In 1735 Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus published Systema Naturae, a booklet that proposed a system for naming the world's flora and fauna. By 1758 the booklet had become a substantial volume categorising around 12,000 species.
The beauty of the Linnaean system is its simplicity - every species being given a universally recognised two-part name which, if you understand Latin, is based on common-sense criteria. For example, the Polar Bear is Ursus maritimus: Ursus (bear)' and maritimus (of the sea) reflecting the fact that the world's largest land-based carnivore spends most of its life living and hunting on sea ice.
However, Linnaeus had to think long and hard about naming our species before Homo sapiens (the wise people) was finally accepted. Given our track record over the past 250 years, I wonder if 'wisdom' would even get past the initial common-sense hurdle if we were naming our species today. I would like to suggest an alternative: Homo sollicitus - 'the people who worry'.
Worrying is a skill human beings develop from an early age. As a child I could worry to international standards. On one occasion I remember lying awake half the night convinced that my junior school would burn down because I had left my plimsolls on top of a radiator. Fortunately Dunlop had the foresight to develop rubber soles that would not spontaneously combust at the kind of temperature generated by a Victorian heating system.
As we get older our worries become more serious. Today when I speak to staff and customers the major issue on their minds is the environment. But this raises an interesting dichotomy, because although people are concerned about environmental issues, when I ask if they are doing anything to address the problem the answer is very little.
It seems that when faced with a complex problem of truly global proportions many are not clear what they should actually be doing, and those that are doubt whether their individual actions will have that much impact anyway. So they are looking to governments and businesses to act.
All of which is reminiscent of the model presented in Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People where a Circle of Influence sits within a larger Circle of Concern. Covey observes that if people focus on issues within the Circle of Concern, but over which they have no influence, it 'results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimisation'. But if you can get people to focus on the things they can do something about, the results will be empowering.
All of which has led me to conclude that HR is uniquely placed to make a significant difference in tackling environmental issues. At the level of the moves people are looking for organisations to make, HR can influence recruitment and development processes to ensure that the best people are in place to make the 'big choices' about issues such as sustainable and ethical supply-chain management, the building and management of environmentally friendly premises, greener warehousing, and so on.
At the individual level HR can make the biggest difference of all - by helping people to make more informed 'small choices' about saving energy, reducing waste, and recycling raw materials. Why? Because these choices, if taken in our private lives as well as in the workplace, will lead to the behavioural changes we need to make to live more sustainable lifestyles.
That's why I accepted the offer of taking executive responsibility for environmental matters in my organisation.I worry that our species is actually Homo redarguo (the guilty people) - guilty of depleting the world's natural resources, contaminating the atmosphere, and driving countless numbers of the 1.8 million species we had so carefully catalogued into extinction.
