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Part I
Towards an Integral Green Slovenian Economy and Society![]()
Prologue
Invitation to Participation: An Integral Green Slovenian Economy and Society in and for Europe
Alexander Schieffer, Ronnie Lessem and Darja Piciga
Summary
This book tells the unique story of a society pursuing a newly holistic and green approach to economics. The story is framed byāand at the same time demonstrated throughāstories of integral communities and organisations on a path of social innovation for sustainability.
The story takes us to Slovenia: a country located at the historic crossroads of European civilisation; a country dedicated to the European Union, which it joined only in 2004; a country which has a unique human and natural potential, but which faces enormous economic and political difficulties; a country searching for a new, sustainable economic model that is authentic to its own social and cultural context, that can serve to address its difficulties and release its full potential, and that can, simultaneously, make a contribution to the sustainable development of the European Union.
This is the story of Slovenia moving towards an integral green economy and society.
This is the story of the Citizensā Initiative for an Integral Green Slovenia.
This opening prologue guides you into this story through four steps. The first step is an āinvitationā, in which the backdrop to this remarkable journey is revealed and in which you are invited to actively join in. The second step is āexplanationā; here the key terms āintegralā, āgreenā and āeconomyā are explained, in light of the unique approach the Slovenian Citizensā Initiative, founded in 2013 by Darja Piciga and a number of other Slovenian pioneers, has taken. In the third step, āelaborationā, you are introduced to the actual integral economic and developmental approach, developed by Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schieffer of the Trans4m Center for Integral Development, which serves as the underlying conceptual framework and process. Finally, in the fourth step, āparticipationā, the storyline of this book is sharedāillustrating, through all chapters, what the interconnected members of the Citizensā Initiative for an Integral Green Slovenia and other socially responsible Slovenians have achieved over the past few yearsāin theory and in practiceāto foster the integral green economic and societal agenda. Being exposed, in introductory form, to all the bookās chapters, you receive an initial understanding of how a remarkable variety of institutions and individuals from all sectorsāfrom private enterprises to educational institutions, from educators to researchers, from grassroots initiatives to social enterprises, from government officials to artistsāare working together to make Integral Green Slovenia a reality.
The journey to Integral Green Slovenia, although rich in wisdom to be shared, is still a young one. This is the time to join it.
P.1. Invitation: Sloveniaās Integral Green Economy Movement in Europe
In the first few years after joining the European Union in 2004, Slovenia was one of its economic āshooting starsā. Since then, times have changed dramatically. Financial crises, economic recessions and political turbulence have put enormous pressure on the Slovenian society and economy, and the latter has only recently started to recover.
There seemed to be little room for manoeuvre for this small Central European country. While Slovenia was (and still is) struggling through rough economic and political waters, a group of engaged individuals and institutions across all public, private, civic and environmental sectors in the country began, from 2011 onwards, set within the existing context of a strategic framework being drafted to address the challenges of climate change, to work together to co-evolve an economic and sustainable alternative for Slovenia: an integral green economy and society. They were further driven by their conviction that Slovenia and Slovenians already possess incredible, yet not fully conscious and poorly integrated, potentials for such a developmental path, including a number of communities, organisations and individuals from all spheres of Slovenian society working in this direction.
A Citizensā Initiative for an Integral Green Slovenia was then officially formed in April 2013 as a collaborative vehicle for its members to co-evolve and express this new economic and sustainable development alternative. From the beginning, the search was for an economic and social innovation model that could authentically serve, build on and integrate all core dimensions of Slovenian society: from its particular nature to its centuries-old culture, from its existing social systems to its unique resultant economic advantages. Incorporating all aspects of life, and activating the rich diversity of Sloveniaās society, the vision was to come up with an economic perspective that would strengthen the overall sustainable development of the country as a whole.
At the same time, the emergent Citizensā Initiative was seeking to make a contribution to Europe as a whole. Located at the very heart of geographic Europe, and situated at the crossroads of civilizations since ancient times, the participants believed in Sloveniaās need and potential capacity to contribute to the larger social entity to which it belonged, the European Union. In other words: the creation of an alternative for Slovenia could potentially also serve as an inspiring social and economic role model for Europe.
Looking for a new way beyond the polarity of growth and austerityāa rather limiting āeither-or dualismā that still dominates much of the official discourseāIntegral Green Slovenia was determined to pursue a more integrated path to economic, societal and environmental development.
Informed by Integral Economics (Lessem and Schieffer, 2010) as well as thereafter by Integral Development (Schieffer and Lessem, 2014), a foundational framework was found, which served to help the initiative to articulate a uniquely holistic Slovenian perspective. Together with the authors and their Geneva-based institute Trans4m Center for Integral Development (http://www.trans-4-m.com), and also drawing on a number of internationally renowned role models, in theory and practice, a new Integral Green Slovenian economic perspective gradually evolved over the next four years. Two international conferences, held in Slovenia, together with several national events involving participants discussing, comparing and evolving new integral economic and social innovation theory and practice, further fuelled the process (e.g. Piciga and Kranjc, 2015).
Now, four years into the journey, the movement not only is gathering further momentum but is also ready to present itself to Slovenia, to Europe and to the world as an initial blueprint for a new integral economic and sustainable development model.
This blueprint, both in theory and in practice, is by no means complete. A design for the next steps to complement it is outlined in the concluding chapters and the Epilogue. The process of bringing about an integral economy and society will take years, if not decades.
However, already at this early stage it seems crucial to widen the conversation, and to invite a larger audience to actively participate in the re-making of Sloveniaās economy and in the creation of a societal role model involving a culturally authentic approach to sustainable economic and societal development.
