Interview at European CleanTech Forum Stockholm 2014

My article  “Communities Co-Evolving Toward Resilience”, posted on Hazel Henderson's Ethical Markets website, outlines a design framework we created in 2013 & 2014 with the lead of the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Environment based on the conferences we produced with them in 2010 & 2011. While some of the the projects and events we had planned never came about due to staffing changes, the inspired vision of weaving a wide range of groups together for bioregional coordination remains a guiding principle to create cities of the future in the present.

In it, the core themes are:

- that bioregions around the world can be an organizing framework to catalyze the next wave of humanity’s evolution rather than nation states

- that we can organize events and actions through a networked approach to iconic cities who’s networks cross pollinate ideas, solutions and inspirations not unlike neurons firing in the brain

- the organizing principle of networks within networks, and multidisciplinary cooperation can be fractally organized at every scale and stage of the process

- the core convening principle to get globally oriented groups to collaborate for place based solutions and then to spread globally through the network of other place based networks to reach a global scale

- the process can be applied to create a “model” or “template” for the pathway of evolution of a bioregional economy which then can be the core organizing principle which can be applied and creatively expressed in as many ways as there are bioregions across the globe thus bringing a co-creative element to the global mind to more rapidly inspire evolution of the global family

From this framework I feel that we can scale and inspire the groups mentioned in the article, already thinking along these lines, to weave together as a cooperative force across the planet. Bioregion by bioregion.

Once the system starts firing, the evolution of the civilization 2.0 emerges within the chrysalis, as imaginal cells do, moving our vision into cultivating butterfly from the chrysalis of old mindsets. 

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.” ― R. Buckminster Fuller

Here's the whole article as posted on Ethical Markets (above):

COMMUNITIES CO-EVOLVING TOWARD RESILIENCE

Communities Co-Evolving Toward Resilience

By Greg Wendt, CFP, Stakeholders Capital; founder, Green Economy Think Tank

“The road from here to sustainable, resilient cities and regions is hardly a straight one — there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for success. Infrastructure, politics and finances — not to mention the uniqueness of resources, geography and local institutions — create different obstacles and opportunities for each city.”

The series of Verge Conferences around the globe are among the myriad watering holes for the community of travelers on this road to sustainable, resilient communities. The conference track described above from the recent conference in Fall 2013 included a range of “smart cities” topics: energy, building, production and logistics, urban processes and organization, shared prosperity, information and communication, mobility, transportation and security.

As we know, there are many travelers on this winding road of inquiry who are collectively asking the nature and evolution of our communities where a majority of humanity currently lives.

We are all meeting the myriad effects of a system in crisis: climate change, wealth inequality, crumbling infrastructure, pollution are only a few of the great stresses which humanity is experiencing across our planet.  For example, the current weather patterns of extreme drought in the west and polar vortex in the east of US are two clear forms of an increasingly unpredictable climate. To respond to such challenges, leaders are continuing to gather around the world to address these issues, while at the same time communities are organizing new patterns to define new and innovative pathways to creatively rewrite existing narratives, and redesign the systems in place.

These efforts are enhanced by the recognition that we are infinitely connected to the earth which sustains all life, which can inform every one of the choices we make, the systems we support, money we spend and products we purchase. Our choices are connected to everything else on the planet, and thus have an influence on the biosphere. Further, unless we shift from self-serving, divisive, ego-driven concerns and behaviors to global collaborative ones, we will struggle to successfully deal with the hunger, environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and gross inequality we are presently facing.

As Einstein states:

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

We are in the midst of a crisis of perception, since more and more are becoming aware of the effects of our choices from the past and are suspecting systemic crisis is based on the very way we perceive reality – and thus relate to it.

Such a crisis and opportunity to shift our culture’s experience of reality is not new in human history.  During transitional periods like today, humans have had to change and respond with new ideas, behavior, and tools in response to changes in weather, environment and resources. Hazel Henderson shares in her 1996 book “Paradigms in Progress” that “one of the key elements in all such transition periods and changing worldviews is the shift in perception of what is important, what is valuable, the goals to be pursued and the ways to measure collective progress toward these goals. The old slogans of economic progress, industrial modernization, and a growing GNP now compete with emerging slogans of the new paradigm: quality of life, human potential and the search for ecological balance, social justice and global citizenship on our small, fragile Planet Earth.”

