The Sustainable Century: Recent Episodes
Marc de Sousa
Every century is known for something big. In the 17th century it was the Renaissance; in the 18th and 19th, the Industrial Revolution; in the 20th, it was Technology & Globalization. The 21st will be known as the Sustainability Century, or will be, if we manage to survive it.
It is not news that we are running short of arable land, water, minerals all the while putting impossible pressures on vital and ever shrinking ecologies, leading to resource conflicts, food insecurity, health risks, etc., etc. This alarm bell has been rung so many times it has become itself a great big scary cliché.
The Sustainable Century by Design or Disaster doesn’t ring this bell much. Nor does it engage in polarizing ideologically-based or emotional opposition to whatever side of the status quo one might be on. Rather, it sets its stubborn eye on the realities facing companies and what they can, can’t, and should do to participate in and profit from efforts big and small, subtle and radical to divert the economy from humming along down its oh-so unsustainable path.
Drew Tulchin from Upswing Associates, is an American social enterprise Super Hero. Twenty-five years of helping social enterprise from finance to food to Indigenous Nations, Drew has been there and done it.
In this episode of The Sustainable Century Podcast, host Marc de Sousa Shields and Drew talk about how not to play by the economist rules and reinvent how to measure value beyond income!
Elevating purpose to power our economic needs while making us happy. Social enterprise can do this.
Emma Kirke began her career as an environmental activist and conversationalist early, and her sense of urgency for finding ecological balance, justice, and quality of life for all is inspiring and uplifting.
Join Emma and The Sustainable Century Podcast Host, Marc de Sousa Shields as they discuss urgent solutions for climate change, environmental justice, equality, and biodiversity.... An up and coming leader.....
Myriam Fallon, Senior Communications Campaigner at the Sunrise Project, has spent time on Greenpeace boats, marched in protest, and managed global corporate campaigns trying to get companies to not only respect the environment, but do something positive about reversing their climate change, biodiversity loss, and more. Join Sustainable Century Podcast host Marc de Sousa Shields as he talks with Myriam about Blackrock (the $7 trillion) asset management company, #BLM, campaigning, corporate change and hope for the future.
This Week in Sustainability waxes manic, again. The EU is going green, will the US? Not likely. Blackrock, the asset manager, continues its gaseous words of sustainability, while the uber talented and amazing Melaw Nakehk’o, Dene artist, model, actor, and more, took her family to live in the bush in the Northwest Territories to get away from the white guy's pandemic. All this and more in This Week in Sustainability.
Transition to the desperately needed regenerative economy is possible, but, like the Covid pandemic, will require massive government support as we rapidaly phase out the fossil fuel economy – the only economy we have ever known. A guaranteed income scheme might be an important part of the transition.
How likely is this?
Join me and find out on This Week in Sustainability…
Part 2 of Memo to a Dying Species and Homo Sapiens Secret Code to Survival, feature podcast on The Sustainable Century.
It was mid-March. I was on my way back from Manila to Mexico, transiting through San Francisco.
A number of folks, like me, had congregated at a bar, perhaps for the last time in a long while, chatting nervously about the emerging coronavirus pandemic. Suddenly, a woman appeared. A gauzy scarf wrapped loosely in many layers about her neck over a slivery dress, set off by spidery web gold earrings and necklace.
She said nothing at first, standing there like wisdom personified, listening to the rest of us, cocking her head to one side whilst enjoying her cocktail. Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, and without due hesitation, she announced, “This thing…” pausing for a sip, “it’s a culling of the herd, nothing personal.”
With that, she tipped her glass, drained her drink, licked her lips, looked at each one of us in turn, mysteriously whispered some words none of us could hear, turned and walked away without a glance back.
Is America coming apart at the seams? What about a green Coronavirus recovery? The Capitalists' axe over the head of Jane and Joe? And freedom and the transition to a sustinable economy found in guaranteed income....?
All this and more in This Week In Sustainability
Eric Steedman is a leading Canadian social enterprise expert whose mission is to make business responsive to the needs of community and the environment.
