I had the pleasure of working with Thomas and the European Sustainability Academy to develop a network of professionals in Greece who organise alternative exchange systems, such as the local market currency in Volos, called the TEM. We facilitated the drafting of the Drapanos Declaration on Community Exchange, which provides a basis for future collaboration. It highlights the insight and purpose that many people share. I recommend you read it, share it, and consider endorsing it yourself.

Thomas then came to the north west of England, to speak at events organised by the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), which I’m founding at the University of Cumbria. We organised the events with Transition Lancaster, the local chapter of the worldwide Transition Towns movement, which encourages local action to create sustainable communities. As a result of the events, IFLAS is now engaging Transition Lancaster and the Lancaster Ethical Small Traders Association, other interested business networks and community groups in the region, and the nation-wide Sustainable Money Working Group, to design experiments and action-research projects for scaling up alternative means of exchange. We hope to link this local innovation with the Working Group on the Sharing Economy, of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, because we believe these issues are of global relevance.

The next event is a one day seminar on why and how to launch your own local exchange system, led by myself and John Rogers, co-author of People Money: the promise of regional currencies, and in association with the United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service, on March 11^th, 2013.

The Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) will be formally launched next year, with a 3 day summit of international sustainability leaders. Based in the middle of the world-famous Lake District, the ILS is an autonomous part of the University of Cumbria Business School, collaborating across the University on inter-disciplinary research, education and advisory. We work on personal and collective transitions towards more fair and sustainable societies. The field of alternative exchange systems and complementary currencies is an area which we welcome enquiries, particularly from potential doctoral candidates, partners in funded research, or prospective participants in our March seminar. For this, I can be contacted via my profile page at the University.

Professor Jem Bendell

Director, Institute for Leadership and Sustainability, University of Cumbria

Founder, Lifeworth.com and Lifeworth Consulting

Just over five years ago I began working on the luxury industry.  I thought, why cant these elite brands not excel in social and environmental performance? I researched, wrote and produced the report Deeper Luxury for WWF-UK, and it triggered a bit of a furore in the fashion press and wider luxury industry (about 8000 sites now link to the report). 5 years on, I’ve helped some luxury companies with their social and environmental impacts. But I havent seen much change. Some large firms like PPR have embraced the agenda, although we wait in anticipation for more results, in terms of positive social and environmental outcomes. In the 5 years, what inspired me the most were the entrepreneurs I met. People who were creating businesses to address social and environmental problems, and targetting the luxury segment as a way to do that. I began to realise something might be in this – that these entrepreneurs might be shaping the future of luxury, and that they might be revealing a new way we can engage in social change. In the new study, I profile sustainable luxury firms Elvis and Kresse, Tesla Motors, Shokay, Source4Style, Rags2Riches, Positive Luxury, Timothy Han and Nue Luxe… It’s called “Elegant Disruption: How luxury and society can shape each-other for good”. It took about a year to write, as it involved a lot of conversations to understand just what the potential of luxury might be to influence social change. Ill be presenting it at conferences in Brisbane and Barcelona in the coming weeks.

Abstract, August 2012:

From http://www.griffith.edu.au/business-government/asia-pacific-centre-for-sustainable-enterprise/publications/working-paper-series/issue-9
This paper outlines the contemporary luxury sector, showing it is global, thriving and influential. It shows how creative destruction is typical in most industry sectors, including luxury, and how disruptive innovation by entrepreneurs is key to that process. It proposes that the current time is potentially disruptive for incumbent luxury brands and groups, due to five key trends that are beginning to re-frame the markets that luxury brands sell to. Sustainable luxury entrepreneurs from USA, UK, Philippines, India, Argentina, China and Hong Kong are profiled and described as  pursuing “elegant disruption”: a well-designed intervention in markets that both uses and affects aspirations in ways that change patterns of consumption, production or exchange, for a positive societal outcome. The paper reviews the response of mainstream luxury brands to the sustainability agenda, proposing some possible reasons why they appear to be encumbered in embracing this agenda fully. Some of the paradoxes in the notion of “sustainable luxury” are described, in order to draw implications for both the luxury industry and people interested in positive social change. The paper draws upon the authors five years of interaction with the luxury industry on sustainability issues, and is therefore written as a “first person inquiry” and draws upon principles of “appreciative inquiry” in documenting the breakthrough approaches of some sustainable luxury entrepreneurs.