In her latest book “Mapping The Global Transition to the Solar Age: From ‘Economism’ to Earth System Science,” Hazel outlines the tools, vision and components of this sweeping conceptual evolution.

More and more are becoming aware that a deeper paradigm shift is not only needed in the manner in which we function, yet also the very perception through which we navigate this evolution.

As the renowned environmentalist James Speth said: “I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation and eco-system collapse, but I was wrong.  The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness and apathy.  And for that we need a spiritual transformation.”

We are required to behave differently in order for humanity to survive and thrive on this planet.  Unless we collectively shift from our self-serving, divisive, ego-driven concerns and behaviors to global collaborative ones, we will not be able to successfully deal with the hunger, environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and gross inequality we are presently facing.

An evolution in how we perceive value, and measure it goes hand in hand with the deeper conceptual shift.  Once we recognize the shift that is needed, then we may ask where to begin?

There are many groups and organizations beginning to address these challenges.

In his book “Prosperity without Growth – Economics for a Finite Planet” Tim Jackson shares the view from the standpoint of economics, business and finance:

“There is an interesting overlap between components of prosperity and the factors that are known to influence subjective well being or ‘happiness’. Indeed to the extent that we are happy when things go well, and unhappy when they don’t, there is an obvious connection between prosperity and happiness. This doesn’t necessarily mean that prosperity is the same thing as happiness. But the connection between the two provides a useful link into recent policy debates about happiness and subjective well being.”

Ethical Markets Quality of Life Indicators, co-developed with the Calvert Group in 2000, provide a broader view.  Some of the components of true “quality of life” are our real wealth, which include loving relationships, supportive and vibrant community, good health, cultural and creative stimulation, healthy and vibrant natural environment, contributing to society in a meaningful way, and spiritual fulfillment.

Given most nations define standard of living by a financial measure of economic activity, “Gross National Product” or GNP, we must reexamine outmoded ways of measuring the “product” of our economy and develop means to define the non-financial dimensions of the well being.

For example, the California Human Development Index was designed to measure a more comprehensive view of the progress of our state. The index  “goes beyond the state’s fiscal and budgetary woes to examine the well-being of its people using the American Human Development Index, a measure based on official government data in health, education, and living standards. This timely report introduces the ‘Five California’s’ to highlight the varied opportunities open to differing segments of the population, and provides close-up snapshots of major metro areas. The report also ranks native-born and foreign-born residents for each major ethnic group, as well as all 233 Census neighborhoods in the state. The report concludes with recommendations aligned with current fiscal realities for protecting and building upon human development successes already in place.”

Applied regionally, there’s much talk about enhancing the coordination between human activity and the living bioregions we call home. The vision is emerging of the city as an actual living system, a living organism, not unlike the “gaia” hypothesis of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis which is the vision that earth is a living being which has inspired much of the environmental movement in the last 50 years. These insights are an emerging a breakthrough in perception, a new paradigm emerged, and growing. The human mind is recognizing it’s collective interconnectivity with all life. This emerging paradigm is an evolutionary step for the collective perception of reality, as if we are all cells in the bodies of the systems within which we live.

The think tank Tomorrows Company in London has a similar perspective – on their regional efforts called “Tomorrow’s London” they share:

“Tomorrow’s London is a vision of the city as a literal, living organism. A city which will enable millions to live, prosper and be fully human – enjoying and contributing to the rich biodiversity which sustains and nourishes life, a ‘city of cities’ pioneering how we all might live together on our shared planet…. Tomorrow’s London is a long-term collective vision and one that is codesigned by communities, businesses, government and our ecology – enabled by forms of governance and leadership that can inspire action and participation across stakeholders and generations.”

If we are recognize that cities are analogous to organisms, then how do successful organisms interact with evolving and changing conditions? As in nature, for humans resilience is facing unknown challenges with new and creative approaches, to maintain the coherency, and continuation, of our well being. Resilience is generally being used in the context of individuals “bouncing back” yet there’s a growing community of groups around the world evolving a new paradigm toward humanity’s relationship with the biosphere.  The Stockholm Resilience Centre states that it’s mission is to “advance the understanding of complex social-ecological systems and generate new insights and development to improve ecosystem management practices and long-term sustainability.”

