standards through its own innovations rather than having
to comply with command and control rules and regulations.
By "command and control,"
I mean there is a mandate to reach a certain standard
and a strict prescription of how to get there. It is interesting
to monitor performance
when you keep the standard but eliminate the prescription,
very educational. Try to avoid command and control if
you can. This is a risk you can afford to run if the vision
and standards for the community are clear, if they've
been communicated and have been mutually
agreed.
One of your greatest assets
is your volunteers. This is free and dedicated labor,
which loves to make the world better. In California, we
could have never done the restoration work of the Nature
Conservancy without volunteers. The cost difference was
huge.
The next best alternative was
the prison system, which should always be used,
especially youth at risk. Working to enhance or preserve
nature has side effects
that can be wonderful to observe and often saves human
lives. Many of our disadvantaged
urban youth have seldom seen native flowers
in the wild, much less prairie flowers. This is a wonderful
opportunity for these
young people to experience and relate to nature while
their character is still being formed. I still remember,
with feelings, being warned
not to step on a California poppy by a young black teenage
inmate while I was visiting a Nature Conservancy preserve.
He was getting as much out of the experience as the preserve
was.
The challenge I have found in
working with volunteers lies in the job description
laid out for them. Treat their contribution the same as
paid work and have standards
of accountability. There is real magic here.
You might not think this would
be an easy time to get people interested in and concerned
about saving natural areas for future generations, but
I see it differently. After our national tragedy
last September, I believe millions of American reassessed
their priorities and began considering what difference
their lives were making to the world. Some who never thought
about it before started to think about being less self-centered
and materialistic. They wanted to take time to enjoy nature,
as they had not before — to take time literally to
smell the roses. I'm convinced we have a unique opportunity
to get people to do things for the common good.
Let's capture that openness
while it exists and capitalize on it when it comes to
seeking volunteers. Also, keep in mind that reassessment
is going on at upper levels of management as well. You
might make a few converts to the cause of Chicago Wilderness
in high places!
How can the non-profit community
contribute to your mission? Non- profits can
raise resources, provide more volunteers, provide science,
monitor governmental agencies,
monitor or sue business where government has been reluctant
to do and also just do some of the work. They too are
often a source of creative
solutions to problems and can provide validation when
positions are under discussion.
When I left the Nature Conservancy
in 1990, I formed a new non- profit called
"Sustainable Conservation," which I felt was
needed to fill a gap in
the environmental community. Sustainable Conservation's
mission is to capture
the energy of the private sector for the benefit of the
environment and to eliminate barriers that prevent that
from happening. What is key here is that the organization
is staffed with people who have business experience.
Let me give you some examples
of Sustainable Conservation's projects that might
apply to the Chicago Wilderness. The Elkhorn Slough in
Monterey County, California,
is a world-class estuary with much diversity of plant
and wildlife. In the early
1970s the Nature Conservancy received some gifts
of land and bought some land, as did the California Fish
and Game and US Fish and
Wildlife and others. When I looked at this ecosystem in
the early 1990s I realized
that it was not preserved, that there was no money coming
in from governmental sources to buy more land, and the
Nature Conservancy and other non-profits were no longer
raising money to do so.
To make matters worse, the siltation
from the adjacent farms was damaging the natural system
of the slough not only with dirt but also with herbicides
and pesticides. What to do about the fact that there was
not enough money available to buy more habitat? Sustainable
Conservation did a limited development on 37 acres adjacent
to the slough, with three one-acre building sites for
three manufactured homes, with a conservation easement
over the balance of the 34 acres to preserve the same.
The big point here is that the Board of Supervisors of
Monterey County was able to recognize the vision of protecting
the ecosystem by encouraging man's compatible use with
nature and waived all the development fees on the project
as an inducement to other landowners to participate in
the preservation of the ecosystem. Man lives in nature
and needs to nurture it.
But the problem remained: what
to do about the run off of topsoil, herbicides
and pesticides? Why the run off? Sustainable Conservation
found that wetlands were
not being restored to prevent run off because governmental
regulations then required nine permits to restore wetlands.
Many of the farmers in the area
did not speak English and were afraid of government.
So, Sustainable Conservation, in cooperation with the
Department of Agriculture, streamlined the permit system
and assisted the farmers in obtaining the permits. In
a short time, they were able to take advantage of the
incentives that had always been available from the Department.
This streaming program has been so successful that the
program is now working in 5 more counties and is expected
to go statewide, if not nationally.
At Sustainable Conservation,
we also try to make the activities of man as compatible
with nature and the preservation of ecosystems as possible.
Some examples: we are
working on a dairy project to collect the manure from
dairies in harvesters to produce energy and prevent the
pollutants in manure from
entering the streams and ground water. This project may
have direct application
to what you are doing in the Chicago Wilderness. We
would be happy to share our data with you.
Time permitting I could discuss
other projects such as auto recycling, industrial
restored wetlands, and brake pads. But this is no more
than your Chicago Wilderness
Sustainability program. Nature and man must exist in compatibility.
The alternative is not worth talking about.
When I served on ARCO's Board,
we fostered a culture that was compared to a three-legged
stool. The first leg was the money you had to make; the
second leg was the involvement
in the community. The third leg was the protection
of the environment. If one of the legs is not there, the
stool falls over, and
if a company is not doing all three, there's something
vital missing with them too. With the Corporate Council,
you have added one of the legs to your stool.
One last thought about what
not to do: label a part of society the enemy. Labeling
stops change. Please do not spend your resources and energy
on trying to "roll"
those who do not see the world the way you see it. As
noted earlier, understand
where each of your partners comes from and
listen to that partner. I will
always remember some advice given to me, "Frank,
when you are listening for confirmation of your own ideas,
you are not listening."
In an interview on the Biography Channel, Russ Limbaugh
pointed out that he was popular because people called
him to validate their
own thinking. Well, I could call my environmental friends
all day and feel good
and validate my thinking, but it doesn't accomplish a
lot. The challenge is to understand where the people who
do not agree with me come
from and then try to make them understand where I come
from. In this process I have found I often
never get to make my position. Why? Because in really
listening, I continually frighten myself that I may not
have the answer and someone else does. This is growth.
A friend of mine, Peter Hatt,
who was the chief operating officer at NASA was
a quiet man. I asked Peter why he did not speak out more.
He replied "Frank,
I already know what I am going to say and I want to hear
what's new so I can learn
something."
Many fear or dislike or oppose
coalitions between the environmental community and business.
It seems threatening to them. In fact, some environmental
groups depend on attack literature and the labeling of
business as their enemy for fund raising. My experience
is that it is wise to shut no doors and to look for areas
of common ground. Once you've labeled your "enemy,"
you've pretty much killed any chance of working cooperatively
with him.
Further exacerbating the tension
between business and environmentalists is
that fact that lawyers make good money fighting. I practiced
law, and I know that many
lawyers considered it as good as an annuity to have a
well-heeled client in
a lawsuit with an environmental or governmental entity.
But it doesn't always have to be that way. You people
are in a good position
to effect a change of attitude in your companies.
Being willing to change business
as usual involves trying something different. It's almost
always worthwhile, and it is always exciting. It will
be businesses like the ones comprising this Corporate
Council — open-minded companies willing to work creatively
with scientists and environmentalists — that will
ultimately produce effective solutions to meet these challenges
— for their company's sakes and for the common good.
It appears to me that you have
the partnership formed. What you are engaged in is spiritual
work, and hopefully, enduring. You have learned a lot
and will learn a lot more. Your leadership is infectious.
I hope to follow your journey.
Thank you very much.
Sustainable
Conservation —http://www.suscon.org/