In the coming months, Lifeworth, in association with the world’s leading provider of free open source software for community currencies, is co-running workshops at major sustainability events in Sweden and Greece, and lecturing on this topic in Australia. Scroll down to see details on the events nearest to you. A crisis is an opportunity for a new system to emerge, if we make it so!

Sweden

At the Future Perfect festival in Stockholm, world-leaders in sustainable enterprise, science, design, and media will gather at a world-class summer music festival on 23-26 August.

At Future Perfect, we (Lifeworth Consulting) are hosting a panel on monetary reforms and innovations for sustainability, and a workshop for executives who want to start, scale or participate in alternative means of exchange.

Panel: “Currencies of Transition: monetary reforms and innovations for sustainability.”

Chair: Professor Jem Bendell (Lifeworth Consulting, Community Forge and Griffith Business School)
Ben Dyson, director of Positive Money, which campaigns for a systemic solution to monetary crises, by full reserve banking.
Josh Ryan Collins, New Economics Foundation, the Brixton Pound and co-author of “Where does money come from?”
Lynnea Bylund, Board Member, Ormita, the international business barter network.
Matthew Slater, Board Member, Community Forge, a leading provider of open source software for community currencies, and editor of Community Currency magazine.

The panel will address the questions: Is a fair and sustainable economy possible with our debt-driven money system? If not, what needs to change? What is being done already? What can we do to get involved, personally and professionally? How can we make this a movement? What mistakes can we avoid?

Workshop: “How alternative exchange systems work and how to get started”
Trainers: Professor Jem Bendell and Matthew Slater
The trainers work with Community Forge, which provides free open source software for community currencies. This video explains why, what and how Community Forge operates.

To book your tickets to the festival, visit http://www.futureperfect.se

Greece

In Greece right now there is an exciting air of change and thirst for new ideas and innovations. On the 10th October Lifeworth’s Jem Bendell will co-lead a half day seminar with Matthew Slater of CommunityForge.net on creating and participating in alternative exchange systems and community currencies. They will be joined by Greeks who are pioneering these solutions to the current crisis. On the 11th, Matthew Slater will offer a software training for those wanting to implement a local currency.

The seminars are part of a 2 week sustainable business summit to launch the new European Sustainability Academy in Crete. Information on the final days of the summit, including these workshops on alternative exchange systems, is here. Contact the European Sustainability Academy for more information or to book.

Australia

“Currencies for the Sustainability Transition” is a speech that Professor Jem Bendell will give in Brisbane at the Necessary Transition Conference at Griffith Business School, on the 26th-28th September. Contact the centre for more information on tickets.

As a meeting place of leaders in business and government, the WEF seemed the ideal place to share ideas on how to tackle the jobs crisis. Many of the discussions highlighted small things that businesses can do, such as helping promote employability through funding career-relevant education, or investing in internet start-ups that provide new job opportunities. They also discussed how governments could invest more in infrastructure, education and look again at labour mobility. However, all these issues are secondary to the prime role of our banking system in determining levels of potential employment. As money is issued as debt, if the banks won’t lend to businesses in the real economy, particularly small and medium sized businesses who provide the majority of jobs in any society, then as debts are paid back, so the amount of currency in circulation shrinks. The first key function of a currency, any currency, is to help connect assets, including people’s time, with needs. If a currency becomes scarce in an economy, then there is less ability for exchange. That means needs go unmet, and assets go underutilised. It’s called unemployment.

This critical factor was mentioned at the WEF events in passing, for instance when a finance minister from a North African nation called for more regulations on the percentage of bank lending that must go to small and medium sized enterprises. However, I did not hear discussion of how governments around the world have previously addressed this problem, for instance in East Asia, where 5 year plans often included controls on bank lending, to guide lending to the real economy and job creation, rather than lending for consumer debt and speculative activities. Indeed, I heard from a senior official in Thailand’s planning ministry that credit controls had been dropped from the new 5 year plan. This indicates that the mainstream discourse on the job crisis needs to shift, and business leaders from the real economy, could play a role in that, given that job creation is a win-win for business and society.

