One of the Greengoats threw herself handlessly into a wasp nest this week. It happened when one of our Members of Parliament suddenly experienced a severe lack of global warming because it was raining outside. The goat just couldn’t help it.
You can certainly choose to avoid wasp nests. You can even opt out of opinions that you don’t agree with by simply following and interacting only with people who think exactly like yourself. Nice, isn’t it?
We would like to invite everyone to step out of the nice, warm and comfortable pool of identical opinions however, and check out what happens outside it. At least we won’t be as chocked when waking up with Trump in power. We would see it coming.
Wasp nests as a sustainability issue
What on earth does this have to do with sustainability, you might think. A lot! Think diversity and inclusion. How much you as a company work with diversity and inclusion is usually included in the list of requirements that more and more companies are asking their suppliers to report.
Why even bother working with diversity and inclusion? For the sake of justice? To give women and people of different origins than yourself a chance? Or because the pictures look nicer? No, diversity and inclusion are simply about wasp nests and stepping out of the nice and comfortable opinion bubble. Because, what happens if you listen to more employees who think differently, who question and challenge? Besides the fact that it is a bit demanding, it gives unexpected perspectives and turned stones that would otherwise have been left unturned.
It has very little with gender, sexual orientation or origin to do. More about looking up a bit from the homogeneous, unanimous opinion pool, usually with absolutely no chewing resistance. Because we believe that yes-sayers are pretty meaningless in groups. The results from stepping out will come quickly. That’s why we want to highlight wasp nests and hope that we all have the energy to surround ourselves with people who think differently. Listen to them, try to understand what they mean and what their agenda is. It is sweaty, messy and hurts sometimes, but it’s also refreshing and completely necessary.
Someone might suspect that the diversity at Greengoat is poor, but on the contrary, you will find oceans of wonderful chewing resistance, different perspectives and goats that challenge each other every day.
