Futures Positive l Futures Design

Acceleration of the Slow Movement

What are the potential implications of the rise of the slow movement for business?

"The good news is that the Slow Movement is accelerating. What started with the “Slow Food” movement has become a catch phrase, embracing many aspects of the counter-culture movements that preceded it. The non-threatening nature of the word “slow” has served as an aggregator—bringing previously marginalized movements into the mainstream. “Slow” is not associated with any one culture, thus it transcends and includes. Adherents of the Slow Movement embrace the speed of the Internet—but with a caveat—rather than web surfing and aimlessly scrolling through social media, they use it to collaborate and to improve their efficiency—in order to pursue what really matters: time to engage with family, friends, and their own pursuits.

In the business world, the Slow Movement encompasses everything from Conscious Capitalism to Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) to the B-corporation [4]—it embraces economic models in which “care” and the “environment” have value and are thus, valuable. [5,6] The roots of the Slow Movement are found in a new mythos, or worldview of interdependence. People are reconnecting with the natural world and acknowledging our interdependence with the biosphere in ever-greater numbers,. This reconnection results in activism. [7] Activism that is as quiet as starting a vegetable garden or as loud as the 400,000 strong People’s Climate March that occurred around the world in 2014. [8] Which brings us to another name or aspect of the Slow Movement: the Transition movement.” (Excerpt from “Acceleration of the Slow Movement,” Dana Klisanin, In The Future of Business, Editor, Rohit Talwar)