More and more groups are gathering together in places and working to apply the insights from this pursuit to the management and evolution of managing complex metropolises. In ancient Greece, the term “agoras” referred to town meeting places to develop new guiding principles for the community. These agoras, which means “gathering place” or “assembly” was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life in the city.  If we are to evolve the emerging global village, we must provide and democratic and deliberative spaces “agoras” where people can engage in meaningful dialogue.

In a similar fashion, the broad range of initiatives, think tanks, convenings, and conferences being held across the globe are just these kinds of spaces.   In nearly every board room, conference center, community center, church there are conversations to address the myriad manifestations of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – VUCA” Addressing VUCA will require far more evolved perspectives than the paradigms which created our society – it will require of us developing increasing capacity for resilience.

There are many organizations with this similar recognition:

ICLEI, the leading group of local governments around the world focusing on sustainability, Clinton Global Initiative’s C40 effort, Rockefeller Foundation, San Francisco Department of the Environment, Fraunhofer Institute and Green Economy Think Tank, were just a few of the many groups at Verge in 2013 who are working to light up the network of cities around the globe.

During the conference, a group of participants met and agreed to co-produce a series of convenings and integrated processes for the Bay Area by coordinating aligned organizations to building more resilience for the region’s economic, social and environmental priorities.

This agreement recognizes the promise, and challenge of creating a new form of collaborative process for the region, with all of the groups who are working to evolve smart regions and that many of said groups could work more effectively TOGETHER to evolve the Bay Area’s approach by coordinating their myriad efforts, conferences research efforts, and the like. Currently, there are thousands of events every year in the bay area covering every aspect of what is needed to help the region thrive.

For example, there’s a vast community connected to the Hub in the Bay Area and Social Capital Markets. Hub SOMA (South of Market) in San Francisco hosted over 550 events in 2013 alone, and the same group has been producing the Social Capital Markets Conferences for 6 years. These two efforts alone have produced thousands of panel discussions, events, conversations, keynotes, whitepapers, software platforms, etch which are literally the very fabric and ingredients of the bubbling soup of social, capital, commerce, societal innovation for the region.

The group also recognized while meeting at the Verge Summit that we don’t need yet ANOTHER symposium, or ANOTHER panel discussion, or ANOTHER group rehashing the same exact issues, etc.. The group aims to BUILD on the efforts in progress, and advance the edge of coherent organizational collaboration.

Naturally, new initiatives which come out of projects like this , will inevitably require significant resources – ie money and people – to manifest them into useful solutions. It is the intention behind all of our work to ensure that capital providers, investors, financial institutions across the spectrum are actively involved at every stage of every event so that money can move quickly to support emerging solutions.

Discussions are now well under way with with a number of these groups who are aligned to convene a set of roundtables and conferences to align cross sector initiatives into action towards enhancing the resilience in the region and developing a new framework to optimize the region’s efforts and weave a new patter for coordinated action. Thus far, key partners identified in the conversation include: the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, Social Capital Markets and Hub Bay Area, City of San Francisco, California Economic Summit, Bay Area Impact Investing Initiative, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California Financial Opportunities Roundtable, Fraunhof Institute, Urban Innovation Exchange, and another dozen or so organizations engaged in the conversation.

A series of events and coordinated activity is being planned through 2015 to convene leaders and discuss new pathways to build on past success. Through this process a region by region template is emerging which can be coevolved around the world and thus rapidly ignite new neural networks globally. The goal is to, as part of this initiative, create a new set of offline processes and connections which will inform the evolution of online marketplaces and venues for exchange. The heart of the matter is not what we do – or where the solutions are – yet how we do it and how we coordinate the network of similar efforts across the globe.

The initiative to build a framework to advance economic development and financing to meet regional needs more effectively in California has already inspired partnerships with a number of regions around the world. Partners in Scandinavia, New York and London are actively involved now in the journey, and our partners intend to build on the California initiative to replicate similar processes in their regions. Furthermore partners in Sweden are working currently to build on the Bay Area initiative and explore this work in a conference being held in May 2014 in Gothenberg.

