Fostering A Wiser Earth

Paul Hawken has a lot of business cards. As one of the top advocates for the environment and green business, Hawken has written several critically acclaimed books and has traveled the globe lecturing about social justice. After giving a talk, Hawken would leave with pockets full of cards listing the names of organizations working toward the same goal: a healthy, just earth. He began wondering just how many organizations were out there.

This query led, in part, to the release of Hawken’s latest book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. Published this spring, the book describes this swelling movement of invested individuals working across the globe to transform the world. Unlike other movements of the past, Hawken asserts, this one lacks a charismatic leader and a cohesive vision. Instead, it is global and organic, composed of millions of individuals and organizations around the world. Hawken began to wonder what it would mean to connect these far-flung people through the Internet. He gathered a group at his Natural Capital Institute and, over the course of several months, the WiserEarth website was born (http://www.wiserearth.org).

Peggy Duvette is the WiserEarth Director responsible for developing the site under the auspices of the Natural Capital Institute. “Paul is the visionary and I have been heading the project for the last two years,” Duvette says.

In the beginning, Duvette says that the concept of the project was to bring more transparency to the social justice industry and to connect disparate individuals through a comprehensive directory. Soon, the idea of a worldwide database organized around geography was born. “We realized that all of these communities did not realize that others did the same things as they did in the same geographical location,” Duvette says. “All of us are working to make this a better earth, and we don’t know the others exist or how to collaborate.”

Duvette and her staff developed a site with a complex, but easily navigable database covering more than 415 areas of interest—from agriculture and fisheries to peace and poverty. A Web browser can search by area of interest or by geography. The site is completely free; it is community-generated, and anyone can add a listing to the database. Users don’t have to create a login to browse or to add a listing, but they can choose to create a user profile with photos and detailed personal information.

When WiserEarth went live on Earth Day in April of this year, about 100,000 organizations and individuals from across the globe were listed. In just a few months, more than 70,000 listings have been added. Over 2,000 individuals have created personal profiles and that number is steadily rising. “It’s been growing everyday,” Duvette says. “What we’re noting now is that a lot of people are coming in and 70 percent of them are coming back.”

The other thing that is growing: lively online discussions and outreach. Online forums are organized by topic area and by locale; so click on “Asia/South Pacific Outreach,” for example, and you find a posting that reads, “Calling all Wiser Earthers in New Delhi. My friends and I are planning an event. Let’s meet up!”

Moving forward, Duvette says that she and her staff will continue adding new areas of interest and that many of those categories are coming courtesy of the users. “A lot of people are thanking us for taking the time to create this space, and we’ve been getting a lot of feedback,” she says.