Join Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast host Marc de Sousa Shields and Eric as they discuss how social enterprise can address critical social and economic challenges. From bee keeping to communal gardens, to food security work to housing, Eric describes numerous, exciting social enterprise working to make communities healthier, happier, and more sustainable, including his own intergenerational home rennovation project.
In this Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast, we speak with long time community development expert Alan Okagaki. Alan has been helping communities around the United States and Canada define and develop their visions from community finance, housing, and micro and small business.
This Week in Sustainability features all the politics, economics, and ecology of coronavirus and climate change combined... Ok, just some of it but still lots!!
In a time of coronavirus and with the climate crisis, understanding and accepting science and facts is critical to making the massive changes we need to survive as a species.
Adrian Bardon, PhD is a philosopher at Wake Forest University and is a foremost expert in the field of personal and political truth and denial. In this edition of The Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast, Adrian addresses the dilemma of why you might accept some 'facts' while rejecting others, when someone with an opposite worldview, might reject those very same 'facts' , while accepting those you dont.
Join host Marc de Sousa Shields as he discusses this and much more with Adrian Bardon.
Join host Marc de Sousa Shields as he speaks with the incredible Jojo Mehta of Ecocide Law, whose mission is to introduce ecocide into the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity and nature.
If you have been traveling recently, the coronavirus has made it impossible not to reflect on the incredible connectivity we share in this world.
We are, indeed, vitally connected to one another, quite an irony in an age of increasing atomization of tribes by opinion. Yet, we are co-joined in many millions of ways through social events, commerce, and of course, an insatiable curiosity that leads us to travel to the four corners of the world.
Does our image of farming match the reality of the large corporate dominated integrated production to table markets chains of today? “For many,” says Claire Kelloway of Food and Power, “Our vision of farms doesn’t really track what food production looks like.”
Join Claire and host of The Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast, Marc de Sousa-Shields discuss the limitations and harm that can come from monopolization and concentration of economic and political power in the food and agricultural sector, and what can be done about it?
The outbreak of the coronavirus has also caused an outpouring of empathy the world round. This tragic epidemic offers a lesson for the sustainbility movement: employ empathy, it is a most powerful weapon that can unites us in common good action to repair the evnvironment and reduced inequality.
Mexico’s brand has not done well of late in the international, but particularly in the US press
It’s a fantastic and wonderous country for all its faults. But few outside the country get more than distilled images of narcos and corruption, beaches and mariachis, and what about the country’s dependence on petroleum revenue?
Our guest, Carlos Perez Verdia, is a Mexican economist. He was an executive at the Central Bank of Mexico, an Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund representing Mexico, Central America, Spain and Venezuela, and held various positions, including head of advisors to the President, in the Peña Nieto administration (2012 to 2018). Carlos is now with Simbiosis EcoNOMica
Nathaniel Stinnett, founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project, was dubbed by Grist magazine as the voting guru and hailed by the New York Times as a visionary.
Nathaniel’s and the Environmental Voter Project's mission is to supercharge and activate the votes of all environmentalists the United States - all 15 million of them that dont always vote!
Listen to how Nathaniel, the EVP data nerds, and hundreds of 'get out the environmental vote' volunteers, work fulltime to grow the environmental electorate.
This week Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, the giant on-line retailer, announced he would use $10 billion of his $127 billion net worth to fund the Bezos Earth Fund with the promise of helping to resolve the global climate crisis.
The Fund, its a good thing, but in an ideally sustainable world Amazon might not exist, and if it did, it would look quite different.
But barring that alternative universe, there are many, and many more powerful things Mr. Bezos can do for the climate in addition to the Bezos Earth Fund.
This Week in Sustainablity…
.... Carbon emissions hold steady for 2019 .... UK Cultural worker protest fossil fuel patronage .... First Nations ramp up protests against pipelines in Canada .... BlackRock and Amundi shake their asset management sustainability sticks .... Trump threatens all things sustainable….
Text and video available at thesustainablecentury.net
This Week in Sustainability - Starbucks goes a bit meatless, the EPA re approves Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup, the UK moves it diesel and hybrid vehicle ban forward, and more....
In 1996, when Eugene Ellmen wrote The Canadian Ethical Money Guide there were some $40 million in sustainable and responsible investment in Canada. Today there are over $2 trillion.
