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Editor’s Note: On Friday evening, as part of its “Green Is Universal” campaign, NBC will premiere a documentary, entitled “Harmony,” which traces the largely unheralded environmental efforts of Great Britain’s Prince Charles, also known as HRH or His Royal Highness.

The following commentary was written by the film’s producers, Stuart Sender and Julie Bergman Sender, who is a director of the non-profit that operates Consortiumnews.com:

When we began production on HARMONY, people would understandably ask us about “The Prince.” But as HRH The Prince of Wales has insisted, HARMONY: A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR WORLD has never been about “The Prince,” but rather about “The Principles.”

Having the opportunity to work with HRH, The Prince of Wales, is to understand his passion for the planet, environmental and economic sustainability and a better way forward.

It is also an opportunity to see how those values are expressed through the people and programs he has supported for the better part of three decades - a surprising and dynamic array of business leaders and environmental activists, farmers, doctors, artists, architects, builders, indigenous people and government officials.  

They are challenging conventional wisdom, creating new sustainable technologies and forging a deeper and more spiritual relationship with the natural world.  

As filmmakers, we have done our best to capture the urgent, hopeful practicality of HRH’s view of the world, and to make the essential link between the dual environmental and economic crises we face.  It is a world view that sees the connections in all aspects of our lives – from the way we eat and grow our food, how we work, and how we treat the planet and each other.

The title of the film HARMONY, A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR WORLD (which is also the title of The Prince of Wales’s companion book) may sound like an idyllic view of how the world could be.  

It is our hope that this film helps show that “going back to nature” is not what is being called for. But rather, moving “forward with nature” is the kind of dynamic and collaborative relationship we need to re-establish the balance with the natural world and reverse some of our most severe and pressing problems.

As we learned while making this film, a harmonious version of the world already exists in miraculous pockets around the globe. From Canada to India, from the United Kingdom to the United States, from organic farms to corporate boardrooms there really is something exciting going on out there.  

The people we meet in HARMONY are visionary thinkers and doers who are working to solve our greatest environmental and social problems in ways that make sense and can impact the day to day lives of all of us.  

As The Prince of Wales reminds us, living in a more sustainable way does not have to be a painful shift from the comforts we enjoy.

It can open us up to a new way of living that draws on the best of ancient wisdom and modern technology – an approach that can be both more fulfilling and less damaging to the planet. Making Harmony shifted our world-view, and we hope viewers will experience some of that when they watch the movie.

For more on HARMONY, go to its Web site.

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