Greenpeace Germany just published a report debunking fashion labels’ sustainable, responsible, and cyclical promises. A worse piece can be written about the finance industry latching on to sustainability promises while sustainability is non-existent in the universe. Nothing is sustainable. Some of us are, at best, renewable.
The impact of clothing on our climate is significant, but now imagine the effect of the false promises of finance, such as ESG, PRI, and others, to the tune of eleven times the size of production in the U.S., not just affecting the clothing business but applying to anything else finance deploys its dysfunctional arbitrage.
I cannot vouch for the validity of the Greenpeace report, but I can vouch for the existence of fundamentally flawed principles by which finance attempts to improve its reputation. But to be fair, the first-principles of nature to which humanity must abide should be enforced by a human theory established by the government, not through the elective morality of people who know nothing about how society must adapt to nature’s entropy.
All of us can see the writing on the wall that none of our climate goals will be met when elective morality is at play. Our climate will change; the pertinent question is whether we will, for the first time in human history, apply a theory for humanity that makes the arbitrage of money reflect the arbitrage of nature.
Such change requires real leadership, the kind Lee Kwan Yuw deployed:
If you can’t force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.
Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore
That quote may seem harsh and undemocratic from a democratic leader. Yet it is as undemocratic as nature is. Nature does not care about human wants. For over 17 billion years and until the end of time, nature dictates the principles of survival, needs over desires.
Our leaders must learn to lead, not with an autocracy of their want, but with adherence to nature’s first principles that determine the excellence of human renewal. The only change we can rely on is our adaptability to nature’s entropy to make us stronger, not weaker.
We must deploy a theory for humanity derived from nature’s first-principles to adapt to any kind of entropy, including climate change, nature throws our way. The future and impact of ESG, PRI, and many others hinging on sustainability will be worse than attributed to the clothing industry.
Lest us be warned.