For business leaders to play a role in addressing the challenge, the first step is to gain insight into the most significant levers of change, and escape untenable myths about the key causes of unemployment. Five myths I heard from delegates in Davos, Bangkok and Istanbul about the main causes of the jobs crisis, that business leaders need to escape from are:

Myth 1: “Unemployment is due to falling demand.”

Are people’s needs really falling? Or just the amount of money in circulation to employ people/assets to meet those needs? Clearly, given the levels of human need in the world today, its the latter.

Myth 2: “Unemployment is due to technology displacing human labour.”

Could we not design systems of ownership and revenue distribution so that the income from technology frees us to work creatively and caringly for each other? How can we govern technology to release us to a world of service, not a life of redundancy?

Myth 3: “Unemployment is due to the cost of hiring and firing.”

Why then do some countries with high wages and labour standards, like Scandinavia, have less % unemployment? Where would competition between nations to lower costs of hiring and firing lead us? What will competition between nations for the same number of jobs worldwide lead to the total global level of unemployed? Clearly the loosening of employment law is not a systemic solution.

Myth 4: “Unemployment is due to a lack of skills and appetite for the new types of work.”

The world has more skilled labour than ever before, and more labour mobility than ever before, and many people with Masters degrees can’t get a job. The internet means that people can access knowledge more easily than ever before. Education is important, and a lack of education may be a problem for specific groups, but is not a critical factor in mass unemployment at present.

Myth 5: “Unemployment is due to the option to claim benefits.”

Why then was the existence of benefits not keeping people out of the workforce before the recession? Why do some countries with the most supportive welfare states, like Scandinavia, have less % unemployment?

These myths arise from a general lack of understanding about the monetary system. Once we understand that the availability of a currency in an economy determines employment levels we must then look at the monetary system. Once we look at the monetary system we must question why governments have chosen to create a system where 97% of our money is created by private banks as debt with interest so that governments cant spend on public needs without taxing us to pay interest to banks. Rather than maintaining the myth that the financial markets are like the tides or the weather, its time to redesign these entirely man-made systems, to enable currencies to be in fair, stable, sufficient and targeted supply, for job creation. To tackle jobs crisis we need to:

1. wind down non-reserve banking and replace private bank credit creation with government issuance of money, according to strict rules enshrined in law, to avoid inflation. In this situation governments could create credit to lend at low rates to banks who would then lend it to businesses.
2. regulate bank lending and leverage to ensure a large share of lending goes into the real economy and not into consumer debt or speculation.
3. create complementary currencies or exchange systems for communities and businesses, some of which could be issued or backed by local governments.

In my video keynote at the Rebuild21 conference in Copenhagen last week I went into some detail on the monetary system and what we need to do about it, as responsible professionals working towards sustainable development. Then at the World Economic Forum in Istanbul, on video, I explained further how we need to work on monetary reform in order to solve the global jobs crisis.

Once these reforms and innovations occur then governments and companies in the real economy will be far better placed to invest in the necessary transition to a low carbon and resource efficient economy. As Ida Auken, the Environment Minister of Denmark explained at the WEF in Istanbul, there will be tens of millions of jobs created in the green economy of enterprises that deliver more efficient use of resources. Government needs to guide businesses in that transition, but if its only tools are bonds, even eurobonds, then that means very limited spending, higher taxes for future generations, and greater resources for global banking to invest in what it decides will deliver the highest returns. If anything is learned from the financial crisis is that the power of global banking is out of hand.

Folks, in the 5 years since the beginning of the credit crunch, it is now clear that not enough politicians or civil servants know what to do, or are willing to take leadership on the root causes of the financial crisis. In this situation, we need more statesmanship from business leaders from the real economy, to help shift the policy debate onto real solutions. In so doing, as business leaders you will be protecting your own businesses from the disruptive effects of recession. There is also a case for institutional investors to engage in this issue as well, as the long term interests of savers are being risked by the current monetary system.