Our core intention is to improve the quality of life, and to optimize the outcomes from the myriad conversations along the road to resilient communities. We are in service to advance the quality of relationships on every level, for a better life for all children of all species.

by Gregory Wendt, CFP with appreciation to Lina Constantinovici for editorial and research support

Gregory Wendt, Senior Wealth Advisor – StakeHolders Capital; Founder – Green Economy Think Tank; Co-Founder – Green Business Networking

www.gregwendt.com, www.stakeholderscapital.com, www.greeneconomy.org, www.greenbusinessnetworking.org, www.sustainablewealth.blogspot.com, www.linkedin.com/in/gregorywendt and Twitter @gregorywendt

For further reading:

World Economic Forum: Shared Norms for the New Reality, The Nordic Way http://www.globalutmaning.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Davos-The-nordic-way-final.pdf

100 Urban Trends http://cdn.guggenheim.org/BMW/100_Urban_Trends_1106_3MB.pdf

Adaptive Comanagement for Building Resilience in Social–Ecological Systems https://seaducks.org/sites/default/files/Adaptive%20Comanagement%20for%20Building%20Resilience%20in%20Social-Ecological%20Systems.pdf

Social and ecological resilience are they related? https://groups.nceas.ucsb.edu/sustainability-science/2010%20weekly-sessions/session-102013-11.01.2010-emergent-properties-of-coupled-human-environment-systems/supplemental-readings-from-cambridge-students/Adger_2000_Social_ecological_resilience.pdf

Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Initiative: http://100resilientcities.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/entry/mayors-from-dakar-medellin-new-orleans-oakland-talk-resilience-challenges

Sweden’s conferences on Social Capital and Urban Development http://www.social-capital.net/docs/Conference+documentation+-+Social+Capital+and+Urban+Development+Lidk%C3%B6ping.pdf

Bay Area Council Economic Institute Global Green Cities Archive http://www.bayareacouncil.org/tag/global-green-cities/ and http://globalgreencities.com/

“Making Conservation Finance Investable” http://www.ssireview.org/up_for_debate/article/making_conservation_finance_investable

“Thoughts on Reintegrating Urban Ecology” http://www.biohabitats.com/newsletters/reintegrating-urban-ecology/

Ethical Markets Wealth of Networks, Community Development Solutions

“The Green Economy – A Wide Shot” – Ethical Markets Transforming Finance video series

Jeremy Rifkin: The Empathic Civilization - getting us to "biosphere consciousness"

Hazel Henderson's newest book "Mapping the Transition to the Solar Age - from Economism to Earth Systems Science"

An Excerpt from Hazel's latest book which is available as a PDF.

"Towards the Green Economy: Clearly the transition to the green economy is already underway but will be highly disruptive to the industrial sectors and massive global apparatus of the fossil fuel and nuclear era. Many companies based on nineteenth and twentieth century technologies will go under and jobs will be lost. Bridging strategies using natural gas are already highly contested due to their huge water-use, polluted residues, methane release and other problems."

"A study by Cornell and Stanford University scientists outlines a plan for ‘A Fossil Fuel-Free New York State by 2050’ which omits shale gas due to its much higher than advertised methane emissions.24 The consensus reached at Rio+20, G-20 in Mexico and other summits in 2012 included the OECD Global Green Growth Institute, the Knowledge Platform, and 68 global financial institutions. NGOs and governments affirmed commitments to using natural resources in their capital accounting.25 In addition, the $5.2tn of private investments since 2007 tracked in Ethical Markets’ Green Transition Scoreboard® attest to the huge shifts now in the pipeline."

"While renewable energy stocks suffered from their opposition’s media attacks, contrarians saw opportunities. US investor Warren Buffet’s MidAmerica Renewables investments reached $13.5bn, and the US Department of Defense is now the single most important driver of the cleantech revolution in the USA.26 In 2012 and 2013, nature provided ample evidence of the massive CO2 emissions’ effect in ocean warming and driving unprecedented weather conditions worldwide: floods, droughts, fires, tornadoes, heat waves, all causing huge losses and insurance costs." "This paper is an attempt to contextualise all these phenomena and explore the future: the new planetary awareness driving these paradigm shifts as we humans ‘connect the dots’. This knowledge explosion is now challenging our cultural beliefs about money, wealth, scarcity, abundance and transcending financial models derived from obsolete economics, led in many countries by younger generations connected by social media. The new multi-disciplinary models and metrics reassure us that in moving beyond economics and GDP we will not be flying blind but moving to the many earth systems science models (including those from NASA28) and data from many scientific fields which this paper explores."