In that sense, this book is an invitation to participate, within Slovenia, within Europe or in the wider world, as co-creators with Sloveniaās Citizensā Initiative.
At the same time, the book is also an invitation to critically assess and evolve, share and apply the accumulated knowledge about integrally enriched social and societal innovation (in all its meanings) for sustainable development on local and organisational, national and regional, European Union and global levels.
In what follows, then, we seek to express and explain this orientation, and thereby lay a foundation for what is to follow in the subsequent chapters. We begin by explaining what we mean by an integral green economy. We shall then move on to elaborate, in a distilled form, the guiding theoretical framework of integral economics, before we conclude this Prologue by sharing the story of the journey so far, as it is mirrored in the chapters of this book. We invite you to read that storyline as a call for participation.
P.2. Explanation: Integral? Green? Economy?
As a starting point, we define the three key terms of an integral green economy. In turn, they are:
- ā Integral: By āintegralā we mean the dynamic, integrated inclusion of all dimensions of a human system, be it on an individual (species), organisational, communal or societal level. In the integral approach to development (Schieffer and Lessem, 2014) that informs the Slovenian movement, there are four core dimensions that all such systems share and that need to be considered equally if the entire integrated system is to flourish. Mapping these four dimensions in a circular way (see Figure P.1) we distinguish between the āsouthernā realm of nature and community; the āeasternā realm of culture and spirituality; the ānorthernā realm of science, systems and technology; and the āwesternā realm of finance and enterprise, all related to Slovenia as a particular society. All of these realms are held together by what we termed a āmoral coreā, a unique expression of the innermost value base that a society considers as essential to its being, ideally to be embodied in its overall polity. We shall see in the next subchapter how the integral philosophy is applied to the Slovenian economy and society.
- ā” Green: Slovenia is a āgreenā country. About 60 percent of its surface is covered by forests. Slovenia has one of the highest per capita numbers of inhabitants that are active as gardeners, vegetable growers and forest owners. In short, the average Slovenian has a profound relationship to nature. A caring attitude towards the environment is deeply engrained in the psyche of many Slovenians. For the Citizensā Initiative for an Integral Green Slovenia, an authentic economic approach for the country needs to ābe greenā; it has to be grounded in nature. Integral Green Slovenia recognises the primary importance of natureābe it as the specific natural environment we are living in, be it as the entire web of life. Humanity, being a part of, not separate from, nature, is dependent for its very survival on healthy natural ecosystems. Building on Sloveniaās most famous marketing slogan āI FEEL SLOVENIAā (recognising that Slovenia is the only country in the world whose name includes the word āloveā), āgreenā is also an expression of the countryās profound love for nature and its primary principle of āorganic interdependenceā.
- ā¢ Economy: The Citizensā Initiative regards the economy as just one of the integral parts of societyāone that needs to be fully āre-embeddedā into society. Thereby, the initiative seeks to counteract what we often witness economically around the worldāa global economy that acts as an almost independent, and hence often unrelated, and even destructive force on a social and environmental level.
With its orientation to āintegralā and āgreenā, Sloveniaās integral green economy initiative aligns itself also with other key movements of our time, namely the āgreenā movement, aiming for sustainable development of people and planet, and the āintegralā movement, aspiring to bring about more integrated, interconnected natural and social systems that see themselves as contributing to the development of society and world.
What is unique, though, in this Slovenian case is the combination of both āintegralā and āgreenā, and the explicit ārootednessā in the cultural gifts, strengths and uniqueness of its Slovenian society, with its exposure to German, Roman, Slavic and Finno-Ugric cultural influences.
In European tradition, philosophy, social structures, educational systems, politics and policies, we can identify significant foundations that inform todayās longing for more sustainable, collaborative and holistic approaches to life and to human systems, including the economy.
Furthermore, in recent decades, we have witnessed an increased global interest in and drive towards higher levels of consciousness and integration, resulting in an understanding that we are witnessing an emergent āIntegral Ageā. āIntegralā voices calling for whole-systems perspectives are on the riseāacross disciplines and fields. Terms like āholisticā, āintegratedā, āwholesomeā and āintegralā have almost become commonplace. While we regard this urge for integration as important, we see it as equally crucial to overcome an over-simplistic, generalising tenor that all too often dominates. Moreover, for us, such integrity is always specific to a particular place, like Slovenia in this case, rather than universally applied.
There are a number of integral approaches that have helped shift our global perspective towards a more integral viewpoint over the past 200 years. Thinkers like Vladimir Solovyov, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Gebser, JĆ¼rgen Habermas and, more recently, Ken Wilber and Don Beck, along with many others, have had a significant impact on shaping such a new viewpoint. They are not to be seen in isolation, but in their specific historical context and in the interconnected light of a slow process that gradually led to the rise of the Integral Age. None of them though, have been particular concerned with the economic aspects of society, as we are here, and all adopt a universalist integral approach, whereby what they propose supposedly applies to all societies.
What most of these integral thinkers have in common is an attempt to combine into an integral perspective diverse value orientations that emerged over time and space. The key feature across most approaches is the propagation of a new evolutionary level of human consciousness, enabling humanity to transcend fragmented, isolated perspectives into an integrative one, including all those levels that came before. It is also in this spirit that integral economics has been developed by Trans4m, as part of its Integral Worlds approach.
At the same time, the awareness that humankind urgently needs more integrated and holistic approaches for coping with increasingly complex global and local challenges, that conventional āsiloā thinking and doing has to be overcome, is growing in the context of sustainable develo...