To sum up: how can your company help create more jobs? By getting involved in monetary reform efforts, and alternative exchange systems, including business barter networks, and the fledgling self-issued credit systems that people like my colleagues are working on. It might be easier to parrot the myths I mentioned above, but it wouldn’t be responsible, or effective.

Professor Jem Bendell

Founder, Lifeworth Consulting, Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum.

June 10th, 2012.

These developments in “collaborative consumption” bring a new dimension to the existing forms of alternative exchange systems, such as business barter networks or countertrade agreements, and community currency systems that help connect underused assets with unmet needs. Countertrade accounts for around 20% of world trade, while one national barter network now involves 1 in 5 small or medium sized companies in Switzerland, amounting to over US$1.5 billion a year. The new sphere of peer-to-peer financial-lending has taken off, and predicted to reach US$5 billion next year. It appears to be a time of disruptive innovation through new forms of sharing, exchanging, renting and co-owning.

Some of these activities are important to sustainable development, and, therefore, to the broad field of responsible enterprise (whether we label our work corporate social responsibility, sustainable business, social enterprise, shared value, responsible or impact investment, or some other term). For business executives to contribute to a positive sustainability outcome from these developments requires enhanced understanding of how to explore ways to become involved, including by adapting their own business models.

Which means there is an educational need, for those of us interested in enabling the sustainability transition. Lifeworth Consulting is conducting research on these developments, for presentation in July at the EABIS colloquium at IMD (in Lausanne), and in September at the Necessary Transition conference at GBS (in Brisbane). So, if you are currently employed, and would like to receive the results of this research, please participate in our 5 minute survey, it would really help:

http://www.lifeworth.com/survey-responsible-enterprise-collaborative-consumption

Please, click that link!

Thanks, Jem Bendell

Lifeworth founder and Adjunct Professor @ GBS

Some of you will be familiar with how a remission period of five years officially means that one is ‘cured’ of the ‘disease,’ as is my case. Looking back, what I find interesting is that during my convalescence and my subsequent return to health, as far as I can remember, no one around me mentioned the word ‘healing.’ Yet in whatever illness, personal or social, healing is key. Being Easter, it made me think about what the Christian tradition says about healing.

In “Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus”, author Ched Myers describes the symbolic meaning of Jesus’ actions in Mark’s Gospel. He explores the theme of healing through Jesus’ miracles. Citing the insights of theologian John J Pilch and his research into medical anthropology, he distinguishes between two approaches to the social meaning of sickness:

“Ethnomedicine places primacy on the culturally construed causes of illness…In contrast, biomedicine places primary emphasis on biological symptoms and pathogens…Disease derives from a biomedical perspective that sees abnormalities in the structure and/or function of organ systems. These are pathological states independent of whether or not they are culturally recognised. Disease affects individuals, and only individuals are treated. Illness is a sociocultural perspective that is concerned with personal perception and experience of certain socially dis-valued states including, but not limited to, disease. Illness inevitably affects others: the significant other, the family, the neighbourhood, the village…”

In this sense, we can get an understanding of the difference between ‘healing’ and ‘curing.’ Pilch goes onto say that,

“Jesus and all healers of that period could only perceive illnesses and not diseases [and therefore] Jesus’ activity is best described … as healing, not as curing [as] he provides social meaning for the life problems resulting from the sickness.”

As such, when authors use the disease ‘cancer’ as a metaphor to describe our current economic system, they refer to abnormal growth within that system and the socially dis-valued states it generates – illnesses such as inequality and poverty are two such examples.

As we seek to better understand the systemic implications of capitalism on business, people and community, we feel that ‘healing’ describes our intention. Our work, and our forthcoming book, not only addresses many of the symptoms of the ‘disease’, to use Pilch’s biomedical metaphor, but proposes strategies for business to become agents of ‘healing’ with the goal of restoring social wholeness, and thus greater well-being. In my case, having this context in mind has provided a powerful context for individual projects, as I question how our efforts and those of our clients, can best be agents of a wider healing.

For those of you who observe it, or appreciate festivals of reflection, Happy Easter!

Ian Doyle

Lifeworth Consulting

Jem Bendell by Paulo Pellegrin

“I’m delighted to hear Professor Jem Bendell has been appointed a Young Global Leader” said the head of the UN Global Compact, the largest corporate responsibility initiative in the world. Georg Kell explained “Bendell’s pioneering work on multistakeholder alliances in the late 1990s helped us at the United Nations understand how to engage business in new ways, which led to the launch of the Global Compact. We now count nearly 7,000 active participants. But that is not yet a critical mass. The great majority of companies worldwide remain aloof or sceptical. It is our aim that Rio+20 will bring a big boost to the spread of universal sustainability principles as advanced by the UN Global Compact so that the movement can reach a critical mass and transform markets for sustainable development.”

In his interview accepting the accolade, Professor Bendell discussed the opportunities and challenges for leadership today:

“One opportunity for the new generation of leaders is an awakening. Everywhere I turn, I’m hearing people asking “how long can it go on?” Financial and ecological crises are leading people to sense the need for a transformation of economic systems. In the past years working on sustainable development I’ve seen positive initiatives, products or services, but they remain marginal. Social innovations can no longer be the side show to systemic decay. Its time to team up for massive change, and take positive innovations from the margin to the mainstream. For that we need leaders who are adept at learning from the edge, because those ideas that seem strange to you today may hold the solutions for tomorrow.

“In a sense, the challenge of this generation of leaders is the same as any, to transcend the mental barriers we are brought up with, between us and them, us and nature, my generation and yours, my specialism and yours, my faith and yours. These barriers are inventions, yet we maintain them due to our egos, and fears, and our need to belong to one particular group. In an interdependent world we now need globally responsible leaders: not just leaders serving their own, but conscious of the world, and how they affect it. I’m not talking about leaders from the West, but leaders from the rest of the world, caring about all of the world.”

“One of the unique aspects of the Young Global Leader Community is that it is the first generation of leaders who are truly global citizens: they have all lived, studied and worked in different countries throughout their careers,” said David Aikman, Head of The Forum of Young Global Leaders. “They see themselves as being fundamentally interconnected and have the cross-cultural leadership skills to be successful in a globalized world. Thanks to the incredible diversity of the group, they are able to collaborate across complex systems and build informal coalitions to facilitate action on the biggest challenges facing the world today.”

In 2012 Professor Bendell is training leaders around the world, on the theme of “Healing capitalism through critical collaboration.” Destinations include: Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Istanbul, Madrid, Paris, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, and Zurich.

More on Jem Bendell:

A strategist and educator on social and organisational change, specialising in responsible business development, alliances for sustainable development, and transformative philanthropy. Professor Bendell has helped create innovative initiatives, such as the Marine Stewardship Council, to endorse sustainable fisheries, and The Finance Innovation Lab, to promote sustainable finance. He leads a consulting network, whose clients include UN, NGOs, large firms and family foundations, in over 25 countries. With a PhD in international policy, over 100 publications (including four books and five UN reports) and Visiting Professorships in management (GBS and IE), Professor Bendell is an award-winning international authority on business-society relations. He works with people who seek to contribute to, and benefit from, the transformation of markets to promote global well-being. His latest book on collaboration is “Evolving Partnerships”, and his latest TEDx talk is on sustainable currencies.

Business travel is taking Lifeworth’s Jem Bendell to these cities in 2012 and he wants to make his carbon count by speaking with and training professionals committed to the necessary transformations in business and finance. So if you live in one of those cities and could organise an event, or know someone who does, please read on.

The challenge is to take promising innovations in social and environmental practices to the mainstream, fast. After 16 years working on collaborative innovation for sustainable development, Professor Bendell dug deeper into our need to heal capitalism. He is identifying the businesses, investors, community leaders and policy makers who are getting to the roots of our problem.