Bill Moyers and Bill Lofgren on the "Deep State" the core system of how the country is really working.

Downshifting civilization to meet the realities of the biosphere

“The future, to be viable at all, must be one of drawing back, easing down, healing… It requires more than productivity and more than technology; it also requires maturity, compassion and wisdom. These conclusions constitute a conditional warning, not a dire prediction. They offer a living choice, not a death sentence… The idea of limits, sustainability, sufficiency, equity and efficiency are not barriers, not obstacles, not threats. They are guides to a new world… We see ‘easing down’ from unsustainability not as a sacrifice, but as an opportunity to stop battering against the earth’s limits and to start transcending self-imposed and unnecessary limits in human institutions, mindsets, beliefs, and ethics.” - Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future

Discussing the access to capital equation at the Innovate! SoCal conference.

Should be an engaging conversation tomorrow on our panel at the Innovate!Socal Conference
"Our panel takes up the challenge of improving performance of pre-seed and venture capital funding and looks at how entrepreneurs can be better prepared for investment. The group addresses the critical need for shortening deal decision times, improving deal quality by better preparing entrepreneurs, and reducing capital access barriers to under-represented demographic and geographic groups."

Panel moderator Paul J. Corson, Executive Director of Innovation Fund America, drives the discussion. 

Panelist 1 – Richard Koffler, CEO, Greenwings Biomedical
Panelist 2 – Greg Wendt, Senior Wealth Advisor, Stakeholder Capital, Co-Chair, Capital Action Team for CA Forward
Panelist 3 – Victoria Sassine, Mutual Fund Trustee, Managers Investment Group Panelist
4 – David Carter, CEO, Upside LA

We must evolve to a complex systemic view to address the world's challenges.

From the article: "Complexity Rising from Human Beings to Human Civilization, a Complexity Profile"

The caption for image on the left shares: 

"A schematic history of human civilization reflects a growing complexity of the collective behavior of human organizations. The internal structure of organizations changed from the large branching ratio hierarchies of ancient civilizations, through decreasing branching ratios of massive hierarchical bureaucracies, to hybrid systems where lateral connections appear to be more important than the hierarchy. As the importance of lateral interactions increases, the boundaries between subsystems become porous. The increasing collective complexity also is manifest in the increaseing specialization and diversity of professions. Among the possible future organizational structures are fully networked systems where hierarchical structures are unimportant. "

and the conclusion of the article sums it up:

"There are two natural conclusions to be drawn from recognizing that human beings are part of a global organism. First, one can recognize that human civilization has a remarkable capacity for responding to external and internal challenges. The existence of such a capacity for response does not mean that human civilization will survive external challenges any more than the complexity of any organism guarantees its survival. However, one can hope that the recent reduction in the incidence of military conflicts will continue and the ability to prevent or address local disasters will increase. The difficulties in overcoming other systematic ills of society, such as poverty, may also be challenged successfully as the origins of these problems become better understood."

"Second, the complexity of our individual lives must be understood in the context of a system that must enable its components (us) to contribute effectively to the collective system. Thus, we are being, and will continue to be shielded from the true complexity of society. In part this is achieved by progressive specialization that enables individuals to encounter only a very limited subset of the possible professional and social environments. This specialization will have dramatic consequences for our children, and their educational and social environments are likely to become increasingly specialized as well."

2013 Annual Holiday Party Green Gifts to the Earth from Green Business Networking in L.A.!

Thought you'd enjoy what we're up to with the non-profit group we started in 2006 - this is our 8th annual Green Business Networking Holiday Party. Our community has grown, with an event every month since we started and now over 5,000 people on our email community list. And, we have so much fun!

Story of Solutions - time to rewrite the rules in our society from more to better!

