The Sustainable Workplace

Fall 2017

Designing a Sustainable Future: A New economy as if People Mattered

Session Seven: What is a Sustainable Workplace?
Music: "9 to 5" Dolly Parton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwDMFOLIHxU

Essential questions:

• What is a sustainable workplace?

• Why are worker owned businesses important for a healthy economy?

• What is the “Cradle to Cradle” concept?

Gathering: “A positive reality for a worker in the year 2025 would be…”

Rick’s Rap

Video: “Other People’s Money,” 1991
             • Gregory Peck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJRhrow3Jws
             • Danny DiVito https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_P4xOiEREk

            •Video debrief: Reflective Sentence Starters

           

Videos

• The Evergreen Coops in Cleveland, Ohio, Conference for a New Economy, June 11, 2012

• Van Jones, “The Green Economy as a remedy to Unemployment,” Commonwealth Club, 2/2/09

Discussions:

• What are the pros and cons of these alternative structures?

Speaker:

Closing: Something that I learned in this session was…..

 Readings:

• Gar Alperovitz, “America Beyond capitalism, “Dollars and Sense,” November/December 2011

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2011/1111alperovitz.html

Resources:
• William McDonough, "Cradle to Cradle," Ted Talk, 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo
• What is Cradle to Cradle? youtube 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP8PRA-OajU
• "Why Bernie sanders is pushing for more worker owners," Yes! Magazine  May 23, 2017http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/why-bernie-sanders-is-pushing-for-more-employee-owners-in-the-workforce-20170523
• Juliet Schor, "Visualizing a Plentitude Economy," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR-YrD_KB0M
• Theresa Riley, "How Worker-Ownwd Companies Work," Bill overs and Company, March 22, 2013
http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/22/how-worker-owned-companies-work/

By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam shovel, and are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use.

                        Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac