Values-driven Business and
C.E.D.
Business in Transformation
• needs to reorient to the needs of
community and planet in its goals and
means.
• needs to expand its moral and legal
status to include its workers and all
stakeholders affected by its actions.
• needs to support positive business
activity in every community.
• special difficulties of small business in
the existing economy.
– need for a fundamental shift in economic
resources from the Wal-Marts to the SmallMarts.
Limits vs. Transformation
The Oil / Suburb / Debt /
Mass Consumption
economy created a
structure of
development.
A green economy must
create a logical structure
of its own.
Redefining Wealth
Quantitative:
Money & Material
Accumulation
Qualitative:
Well-being
Regeneration
Dematerialization & the
ESCO model
• Savings as a virtual source of energy
• The Green Economy: creates Wealth through
savings (or dematerialization)
• Savings as a source of Investment
Challenge of financial design: dealing with first costs
End-Use & the Green Economy
1. The Service Economy
“Hot Showers and Cold Beer”
Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access,
Shelter, Community, etc.
2. The “Lake Economy”
Flowing with nature, Every output an input,
Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the
work
Structural obstacles to
sustainability
• Nature of the Corporation & the
SBL
• Centrality of Economic Growth
• Ownership patterns inconsistent
with Stewardship
• Alienated relationship to human
need
– Creating rather than
responding to it
The Corporation in History
•
•
•
•
initial charters
the Corporate Person & industrialization
Bureaucracy: the rise of Big Organization
Fordism: Mass production & the crisis of
effective demand
– postwar Waste Economy
• Post-Fordism: “commanding heights” shift from
manufacturing to finance and retail, globalization
& outsourcing
• Current pressure to create “Stakeholder
Corporations”
Corporate Strategies
• Corporations as financial, not
production, entities
• Structural problems: the ‘bottom
line’
• documentary: The Corporation
• Need to change corporate DNA
• Need for outside help: regulation
(EPR), new enterprises networks,
certification
• The Stakeholder Corporation &
democracy
The Business Case for
Sustainability
• Single Bottom Line Sustainability
(SBLS)
• Essential to large corporations
• Not sufficient to create ecological
economies
Corporations need outside help!
Internal & External Action
• The balance is different for big
& small business
• Relationship between
democracy & economic
evolution
• Centrality of Stakeholder
relationships
• Importance of New Enterprise
Networks
General Priorities
• labour vs. resource intensity
--beyond cog-labour; upgrading work (“human capital”)
• qualitative indicators of wealth and progress
--corporate accounting / community indicators
• place-based production & development
• economic democracy: workers, community, society
• organizational change: structure & culture that infuses all
operations with sustainability goals & practices.
• transparency: de-monopolizing information
• restructuring of manufacturing: means/ends
• marketing: affects all aspects of the firm
Quantification & Value
• What is measured gets done
• What gets counted is valued;
What is valued gets counted
Market Transformation
• Social & Environmental Values
become drivers of “mindful
markets”
• Money & capital increasingly a
means (not the end-goal) of
economic development
• Involves the transformation of
regulation —incentives &
disincentives built into everyday
economic life
Manufacturing & the Ecological
Service Economy
“Match Manufacturing to Mission”
• Production contributes to Qualitative Wealth
• Waste Equals Food
• Dematerialization of Production and Higher
Resource Efficiency
• Reduction of the Speed of Resource Flow through
the Economy
• Appropriate Scale
• Regenerative Work is Created
• New Rules & Closed Loops: LCA and EPR
Distributed Regulation
• Need for incentives & disincentives
embedded in everyday production &
exchange.
• 3rd Party certification systems as
non-state regulation.
• Finance & taxation as regulation
• Power of “collective consumerism”
• B-Corp: certification of corporate
governance: changing corporate
DNA
• Ownership tailored to stewardship
and democracy.
Values-driven Business
Economic tendencies towards
decentralization
Technological:
networked info economy
distributed generation
miniaturization
Ecological: economic biomimicry /
ecosystem model of development / peak oil
/ distribution costs
Social: creativity base: human-scale
Companies that provide products or
services that improve the quality of
life in their communities
Companies that
invests their profits in
social or
environmental causes
Companies that
operate more
responsibly
Values-Driven Business
employees
communit
y
company
5 Dimensions
of ValuesDriven
Business
customers
suppliers
Community / Small Business
• The realm of cutting-edge alternatives in almost
every sector
• Need for new & stronger networks
• Local market power based on solid knowledge
• Import substitution
• Regenerative finance
• Necessity of empowering all sections of the
community
• Community development Plans & Indicators
Localization
•
•
•
•
•
LOIS vs. TINA
Local First not “buy local”
Multipliers
Employment
Stability / security
– Peak Oil / Corporate Mobility
• Quality of Life
• Efficiency
TINA vs. LOIS
• localism &
accountability
• job creation
• stability
• diversity
• multiplier effect
• ecological scale
What BALLE Networks Do
Members of Local BALLE Networks have a
direct stake in the future of their communities
and bioregions and include local business
owners, non-profit leaders, government
representatives, and engaged citizens.
Members of Local Networks work together to:
• Support the growth and development of community-based business
• Encourage local purchasing by consumers and businesses
• Create opportunities for business leaders to network and share best
practices
• Advocate public policies that strengthen independent local businesses
and farms, promote economic equity, and protect the environment
In order to support our Local
Networks, BALLE:
• Provides Local Networks with tools, business models
and other resources
• Maintains an online marketplace of independent,
community-based businesses
• Links Local Living Economies to share best practices
• Promotes Local Living Economies through media, public
forums, and partnerships
• Develops pilot initiatives to strengthen Local Living
Economies
Principles of Local Living Economies
• Living economy communities produce and exchange locally as
many products needed by their citizens as they reasonably can,
while reaching out to other communities to trade in those products
they cannot reasonably produce at home. These communities value
their unique character and encourage cultural exchange and
cooperation.
• Living economy public policies support decentralized ownership of
businesses and farms, fair wages, taxes, and budget allocations,
trade policies benefiting local economies, and stewardship of the
natural environment.
• Living economy consumers appreciate the benefits of buying from
living economy businesses and, if necessary, are willing to pay a
price premium to secure those personal and community benefits.
LLE Principles (con’t)
• Living economy investors value businesses that are community
stewards and as such accept a 'living return' on their financial
investments rather than a maximum return, recognizing the value
derived from enjoying a healthy and vibrant community and
sustainable global economy.
• Living economy media provide sources of news independent of
corporate control, so that citizens can make informed decisions in
the best interests of their communities and natural environment.
• Living economy businesses are primarily independent and locally
owned, and value the needs and interests of all stakeholders, while
building long-term profitability.
LLE Businesses:
• Source products from businesses with similar values, with a
preference for local procurement
• Provide employees a healthy workplace with meaningful living
wage jobs
• Offer customers personal service and useful safe, quality
products
• Work with suppliers to establish a fair exchange
• Cooperate with other businesses in ways that balance their
self-interest with their obligation to the community and future
generations
• Use their business practices to support an inclusive and
healthy community, and to protect our natural environment
• Yield a 'living return' to owners and investors
Local First Campaigns
•
•
•
•
•
•
Money spent local, stays local
Local owners are local contributors
Local owners offer stable employment
Lower environmental impact
Tax revenues go further
Maintain uniqueness