• In a keynote presentation “Healing Capitalism”, you can hear about the actors and opportunities within this transformation and be inspired to connect with them (a lecture from 30 mins to 1 hour).
• In the skills workshop “Critical Collaboration” you can learn the methods for working together on transformative change, which Professor Bendell has been using in his work (a training of a half day to 1 day).

Hosts of keynotes or training workshops will demonstrate their commitment to this agenda through various communications channels available to Lifeworth, and could be featured in his forthcoming book “Healing Capitalism: business opportunities in global transition.”

The windows of opportunity to book Jem include:

Abu Dhabi – 2nd week of October
Bangkok – last week of May
Beijing – September 10th or 14th-19th
Brisbane – last 2 weeks of September
Dubai – 2nd week of October
London – 1st week of July
Hong Kong* – September 10th or 19th or 1st-2nd October
Istanbul – 1st week of June
Madrid – 1st week of September, last 2 weeks of October, or last 3 weeks of November
Paris – last 3 weeks of either June or July
Singapore* – last week of May or 30th September or 1st-2nd October
Stockholm – 22nd to 27th August
Sydney* – 29th or 30th September or 1st October
Zurich – last 3 weeks of either June or July

There is a fee to host, but no travel costs. The starred* cities need to be booked before March 30th to be definite. Other cities and dates may be possible, but will incur significantly more expense and a clear strategy for impact (so as to maximise the time and resources). In November, Professor Bendell will launch his latest book “Healing Capitalism”, co-authored with Ian Doyle.

If interested, please copy and paste the following questions and answer them in an email to connect @ lifeworth.com

1) The dates, times and location we propose:
2) Speech or workshop or both:
3) If the speech/seminar is part of another event, provide link:
4) The organisers:
5) The likely attendees (type and number):
6) How the event is funded:
7) If fees will be charged for the event, the amount:
8 ) What accommodation is offered for Professor Bendell:
9) The amount of the speakers fee guaranteed even if your organisation cancels later (for speech and/or training):
10) What other activities requested of Professor Bendell, if any:
11) Whether professional video filming and editing with free online release:
12) Name of contact person:

More on Jem Bendell:

A strategist and educator on social and organisational change, specialising in responsible business development, alliances for sustainable development, and transformative philanthropy. Professor Bendell has helped create innovative initiatives, such as the Marine Stewardship Council, to endorse sustainable fisheries, and The Finance Innovation Lab, to promote sustainable finance. He leads a consulting network, whose clients include UN, NGOs, large firms and family foundations, in over 25 countries. With a PhD in international policy, over 100 publications (including four books and five UN reports) and Visiting Professorships in management (GBS and IE), Professor Bendell is an award-winning international authority on business-society relations. He works with people who seek to contribute to, and benefit from, the transformation of markets to promote global well-being. His latest book on collaboration is “Evolving Partnerships”, and his latest TEDx talk is on sustainable currencies.

As I read leading commentators on business responsibility and sustainability sharing their insights on trends for 2012, I saw a new boldness. People are recognising the need for ambitious goals that address root causes, including economic governance failures. At Lifeworth we have been seeking to contribute to a sustainable economic transformation and published a variety of works on that theme over the past ten years. In that time I’ve seen the more critical analyses initially ignored by leaders in favour of less challenging narratives. Yet this year I think we will see more opportunity for ‘radical’ suggestions for change to be discussed and trialled. In that sense, despite the fears, it’s the year we have been waiting for. But rather than adding to the many predictions, I’ll summarise Lifeworth’s efforts that could be of relevance if you seek to team up to strive for far greater positive change than you might have before.

The first area for transformative action in which we are engaged is policy innovations for scaling responsible enterprise and finance. Rightly or wrongly, government budgets cuts are happening in many countries. The implications for them to regulate businesses for social and environmental objectives are beginning to be felt. How then can we promote and reward better business practice, without increasing the costs to government? Leveraging private standards of social or environmental performance is one option. In work for the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), we looked at public policy innovations to scale the number of firms adhering to voluntary standards like the Forest Stewardship Council. This appeared in the World Investment Report, with the full academic study published elsewhere. The idea that these forms of ‘collaborative economic governance’ are a pragmatic response to the twin challenges of sustainable development and government efficiencies, was fed into the policy discussions leading to Rio+20, happening this June. The need now is to create systems for collecting innovative public policies for scaling responsible business, analysing which work well in what contents, and disseminating this to government officials worldwide. If you can help on this project, do get in touch.

