Toward a new paradigm of environmentally friendly cultural values

Climate change gives rise to a growing threat of extinction to humankind, yet the current approach and solutions appear insufficient in addressing it effectively. This paper presents a critical review of the climate crisis and current approaches, highlighting how misguided would it be to exclude enterprises—the primary drivers of the climate problems—from top-down policy-making. In assessing the different core cultural values of environment-damaging and environment-protecting enterprises, the authors suggest embracing a new paradigm of environmentally-friendly cultural values. The new paradigm, which calls for a process of identifying, transforming, and synthesizing a set of core cultural values, serves as the cornerstone of the whole system and aims to shift the core cultural value from “exploitation” to “construction.” As environmentally-friendly cultural values can shape human progress away from capitalism/monetarism and toward environmentalism, it could be added to Harrison and Huntington’s (2001) list of human cultures as the 11th value. The paradigm comprises two mutually interacting attributes: (i) money cannot trade for environmental deficits, and (ii) environmental embellishment value needs to become a new “measure of profit,” priced at least on par with monetary value. The insights carry serious implications for policy-makers in engaging enterprises in the fight for a more habitable and sustainable planet.