The Future Under Our Feet

LaRae LongReforming Global Finance, Sustainability News

“Ethical Markets welcomes this approach by our colleagues at Volans, at last focusing beyond carbon as a “problem” to  carbon productivity and new solutions!   We proposed this new approach  in 2016 with our “Assessing Risks of Fossil Reserves: Are the  Fuel or Feedstocks?”, which showed asset managers how to avoid writing off these fossil reserves in their portfolios with the stroke of a pen: changing them from “fuels” to  be wastefully-burned , to  “feedstocks” kept in the ground for future use as materials , plastics, cement ,etc. We pointed out that carbon was too valuable to  burn, as I did on NBC’s Today Show decades ago!

This article takes the argument forward, just as we do  in our upcoming Green Transition Scoreboard® for 2018: ”Capturing CO2 While Improving Human Nutrition and Health“, showing how over-investment in the planet’s 3% freshwater ignored the other 97% of saltwater and the 10,000 varieties of salt-loving (halophyte) plants grown on degraded desert lands  and can be expanded to  improve human nutrition, e.g. the highly-nutritious grain: quinoa.  A cognitive revolution is underway for a positive human future!                      ~Hazel Henderson, Editor.”

 

logo Newsletter April 2018
The future under our feet
At Volans we aim to connect tomorrow’s dots. This month that’s had us exploring underground urban farming, the role of business models in transforming markets, and how to reimagine the role of carbon in our economy.

 

Carbon isn’t just a danger – it’s also an opportunity

What if in building the new carbon economy we didn’t only lower the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere but were able to create shared prosperity for a growing global population? Check out our latest thought piece for Fast Company and accompanying video, which pull together the pillars of our evolving Carbon Productivity work.

 

We need Breakthrough Business Models, not Breakthrough Technology

Technology doesn’t transform markets, business models do. This is what we learnt after speaking to dozens of leading entrepreneurs as part of our continued Project Breakthrough work.

 

Descending into the future

Last week, some of the team visited Growing Underground – an urban hydroponics farm in a refurbished WWII bunker, 33 metres beneath the swarming streets of Clapham. Read more about London’s subterranean farming revolution in John’s latest edition of The Elkington Report: Something delicious is growing in the ‘sustainability underground’.

 

Reimagining global capitalism

Here at our offices in London, connections have a way of just strolling through the door – as was the case when the Aspen Institute’s Judy Samuelson visited in March to co-host a salon titled ‘what comes after shareholder primacy’.

 

In the wake of Larry Fink’s letter (“To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society”) and with the 25th anniversary of the Triple Bottom Line concept fast approaching, the conversation around the role of business is as lively as ever. On that note, we’re delighted to have recently certified as a B Corporation for the third time.

 

If you’d like to know more, please do get in touch.

 

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