Yet we must go further than coping mechanisms in a world of irresponsible enterprise and governance failures. The second area for transformative action, therefore, is redesigning financial systems for more fair and sustainable outcomes. Although commitments to responsible investment have existed for some years, the translation into investment practice and the realities of corporate leaders has far to go. The limitations of current environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice in empowering investors to act is one of the stumbling blocks which we analysed in 2011, sparking lively debate. Our interest in ESG is because of the potential for progressive investor influence, which is a historically novel situation. In 2012 I hope we see the emergence of a progressive voice from investors on matters of public concern. Aside from investor-business relations, the public voice of the progressive investor has been slow to emerge. The Carbon Disclosure Project has shown that on climate change investors can sound a new tune on public policy. In 2012 and beyond, we could see other forums, particularly the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), providing opportunities for progressive investors to promote policy debates that better include social and environmental priorities. Whether they will be able to counter-balance the more regressive investor resistance to financial re-regulation will be interesting to watch.

In 2012 I’ll continue to participate in fora that discuss the need for transformation of economic systems for sustainable development, including The Finance Innovation Lab in the UK, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the Griffith University conference on transition, in Australia. As I explained in an interview for Griffith, the key stumbling block to progress on tough issues is our limiting assumptions and oversights about the real causes of our crises. During the next months I’ll be asking world leaders what they think are the key activities to drive massive positive change that weren’t possible before now, and who they need to work with to make that happen. Identifying such pressure points for massive positive change will inform our philanthropy advisory during 2012, and beyond.

One area where I think there is currently a woefully lack of attention, funding and action is in “sustainable currencies”. Current monetary systems are incompatible with the goal of a fair and sustainable economy, and thus we need greater efforts at reform, as well as at developing secure, scalable and community-owned alternative currencies and barter systems. It is, no doubt, a difficult area for many to grasp; as I experienced myself. Yet in 2011 there were strides towards greater understanding by sustainable development professionals, through the work of New Economics foundation (nef), among others. My TEDx talk on the topic reached over 12,000 views in a couple of months. As austerity bites and unemployment persists, new ways of getting people working for each other without putting governments further into debt will inevitably rise up political agendas. In 2012 we will help through collaboration with Community Forge and The Finance Innovation Lab, amongst others, and promote the uptake of ‘sustainable currencies’ as an innovative social development mechanism, through fora such as the Geneva Forum on Social Change.

What does this renewed emphasis on systemic change mean for specific industry sectors? I think the main implication is to be more ambitious in attempting to mainstream change for sustainable development. That is a third area for seeking transformative action. That has been our approach in the work we do in the luxury and mining sectors. With the organisation Fair Jewelry Action we researched and published “Uplifting the Earth: the ethical performance of high jewellery brands.” In this report we mapped out a transformative agenda for responsible jewellery, where the industry can contribute to sustainable development. From this basis, we aided De Beers’ stakeholder consultations, and worked with the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on their training for the jewellery industry, which will be rolled out from Antwerp this year. The Spanish version of the report was launched at the world’s first Sustainable Luxury Awards, in Buenos Aires, co-organised with CSSL and the Authentic Luxury Network. The aim of these awards is to encourage sustainable innovation in the luxury sector; this year’s awards are scheduled for November. The insights from our work on transformative corporate responsibility in the luxury sector were refined for the launch of the world’s first MBA module on ‘Sustainable Luxury and Design’, which I teach at IE Business School, in Madrid. Students learn how sustainability is the smartest and most elegant paradigm within which to design anything. At the other end of the value chain, in 2012 we are working with Channel Research and the German development agency Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to encourage disclosure on the social, environmental and economic impacts and contributions of mining companies in the Congo. There are few more challenging locations for mining to align better with the goals of peace, human rights and development.

