Hans Carl von Carlowitz and the Potential Roots of Sustainability (Credit: The Danzer Group):

As long as stock lasts – this is the reckless attitude with which humans exploited European forests in times gone by.They cut wood wherever and whenever they were able and felt the need. And they needed  plenty of it: wood for building, for heating and for making basic commodities. Wood was the principal raw material well into the eighteenth and nineteenth  centuries. However, agriculture had also been causing problems for forests ever  since theMiddle Ages. Crop cultivation was spreading and huge forest areas were cleared to  accommodate it.

This thoughtless depletion of wood did not fail to have consequences. Clear-cutting and the destruction of large areas heralded in an alarming scarcity of wood which threatened the very  existence of society at the time. Something had to be done. Without radical reforestation,  continuing  to use wood for securing people's livelihood and enabling social progress would  hardly be  conceivable. The task was to reforest the denuded areas – sustainably.

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Idea

Immediately reforesting every logged forest area in order to keep the overall proportion of  forest constant – this so-called area sustainability strategy marks the beginning of the  development of fundamental laws governing forest management. Sustainability literally means  continuity, permanence, restoration, consistency or uninterrupted effect. The concept is around three hundred years old and originated with Hans Carl von Carlowitz, an inspector of mines in  Saxony at the time of Augustus the Strong. His book, "Sylvicultura Oeconomica” ("Silviculture and Economics") of 1713 – which is considered to be the first work on forest management – takes up the idea of the term "sustainability".

At his official residence in Freiberg, von Carlowitz was directly confronted with the greatest problem of the then flourishing Saxon mines and smelting works: lack of wood. The smelting  furnaces in the Saxon mining areas were devouring enormous quantities of charcoal, and wood  prices were rising to dizzying heights. At the same time, more and more forest was being converted to farmland because this promised quick profits. Hans Carl von Carlowitz saw  that this was the wrong track. Although it was indeed possible to "raise rather a lot of money" by selling wood, once the forests were cleared, "the earnings therefrom then remain depressed  for years ... so that the apparent profit merely conceals irreplaceable damage." His solution  was therefore, "that wood be treated with circumspection."

Von Carlowitz developed a concept intended to ensure a lasting supply of wood for the mining industry. In his book, he suggested many measures that are still key elements of sustainable  management today, such as improving the insulation on houses, using energy-saving smelting  furnaces or continuously replanting cleared forest areas. Only as much wood should be logged  as could grow back in the same time.

A Science Attracts the World's Interest

Nearly one hundred years later, Georg Ludwig Hartig wrote the following definition of sustainability in his "Anweisung zur Taxation und Beschreibung der Forste": "Every wise forest directorate must therefore have the wooded areas ... assayed, without losing time, and give  them the highest priority possible, while seeking to make use of them in such a way that  succeeding generations will be able to glean at least as much benefit as those now alive." German foresters turned the idea of sustainability into a new science in the  eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Forestry academies such as those in Tharandt, Saxony and  Eberswalde, Prussia further refined the concept. The  graduates of these colleges were highly sought after – in India as well as in Scandinavia and the U.S.A. Thus the concept attracted  interest around the world. Sustainability remained a technical term in the science of forestry  until the Club of Rome pointed out the "Limits to Growth" in the 1970's and the term  increasingly  became a key concept of our times.

Today, the principle of sustainable forest management means that only as much wood is logged as can permanently grow back and at the same time that forests are managed so as to allow the soil, animals and plants to remain intact. Thus the forest's function for purposes of protection and recreation are taken into consideration as well as its utility. This ensures that the forest remains a place of living nature and at the same time can be utilized for the general good – with a view to the future and to fairness between the generations. 

That's a great backstory on sustainability. I read this and reflected on the last couple day's news. Record temperatures, record rains... just crazy climate stuff happening all over our tiny planet. And, as always, I think about forests. And I think forests have taught us more about sustainability, and about humans, than virtually anything else. And now, the destabilized climate is teaching us a thing or two. The oceans have us down in their lesson plans. Rare earth minerals and the last of indigenous systems around the globe have a few "must knows" before they all go. But forests, yes, they have much to say - through our treatment, our commerce, our consideration. As they are devoured like Kettle chips, denuding ecosystems across the planet while full-swing in a global recession, intuitively we understand that their loss, at current rates, is just unacceptable, just like Ol' Hans Carl von Carlowitz. It was happening right before his eyes. Did he have foresight? A Future orientation? A deep understanding of external threats, and potential opportunities in simply acknowledging and acting upon these immediate hyper-contextual realities, say, pretty much all of their trees, especially the big old bountiful ones they altered the landscape so rapaciously for?

He noted the threats to forests, profits, the very forest industry itself, and the potential for collapse. Looking at it in context, from a systems perspective, for what it was - the creation (or destruction) of the future, ol Hans Carl took a stab at taming the beast. Is that what sustainability is? Are we seeing our current earth situation in context - all the crazy weather, the crazy economic system, the crazy paradigms we yet embrace, despite the 300 years of basic notions of carrying capacity, where commerce and human and environmental stakeholders converge, and the potential to go over the edge?

My favorite part of this history is the source. The Danzer Group is highly suspect for some of its environmental and human rights practices, despite the beautiful principles noted on its website. Old growth logging, collusion through subsidiaries, and a host of other transgressions that make this aphorism a little gross. But I digress.

We know. We know that we know. We say that we aren't when we are. Isn't that the worst place to be, as a civilization, as a human. And the forests. They know. They are showing us. And the climate knows, and the oceans, the rivers...

All businesses should come to know deeper the environment in which they operate. That starts not with material things but with people. Are we going to be sustainable. Are we going to talk a good game and go The Danzer Group route? Or are we going to imbue our organizations with transparency, authenticity, and honesty in our ongoing journey of making us, humans, and our organizations, sustainable?