My first published work, in book form, "Creating Good Work"

My first published work, in book form, came out today. I wrote a chapter in "Creating Good Work - The World's Leading SocialEntrepreneurs Show How to Build a Healthy Economy"

In the book over 20 leading innovators in social entrepreneurship, known as "deliberate disruptive design" share their learnings, experiences and insights gained from their work in building a new healthy economy.

Jeff Hollender, thought leader in corporate responsibility and co-founder of Seventh Generation wrote about the book: "Social entrepreneurs are committed to a goal that neither our government nor big business has been willing to take on - the building of enlightened society. It's the job of these special people who want to leave the world a better place for those who have yet to be born. The book provides practical, hard-won advice for how prospective and even-in-the-trenches social entrepreneurs can do just that. This is a book you'll not want to miss."

I resonate with his sentiments - that it is incumbent upon everyone in this generation to work for the well being of current and future children, of all species. I'm privileged to be part of such a movement, and inspire others to do the same through this work.

"Transforming Economics into True Wealth" Statement November 2012

I'm a signatory for this statement on TRANSFORMING ECONOMIES INTO TRUE WEALTH

Posted on Ethical Markets website: 

"This is an invitation to fully engage in the planetary whole-system shift now under way.  Many SRI investment professionals recognize our human responsibility for the many breakdowns in our societies and enfolding ecosystems resulting from our limited consciousness: climate change, hunger, poverty, conflicts, financial crises and ecological destruction. These systemic breakdowns are accelerating due to global interconnectedness and now driving the breakthroughs worldwide occurring below the radar of the mainstream mass media. The 193 country members of the United Nations have recognized human interdependence and that no nation acting alone can solve these global systemic crises.  Thus, they have pooled their sovereignty, however imperfectly, seeking solutions through treaties, agreements, protocols, institutions and agencies to promote the common good and all life on planet Earth.  Likewise, many public, private and civic sector organizations, professional and academic groups are also coalescing to take broader responsibility."

The statement is:

TRANSFORMING ECONOMIES INTO TRUE WEALTH

Invitation To Fully Engage In The Planetary Whole-System Shift Now Under Way

We undersigned investment professionals recognize our human responsibility for the many breakdowns in our societies and enfolding ecosystems resulting from our limited consciousness: climate change, hunger, poverty, conflicts, financial crises and ecological destruction. These systemic breakdowns are accelerating due to global interconnectedness and now driving the breakthroughs worldwide occurring below the radar of the mainstream mass media. The 193 country members of the United Nations have recognized human interdependence and that no nation acting alone can solve these global systemic crises.  Thus, they have pooled their sovereignty, however imperfectly,seeking solutions through treaties, agreements, protocols, institutions and agencies to promote the common good and all life on planet Earth.  Likewise, many public, private and civic sector organizations, professional and academic groups are also coalescing to take broader responsibility.

We humans are leaving the 300-year fossil-fueled Industrial Era based on digging resources from the Earth and are now looking up to our Mother Star, the Sun, increasingly harvesting its daily photon shower just as plants have learned to do – providing sustenance for all species in our biosphere.

Finance has lost its way, strayed from its stewardship role, and become a global casino, a bubble exacerbating many global problems. We, along with so many friends, have addressed reforming financial markets and have been investing in many creative activities and successful models.  Deeper collaboration and broader engagement are now needed at all political levels, from global to local, to better coordinate our efforts to build equitable societies based on Life’s Principles and the successful evolution of Earth’s 30 million species over 3.8 billion years.

Our socially responsible, ethical, ESG, triple bottom line, impact investment communities have long championed innovative investment practices to support well-governed businesses and communitieswith positive social and environmental outcomes. Our industry has led the way in directing resources toward solutions-based socio-economies. After more than twenty-five years of growth and success inour investment industry, social inequality and environmental degradation have reached unsustainable levels, and underlying economies are still:

•Unsustainable: They over-consume and degrade the resources upon which their long-term prosperity depends.

•Unfair: They multiply financial advantages to those already advantaged at the expense of those most in need.

•Unstable: They lack resilience in a time of growing volatility and rapid social, political, technological and ecological change.

•Undemocratic: They operate with inadequate democratic controls and accountability on the part of their most powerful organizations – corporations, financial institutions and governments.

The health of our industry is ultimately conditioned upon the health of our planet and its peoples. Toensure that there will be economies worth investing in, we call on our colleagues to support cross-sector efforts to transform our failing political economic system. Specifically, we ask for greater support for the following key system changes that can accelerate the transition to a political economy that sustains people and the planet.

1.Restoring trust and integrity to currencies and monetary systems.

2.Transforming the global financial services industry from extractive to creative of community health and wealth by:

 •Supporting a financial transaction tax, as approved or implemented in many countries.

 •Protecting the commons and public infrastructure from privatization.

3.Building a new financial system that includes, but is not limited to:

 •Restoring a public banking system.

 •Directing investments to undercapitalized communities through Community Development Financial Institutions and microfinance.

 •Creating the enabling conditions to support flourishing local living economies.

 •Investing democratically through crowdfunding.

 •Continuing to involve mainstream financial institutions which demonstrably share our goals, values and ethics.

