Country: United States

Organization: 2People

Idea: To build an ethics-driven society, help build the global sustainability community. Sustainability is ethics at societal scale. The 2People project is a strategy for creating a global network of everyday leaders who are committed to sustainability.

We are at a unique moment in history, when the limits of our planet are forcing us at last to come to terms with the "tragedy of the commons". In order to make the transition to a sustainable society, we must build personal and institutional ethics into the foundation of our economy and culture. Our ethical ideals have become inseparable from the hopes of our children for a safe and prosperous future.

How do you do it: How do you change the consciousness of a whole planet? Through education and empowerment.

Our educational strategy is person-to-person. We who already "get it" -- and there are many of us -- must make our commitment to sustainability visible in our daily lives, and must bring a new sense of urgency to sharing our knowledge. If each one of us can reach and inspire just two people, then change will snowball. But education needs empowerment to have impact.

Empowerment comes from community. 2People is creating online tools to help connect people, and help us co-create the transition to sustainability. These tools make it easy to get information, take action, see progress, and stay connected. A site preview can be found at http://2people.org

Innovation: 1.VISIBILITY: Right now, if you buy organic food, or switch to clean electric power ... no one knows about it. But these are important, ethical actions that should be made visible. By wearing a button or posting a sign by one's door, we can amplify the impact of our actions.

2.COLLECTIVE FOOTPRINT REDUCTION: By creating an online community where we can see each other's actions and track our collective impact, we change the nature of personal action. It's one thing for me to install a few compact fluorescents by myself, and something completely different to be part of a community that has changed a million bulbs.

3.COMMUNITY TOOLS: Our online tools integrate wiki, RSS, and GIS to enable the co-creation of a sustainability knowledge bank.

Impact: Building a sustainability community addresses each of the core ethical traps:

FATALISM: By joining people together in community, we show that small individual actions -- such as biking to work or buying fair trade chocolate -- can have global significance.

IGNORANCE OF CONSEQUENCES: As we educate ourselves about the effects that our actions and decisions have around the planet, thinking about consequences becomes our habit.

OTHERNESS, VALUES EXTREMISM, and INDIVIDUALISM: A core principle of 2People is that we are all in this together -- there is no sustainability without all of us being part of it. We must acknowledge our interdependence, put aside our differences, and work together to make the transition before it is too late.

Ethical Action: The 2People site is designed around actions that you can learn about and put on your "action" list. For example, one such action is to buy "clean" clothes made from organic cotton. The typical "dirty" cotton garment is a horror story that begins with a flood of toxic chemicals used to grow it, poisoning both land and workers, and ends with sweatshop and child laborers used to sew it. Most people have no idea that they support all this when they buy a simple t-shirt.

We can choose to buy garments made from organically grown cotton, raised and sewn by workers who receive fair wages. And we can make similar choices in every aspect of our lives. It doesn't seem like a lot, but these small ethical choices will change the world.

Replication: Both our software and our content will be released under an open source license, encouraging their distribution and use. Even more important is that the spread of these ideas is built into our basic model: two people is all it takes to change the world. If each one of us can raise the consciousness of just two additional people, then through the power of social networks we'll reach the whole world.

Sustainability: 2People is organized as an entrepreneurial non-profit. We'll have a shopping portal on the 2People site, with sustainability information integrated into it. We aim to make shopping ethically as easy as shopping by price or brand. The shopping portal will also generate a revenue stream to make the 2People project financially self-sustaining.

Position in the Ethics Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Ignorance of consequences

Principle: Building ability to care, uphold values, and make