CA Economic Summit Advancing the Triple Bottom Line

The CA Economic Summit is a collaborative process to "advance the triple bottom line" through advancing our economy. I'm very grateful to play the role of Co-Chair for the Access to Capital Team for the summit. Here's a video which is a quick highlight of the conference. Here's a link to our initial capital action plan for the state and a brief article describing our work.

Must watch - Earth from Space - core perspective from which we can evolve from economism to earth systems science.

This Nova Program - "Earth from Space" gives the perspectives and information necessary to evolve our worldview and create a civilization which will ensure a resilient biosphere for a thriving humanity for many generations to come.

A straightforward pathway out of our myopia...

"Our perceptual myopia, which has focused on products not processes, on objects and entities rather than their broader fields of interplay, has led us to reward analysis and punish synthesis, to overvalue competition while ignoring the equally valuable role of cooperation, and to artificially define "problems" and devise "solutions"to fit them..." - Hazel Henderson 

So... now we systematically build cooperative processes which synthesize broad perspectives into grounded currently relevant coherent solutions contextually applied at human scales across the world. That's all!

"Expanding Our Paradigm from Economism to Earth Systems Science" a conversation between me and Hazel Henderson

Simple, empowering change and applying the vision.

The vision years ago:
 

The vision applied:
 

"Green Century" an inspiring television show which I'm featured in

Great show put together by friends called "Green Century" available online and on public television. My segment starts just after minute 22.

The Gene Revolution - The reality of agriculture with genetically modified crops

Do we really need industrial agriculture?

This video addresses the myths of industrial agriculture.

Innovation for the next 100 years.

Innovation which does not have resiliency embedded at it's core is likely a mirage of true evolutionary change.

The recent article "Innovation for the Next 100 Years"in Stanford Social Innovation Review by Judith Rodin from The Rockefeller Foundation wrote states:

"Innovating for resilience is critical if we are to protect against the disruptions of the 21st-century world. As we do so, we should keep in mind the qualities resilient networks, communities and organizations share. Among them are:

• FLEXIBILITY | able to change, evolve, and adapt at a rapid pace. 

• REDUNDANCY | able to change course and adopt alternative approaches. 

• RESOURCEFULNESS | able to identify problems, establish priorities, and mobilize resources and assets to achieve goals. 

• SAFE-FAILURE | able to absorb shocks and the cumulative effects of slow-onset challenges so as to avoid catastrophic failure if thresholds are exceeded. 

• RESPONSIVENESS | able to re-organize and re-establish fund and order following a failure. 

• LEARNING | able to internalize experiences and apply those lessons to decrease vulnerabilities to future disruptions.

These are very close to the life's principles as defined by the Biomimicry Institute.

 

Catalyzing the Connection Economy

First posted on Ethical Markets and Triple Pundit

Somewhere along the line our culture lost contact with the recognition of oneness of all life, the connectedness to each other. Our institutions – government, economy, religion are all built on a false premise of separation.

Simply spoken, in Economics 101 we learned that everything around a business other than what is termed “business as usual” are “externalities” – “external” to the business, and the economy.  The model of endless growth for its own sake without regard to the effects of such growth is a symptom of blindness to such “externalities.”  Our prevailing economic growth-based model is not working to serve the needs of all humanity. If you don’t agree with me, ask the roughly 2 billion people who are living on less than a dollar a day. You may simply believe that their welfare is separate from yours, and you needn’t concern yourself with their plight…

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” – Anonymous


The meaning of this quote is so self evident and obvious to me that I find it surprising that we have to say it at all. Yet this is the world we live in right now. I have the quote on my email signature for its relevance to the evolution of economic theory and business management – the world in which I dance. And the inspiration to create a better economics and more effective business models is at the heart of that quote for me.

Our current capitalist model of economics was crystallized in the 18^th and 19^th centuries where two prevailing worldviews dominated our culture. The scientific temperament with reason guiding all was counterbalanced by the enchanted worldview informed by authentic human experience of art, beauty, consciousness and nature.

Many authors and thought leaders point out this schism in our culture – the two major worldviews: Richard Tarnas calls them enchanted vs. disenchanted, Riane Eisler calls them partnership vs. dominator, and David Korten calls them empire vs. earth community. The core insight upon recognizing this cognitive schism is that we are in the need of a fundamental shift in our paradigm, our system.

