What is “The Environment”? How can golf “save” it?

The Alignment Problem Opportunity
In honor of the upcoming World Environment Day (Thursday, June 5th), I wanted to explore a term that often goes overlooked and poorly defined: “The Environment”. To save “the environment” is to live in harmony with the whole of life. This is not about promoting domination, isolation, or even passivism -- but alignment -- and golf is the ultimate game of alignment. It starts and ends with being fully present.

Definitions of “The Environment” include:

• The “circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded : the factors and influences that affect the growth, health, progress, functioning, etc., of someone or something” (Merriam-Webster)

• The “natural world : the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic elements that exist in nature” (Merriam-Webster)

• The “complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival.” (Brittanica)

• “Frequently with the. The natural world or physical surroundings in general, either as a whole or within a particular geographical area, esp. as affected by human activity.” (The Oxford English Dictionary)

In so many discussions of saving “THE” environment, it seems most overlooked that “we” are a part of the environment, not apart from it. By the definitions above from the most standard sources of Merriam-Webster, Britannica, and the Oxford English Dictionary, it seems easier to simply define the environment as a synonym for “everything”. 

The Fundamental Problem

You and I cannot solve “everything”. Merely, each person can take his or her part in addressing the health of the Living System (the natural world as separate from self and including oneself), and being a contributor toward the whole of life through a stance of humility. That’s why the best environmental innovations and solutions aren’t attempting to “save the planet” – they are clear attempts to align what one is good at and enjoys doing with something that another person needs. 

That cooperative concept is also the foundation of market-based trade, though at scale, “the” economy creates unaccounted externalities that poison the biome, air, land, and waterways. Ultimately, these externalities poison ourselves, because all human activity flows downstream from nature. 

There is a light side of this duality that we are deeply dependent on natural resources and ecosystem services. Because we are inseparable from nature, the morality, code, or “frequency” with which we choose to conduct ourselves in our daily lives CAN have a collective rippling effect. With consistent conduct and a bit of cooperation, no problem is too large to address, even one as hazily defined as “the environment”. 

The fundamental environmental solution then is alignment, or harmony. Every stakeholder has its own needs and domain (whether an organization, organism, or an organelle within an organ of the organism), and those differences become force multipliers when they co-operate in the same direction.

Golf as a Solution to “the” Problem

What’s the fundamental “code of conduct” in golf? Alignment with Integrity. Even golfing great Jack Nicklaus famously said that “90% of the golf shot happens before you swing the club”. By that, he meant to specify an aim, choose the right shot into that target, and then swing with clarity, connectedness, and concentration of mind and body.

Golf courses must do the same with respect to their long-term vision and goals. For a golf course to have the proper “setup” for long-term sustainability (both ecologically AND operationally), it must align with the needs of its greater context (that being both nature and the evolving needs of its customers and humanity at large).

This upcoming World Environment Day addresses the specific problem of plastic pollution, which we have written about extensively (see links below). Using it as more “digestible” example (for lack of a better term when discussing plastics, given that microplastics are ubiquitously found in human testicles), ponder how the plastic pollution crisis came from an innocent albeit tragic misalignment of needs and aims, not from some evil plan of just one stakeholder:

• Humans developed better survival skills through the invention of tools.

• Through the ability to trade goods and services, along with the ability to process and package food, human survival spread into mastery of “the environment”

• Plastic was (and remains) the cheapest way to package and transport goods

• Humans often have budgeted or scarce resources and confront choices about allocating them - so they prefer cheap options to more expensive ones

• Simultaneously, options that are cheaper in the short-term (whether plastic packaging, quick hits of dopamine, or eating fast food) often come with long-term consequences that are poorly valuated in short-term decision-making

Through empathy, communication, and cooperation, we can witness one another’s innocence along with one another’s ignorance, and then trade comparative advantages toward playing a better shared game, and a longer-term game.  You can call that “Conscious Capitalism”, the “Infinite Game”, or just common sense. As separate but connected parts of the larger super-organism known as humanity, it is in our mutual interest to help one another succeed. Consider how various stakeholders’ needs can either compete or cooperate in the context of golf:

• Golfers want green grass (and more importantly, fun experiences)

• Golf operators want positive (and consistent) cash flows, meaning lower costs and higher revenues

• Government wants order (along with tax revenues to maintain the latter)

• Citizens (both golfers and non-golfers) want clean air, water, and land (along with healthy children)

• Nature wants to evolve

A golf course hosts sufficient land and possibility to align these needs toward the greater whole. It just requires a new way of thinking in systems -- one that is implicit in the game of golf itself. Mindset, relationships, and technological innovations are all sure to play a role.

Driving the Green: Single-Use Plastics, Recycling, and the Golf Industry

Driving the Green: Ending with the Beginning in Mind (Circular Economy in Golf)