More and more people are recognizing the value of, and in many cases, the urgent need to investigate radical collaboration as a way to move our economy forward, and in particular, the health of our environment. In a recent piece in the thought leading Worldchanging site, Adele Peters had this to say:

There are more than 55,000 environmental nonprofit organizations registered in the U.S. today, and many more green businesses, all competing for the support of responsible consumers. At a recent event in San Francisco, a trio of green business owners suggested that this type of traditional competition may not be the most effective way to make large-scale change. They instead proposed a new model: radical collaboration.

The phrase ‘radical collaboration’ has been used to describe a variety of phenomena, from participation in Wikipedia and similar ventures to cross-disciplinary cooperation in academics. In business, it means creating alliances between a group of former competitors to solve problems together. The concept has been used by corporations: for example, when IBM was losing money on semiconductor chips in 2003, it made the decision to open its research to a network of competitors, and began a new, successful method of innovation that has now been expanded to other departments. Now some argue that the same type of innovation should be applied to the sustainability movement.

They go on to explore existing and emerging hubs of collaboration, and what Hunter Lovins had to say on the subject at our August 20th event. Read all about it here.