In other words, we have not only have a crisis of economics, politics and spirituality but a more fundamental crisis. The very way that we perceive reality is proving inept at addressing the complex issues of our civilization.

This dichotomy between reason and faith was the context from which our economics was born. Economics became a bit lopsided toward the rationalist movement, and efforts to make economics a “hard science” combined with the social Darwinism of the time.

Our economic mindset is deeply influenced by the philosophical delusion that the economy is separate from society, and society is separate from nature. Through simple observation one becomes aware that society rests within the womb of nature, and that the economy rests within the fertile soil of society.

In order to meet our own generation’s needs, without compromising the needs of future generations, it is incumbent on us evolve a new enterprise model based on this very straightforward recognition of interlocking complex systems. Some say this is impossible. And it may very well be so, within the lopsided worldview. Yet, the opportunity is clear. It’s time to shift the paradigm, evolve a new economic vision to include components of connection, natural systems, passion, ethics, beauty and trust which have been left on the conceptual shop floor.

 A more resilient and robust ontological fabric is growing for the emerging “connection economy” through deeper interaction between disparate disciplines, groups and efforts. Such a foundation is essential for the broad influence and impact of visionary capital to underwrite a new civilization which works for 100 percent of humanity.

“World views create worlds.” – Richard Tarnas

When we recognize the opportunity to create a new world based on an integrated worldview, the pathway is clear: develop businesses based on the welfare of all stakeholders and be inspired by an economic model, which takes into account all participants in the economy.

My colleague, thought leader and responsible investing pioneer Terry Mollner works tirelessly to make the wellbeing of the common good the highest aim of all economic activity. He calls for a new movement in capital: common good investing. He states, “Common good investing calls on all enterprises to publicly declare that their highest priority is the common good of us all and profit or anything else is second in priority.”

Today, in our hyperconnected world, our culture is increasingly waking up to the interdependence of all the systems on the planet, finally, we’re beginning to see the  synthesis emerging of the rational and the romantic into a worldview.

There are many people in the business world who are waking up to find that the concept that the economy is a separate system from the rest of the world is an illusion. An entire whole movement has emerged in the last 40 years in finance, business and economics responding to the need to express, quantify and model the impact of our businesses and the influence that they have on the world in which we live. The sunrise of a new guiding paradigm in economics is upon us.

If you’re not aware of this – just observe to the topic of hyperconnectivity being discussed in Davos right now or the range of issues being addressed or review the myriad advancements in business school curricula across the planet incorporating sustainability into business.

If you’re reading this you’re likely more than aware that it’s not just dollars and cents, balance sheets, money supply, unemployment, GDP and inflation anymore.

The Social Capital Markets Bay Area conference is the annual incubator for this movement to pollinate and inspire new ways to make money matter. The nexus of nearly 2,000 professionals is a hotbed of connective tissue where key innovators in philanthropy, impact investing, entrepreneurship, non-profit, technology and social enterprise mind-meld to build the new economy. This event is not unlike the ancient sea where new life explodes in the primordial soup of the emerging economy in the ecosystem of interconnection.

In this space, all the traditional silos begin to blur, everyone is working on multiple aspects of the dynamic social capital economy, and the dots further connect, conversation by conversation.

In sum, these thought leaders gather together annually because they recognize there’s much to be gained by “connecting the dots” and building a new economy which ties meaning to money, wellbeing to wealth and cultural evolution to capital.

Similarly on the other coast, the latest effort of visionary futurist Hazel Henderson and her contemporaries gather annually for the “SRI Leaders Retreat” which created the latest statement for the “Transforming Finance” initiative which she leads.

The Statement – “Tranforming Economics Into True Wealth” is born a recognition of an interconnected world begins: “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 statement further calls upon the entire industry to lead the new integrated worldview of capital.

 “We celebrate the growth and success of our industry, but the time for a narrow focus on competitively 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.”

 It’s imperative for all of us in the social capital movement to connect the dots and embody a new world view and create the next economy to serve all life. If you consider yourself part of the new economy and impact investing movement, you are a crucial catalyst for a new paradigm for our civilization.  The living reality of the connection economy is a sprouted seed in your heart.