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Below, we use the authentic letter from Hans Hassle to Chief Oren Lyons to tell the background of PLANTAGON. This was written about a year after our first meeting at Onondaga Nation, to inform the Council of Chiefs about the personal background of Hans Hassle and Chief Oren Lyons…
Katrineholm, 12 Jul. 04
Dear Oren, I am writing this to you as additional information, as requested regarding the Plantagon®-project. The purpose is to describe our common background and relation so far. Please excuse me for doing it in a very brief and simplifying way, concentrating on our common actions, as the letter would be very long if I included my point of view on the more personal relation.
Our first contact was in Sweden, late 1998 or early 1999. We met after a seminar you gave at IFL outside Stockholm. I was invited to listen by Karl-Erik Edris, one of the leading teachers on corporate responsibility and ethics at IFL.
Before this meeting I had been in contact to Tonia Moya to try to get a direct contact to you, inviting you to take part in a millennium event that I was producing at the Stockholm Globe Arena. The project included a TV-documentary.
After one or two more meetings in Sweden concerning the millennium project, you invited me as an observer to the Millennium Peace Summit at the UN-building in New York. I came together with three Saami elders and Tonia Moya. The reason was to give me and Tonia Moya (who had now become part of the TV-part of the project) the possibility to present and discuss our proposal with other indigenous elders, that through your participation would too be invited to Stockholm Globe Arena and the TV-project.
After these initial contacts we have performed together several seminars and other similar activities for business- and political leaders, academics and “ordinary people” in Sweden, aiming at supporting the development of long term thinking and sustainable leadership – addressing both social and ecological issues.
We even made a short seminar “tour” together with Karl-Erik Edris on corporate citizenship 2003, travelling to four or five different cities in two weeks. Still, one of the most interesting seminars was, to me, the seminar on “Female Wisdom and corporate citizenship” in my hometown Katrineholm, spring 2002.
Getting to know you personally and starting to understand more about the threats against your culture, at the same time realizing the importance of getting your way of thinking regarding leadership, sharing and long term perspective into our western society, I suggested to you to discuss with me the possibility for Onondaga Nation to take part in a business case that I was looking into at the time. This was during the first half of 2003.
This was a different kind of business project, both to its content and administration. The project was based upon an innovation that was presented to me about a year earlier, a greenhouse dramatically changing the way we produce ecological and functional food, presented by the Swedish innovator Åke Olsson.
Noteworthy was also hat one of Europe’s largest engineering companies, SWECO, was another stakeholder.
They had both agreed with me to run this project as a business case built on sound values and very well developed corporate citizenship, using my model for this kind of activities – the Companization – trying to constitutionalize ethics and sound values in corporate thinking and actions. I had two reasons for asking you and Onondaga Nation to participate in this project:
• I wanted to “give back” something to you, both as a white person and as your friend. I saw here an opportunity for Onondaga Nation to earn good profits and doing good things at the same time, giving you the possibility to “take back” something from the same system threatening you. To me, as an outsider, the project that we were setting up here in Sweden seemed to be something that could be helpful for you as a model of “Going Well by Doing Good”. Maybe this could be an alternative business that would be possible for you to run at Onondaga (and also be international part owners of) in case the project would turn into an international corporation.
• Second reason was to secure the legitimacy of the corporate model used in the project – the Companization. If this model really works, and many think it will, it can turn around the perspective on why corporations exist and what their responsibilities are. This will give power and great responsibility to the owners of the idea, to the organization and individuals presenting it to the market. As the model seems to work hypothetically, the first time it is tried in real life it should be done by a large company. This is to give maximum impact on the market. If successful, this will be quite a remarkable political statement and instrument. Therefore, it is essential that the owners of this company can handle the situation and all the influence it would create for them.
During my 23 years in business I met very few organizations and individuals that could. Part from SWECO securing the technical and financial quality, the project therefore needed someone that for a long time and with high legitimacy could secure the ethical-, ecological-, social- and leadership way of thinking in this potential international corporation to be.
That is very brief our common background so far. It is now about two years ago we started the first discussion on what came to be the Plantagon® project.
During spring and summer 2004 we have had great interest shown from ministers of the Swedish Government, officials of the Foreign Department of the Swedish Government, Non Governmental Organizations, leading business leaders, lawyers, auditors and of course media.
So far we did not let more then necessary out, and we will not until we agree upon doing it. But, I am convinced we are holding something important in our hands. It is therefore my deepest felt wish that you will get the support needed to go into the next step of our common work.
Below, I attach background information on SWECORP, myself, the innovator Åke Olsson, SWECO and the Companization model as requested. Please let me know if you need complimentary or other information.
Warmest regards, Hans Hassle
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