Global Business Requires Iteration and Non-Linearity

by Gabriel Thoumi 

April 2011

Focusing on conservation of tropical forests to mitigate climate change takes patience, fortitude, and flexibility to engage daily with thought experts from various sectors. Pretend you have to be fluent in cultural sensitivities across many languages, time zones and regions, and throw a layer of finance, legal, project development, forestry, and conservation biology on top, mix it with start-up entrepreneurialism, and you have the daily sustenance we thrive on in the forest carbon sector.

It is new, it is tough, it is exciting, and it very rewarding.

Key successes derive from teamwork across sectors and industries, listening skills, being multilingual, and frankly willing to be incorrect while always learning. Because what we do is new and applies a complex system's approach, most often we have to iterate through a process to arrive at a solution.

Conducting desk reviews or working onsite on projects globally in 15 countries over the past six years, I have never seen a project follow a linear path. This non-linearity is what many individuals and institutions find challenging inherently because the business models they have previously used and the models they are most comfortable with are linear. These models often have three stages: raw materials, production, and sales.

This contrasts with the business models we have to employ which are circular. Our circular business models always must consider ecology and forests, community development and labor, government and legal, and business risk inputs by applying rational convergence. If we relax our diligence to this circular model, our forest carbon projects - whether in Bolivia, Indonesia, or Belize - will fail.

Expect the unexpected requiring flexibility and diligence. Hiking through the mountains of the Toledo District to visit Pedro Pop, a Mayan carpenter and designer last year, demonstrates the unexpected. At his home sitting on his floor we were discussing climate change and our local project.

Hot from the mid-afternoon spring sun in Belize, I showed him the technical manual for the 18.5 miles square protected forest called Boden Creek Ecological Preserve. He offered me some tea, and finally smiled in a kind and generous manner and told me he was not literate. Being appreciative of his hospitality and generosity, I had to improvise so that he was included in our stakeholder engagement process in a meaningful, respectful manner, so as to yield mutually beneficial results - a large protected tropical forest with local sustainable employment opportunities.

Be engaging and humble because you do not know who you are talking to. Once, at a climate change conference, I sat down at a table and started chatting with someone. We were discussing climate change science, slowly at first, and then, after two hours, I realized that I was talking with the Dr. John Holdren, co-winner Nobel Prize.