Transforming Economics Into True Wealth

 

November 2012

 The statement on TRANSFORMING ECONOMIES INTO TRUE WEALTH 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 for all life on planet Earth.  Likewise, many public, private and civic sector organizations, professional and academic groups are also coalescing to take broader responsibility.

Full statement and see signatories

Transforming Finance 4.0, November 2012
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