4.Restoring democracy and our collective capacity to regulate, tax and invest in public priorities by limiting money in politics, amending “corporate  personhood” and the “money isspeech” doctrine, and promoting public financing of elections.

We celebrate the growth and success of our industry, but the time for a narrow focus oncompetitively developing the market for our own products, brands and services is past. We honor and acknowledge those of us already engaged in system change.  Let us challenge ourselves to go further and exercise ethical leadership by engaging our energy and resources in collaborative networking to manifest the integrated system change we all believe will lead to a more positive future for all life on this planet.

Co-conveners and Initial Co-signers, November 2012

Co-conveners:

Hazel Henderson, president, Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil)

Susan Davis, president, Capital Missions Company (USA and Ecuador)

Co-signers

Mariana Bozesan, Ph.D., president & founder, AQAL Investing, Munich, Germany

Katherine Collins, founder and CEO, Honeybee Capital, Boston, MA

Leslie Danziger, Co-founder and former Chairman of Solaria Corporation; Co-founder and former Chairman/CEO of Lightpath Technologies, TX, USA

Mary Houghton, co-founder, Shorebank, Chicago, IL

Alan F. Kay, founder, AutEx and Public Interest Polling, St. Augustine, FL

Kathleen Paylor, Chief Spiritual Officer, Conscious Capital, San Francisco, CA

Helen Rake, principal, Collins Capital Management, Jacksonville, FL

Rosalinda Sanquiche, executive director, Ethical Markets Media, St. Augustine, FL

Sarah Stranahan, New Economy Network, New York, NY

Stuart Valentine, CenterPoint Investment Management, Fairfield, IA

Michaela Walsh, founder, Women’s World Banking, New York, NY

Gregory Wendt, CFP, Stakeholders Capital; founder, Green Economy Think Tank, Santa Monica, CA

Additional signatories

Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation

Terry Link, Starting Now, LLC

Monika Mitchell Founder/CEO Good Business New York

John Rogers, Value for People, Germany

Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD, Evolution Biologist, Futurist, Professor, Speaker, Consultant

Stephen Viederman, Board, Network for Sustainable Financial Markets

Transforming Finance - a top priority

Last fall, I had the pleasure of joining a group of leaders in the new economy and responsible investing movement at the home of Hazel Henderson for the annual "SRI Leaders" retreat. At the retreat we reflected on the state of the global financial system and further offered perspectives and solutions for transforming finance to serve the world, rather than extract from it. Here's a link to the Statement: "Transforming Economics into True Wealth (November 2012)"

Hazel posted an article on CSR Wire based on the retreat, and the Statement which we created.

Here's the full text of the article:

By Hazel Henderson

Despite incremental reforms, the Dodd-Frank Act in the USA, Basel III and the 0.1% financial transaction tax now approved by EU finance ministers, the global financial casino is still playing.

Financial lobbying still seeks to block or weaken reforms and floods of money distorting democratic politics, loosed by the Supreme Courts’ 2010 Citizens United decision, are still flowing unchecked.  Billions still secretly fund attacks on climate science, social safety nets, teachers and other public employees and their pensions. All these efforts to repeal FDR’s New Deal and a fairer economy continue unabated.

Ethical Markets’ Transforming Finance initiative, launched in 2010 with its first Statement, emphasizing the bigger picture: finance is a part of the global commons, to serve real economies, not dominate them, and its high-frequency traders and all market players use and rely on taxpayer funded infrastructure: the internet, satellite communications, computers, wireless transmission over public airwaves.

Many high-minded financiers who have co-signed this Statement and later ones are former Wall Streeters. They are pioneers of ethical, SRI firms and are also interviewed on our Transforming Finance TV series, including John Fullerton, Amy Domini, Susan Davis, Karl Kleissner, Alisa Gravitz, Terry Mollner, Katherine Collins, Leland Lehrman, Sarah Stranahan, Michaela Walsh, Ben Bingham and author/lawyer Ellen Brown (available at www.ethicalmarkets.tv and www.films.com).

Our latest Transforming Economics Into True Wealth (November2012) is an invitation to fully engage in the planetary whole-system shift now under way. These investment professionals recognize our responsibility for the many breakdowns in our societies and ecosystems resulting from our limited consciousness: climate change, hunger, poverty, conflicts, financial crises and ecological destruction.

Jan 24 2013 Radio Interview on Business Rockstars KFWB about "Conscious Capitalism"

Here's my interview on the radio show "Business Rockstars" about my views about the concept of "conscious capitalism" which is also the title of the new book by Whole Foods CEO John Mackay and Professor Raj Sisodia 


In the interview radio host Ken Rutkowski and I discussed the different paradigms in business. Most notably we distinguished between the outdated view of business as only serving shareholders and the profit motive to businesses recognizing the opportunity to not only succeed but thrive by serving all of the stakeholders in the business.

This more sophisticated paradigm leads to a more robust and resilient business while at the same time stakeholder engagement is a key driver in profitability for the most successful corporations.

I trust you'll enjoy listening to the radio show as much as I did sharing my views.

Here's a link to the show, my piece starts at around minute 44.