A fourth area for transformative action in 2012 is enhancing the way UN agencies and civil society organisations engage companies. There are now many cross-sectoral partnerships, and the relationships they established hold the potential for greater changes. Largescale change goals need to be connected back to practical steps that can deliver benefits in the near term for various partner organisations. That’s the thinking behind a spate of new resources on more transformative partnering that were released in 2011, including reports from the UN Global Compact, and my own book, “Evolving Partnerships: engaging business for greater social change.” During 2011 we applied our approach to developing transformative alliances in our support for the International Labour Organisation’s fight against forced labour. In 2012 we aim to help the development of their Global Business Alliance against Forced Labour.

Despite the shocking persistence of slavery today, and the general dystopian tone we hear from thoughtful people in international fora, or indeed, because of such darkness, we need a bright vision for life on Earth. That is why we are helping the Future Perfect Festival in Sweden in August. It will celebrate the brilliance and fun of sustainable lifestyles, sustainable businesses and sustainable communities. It will shine rays of light on a better way of life, beyond the dark mountains of outmoded and destructive ways of thinking, working and living. Our ability to understand values, and articulate them in professional contexts, is important when working towards a positive vision. My colleague Ian Doyle has therefore been teaching ‘voicing your values’ class at Grenoble Graduate School of Business, and we will be integrating this into various lines of work in 2012. In our forthcoming book, Healing Capitalism, Ian and I will seek to integrate both the personal and systemic levels of analysis, to aid transformative action.

In summary, we hope our 2012 will involve the following arenas of transformative action:
1) Policy innovations for scaling responsible enterprise and finance;
2) Redesigning financial and monetary systems for more fair and sustainable outcomes;
3) Mainstreaming contributions to sustainable development within specific industry sectors (including luxury, mining etc);
4) More ambitious collaborations between UN agencies, civil society organisations and companies;
5) Visions of sustainable ways of living, pathways to achieve them, and values competence to walk that path.

To better develop our work, this year we become a Swiss non-profit association. We will remain a network of independent associates, and will continue to deliver in partnership with other service providers, for a limited number of clients who seek to create meaningful change. If you can help us have an impact in these areas, I’d love to hear from you.

Professor Jem Bendell
Founder and Director, Lifeworth.com and Lifeworth Consulting
Adjunct Professor, Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith Business School
Distinguished Visiting Professor, IE Business School

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Professor Bendell explains that the damaging effects of the financial crisis on companies are making some business leaders ask deeper questions about our economic system. Increasing inequality also presents risks to business, according to the International Monetary Fund and World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, as the costs of natural resources rise and our population reaches 7 billion, so more business leaders are wondering whether the world can support more and more economic growth. Professor Bendell, explains that management consultants and business schools have largely failed to provide business leaders with insight on these questions, and help them develop appropriate strategies. Throughout 2011 more business thinkers shared initial ideas on creating a new form of capitalism, but were too narrow in their analysis, according to Bendell.

He says we need to uncover our hidden assumptions in order to develop new insights into the strategic implications of our current crises. He describes how the current debate about the merits of economic growth is illustrative of how the wrong assumptions lead to meaningless and unresolvable debates. Professor Bendell explains that there are now four main views about the role of economic growth in society – pro-growth, no-growth, green-growth, and beyond-growth. These positions seem irreconcilable, and yet they are all based on a false assumption that the nature of money, and its mode of creation, is neutral in its effect on society. He explains how better understanding the monetary system could help resolve the impasse on growth, and lead to new approaches from business, even including new business opportunities.

The interview echoes arguments in his 2009 book “The Corporate Responsibility Movement”, where he suggests the fundamental reform of capitalism is now an issue for responsible business leadership. The interview follows up Professor Bendell’s TEDx talk on the hidden cause of the financial crisis, which is rapidly becoming the most watched speech on monetary reform available online. During 2012 Professor Bendell will be helping Griffith Business School develop its research and events to explore redesigning capitalism for sustainable development.

Interview at Griffith University, December 2011

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Speech at TEDxTransmedia, September 2011

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