Eugene is indisputably one of the greats of the modern sustainable and responsible investment movement, not only in Canada, but globally.
Listen to host Marc de Sousa Shields and Eugene discuss the evolution of ESG and impact investment, challenges, successes, and path towards greater growth and impact.
What’s in This Week in Sustainability?
A Final Davos round up.....The Guardian will not take any more fossil fuel adverts.....General Motors goes all electric… at one plant anyhow...... A trillion trees are still in the news......Goldman Sachs says one woman on a board of directors is enough.....And….KFC goes (a bit) meatless.
All this and more….in This Week in Sustainability.
I have Davos Dementia, it hurts. But its time to review. Summarize.
So, here is my first cut at a review of the World Economic Forum in Davos, done with thirty years of fori roaring in my ear (video and podcast).
This week, BlackRock, the giant US asset management firm, finally takes a substantive bite out of the sustainability apple, MicroSoft one-ups Amazon on carbon, and international tennis star Roger Federer caught some fossil fuel back-splash for his relationship with Credit Suisse… all this and more...
For the last three years, Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the USD 7 trillion under management investment firm, has been making noise about how corporate America needs to work for the common good, for all stakeholders, and not just shareholders
Lots of nice words. Now its time for action.
Join our panel of three expert sustainablity investment professionals as they make sense of Blackrocks new direction.
Join Marc de Sousa Shields, host of The Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast, as he talks with Dr. Quang Nguyen, author and agricultural development specialist, about the global #ClimateCrisis and how it is impacting his homeland.
With its low-lying agricultural areas dramatically affected by changing weather patterns, rising seas, increased soil salinity, and more, Vietnam is among several countries feeling the greatest impact of the #ClimateCrisis.
Despite dire threats to their hard won food secuirty, agricultural export earnings, and community livelihoods, Dr. Quang and his compatriots remain optimist, as they innovate and adapt to new climate realities.
This Week in Sustainability in Reivew for 2019.... ClimateKids, Extinction Rebellion, sustianable finance, Toxic Trump and more....
This week the worst for all things sustainable President Trump was impeached, BigFinance actually gave us some hope even as COP25 staggered to a near fatally disappointing conclusion, and Gorillas make a comeback putting a smile on the week.
If we were all as knowledgeable and honest about food as Jenn DeRose, Manager of Known and Grown, an initiative of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCE), there would be tons less carbon in the atmosphere, we would all be healthier, and local food sheds and farmers would be vibrant and happy!
When asked what kind of food she would be, Jenn responds: “Nutritional yeast.”
Curious? Check out Jen, magical punk foody, on The Sustainable Century Solutions Podcast.
The Sustainable Centuryinvited a few of our friends to record their thoughts and ideas on ways to celebrate a more and sustainable festive season.
Remember, no matter who you are, where you live, you can spread the word of love and peace: we are all sustainability leaders we only need choose to be one and it will be so!
May the gods great and small be with you always.
Greta is Time’s person of the year and explains leadership, how it is, more investors calling for climate action, legal suits against #BigOil, and the Good, the Bad and the Sad emerges as COP25 draws to a close. All this and more in This Week in Sustainability.
Get all the important sustainabilty news and all the important conventional news from a sustainability lens in This Week in Sustainability... Want more? Go to see the text at http://bit.ly/33WZzM3
Not only has BigOil buried evidence that their product is responsible for most human made carbon emissions, they have employed carefully crafted language in their sustainability reports designed to obfuscate the cause and blame for climate change.
Dr. Sylvia Jaworska, professor of linguistics at the University of Reading in the UK explains the motives and impact of their words.....
And yes, the maxim applies, Words Count.
Join host Marc de Sousa Shields and special guest Paula Glick, entrepreneur, investor, and impact maker, as they discuss the importance and potential of ESG investment on this edition of The Sustainable Century Podcast.
While it is sad there is such a thing as the ‘aid industry’ good things are being done by governments, the private sector and billionaire philanthropist to resolve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
@AmericanIndian8 is among one the most powerful community voices on Twitter. Its constant unvarnished news and perspectives from the American Indian perspective inspires hope for American Indians and others who believe being true to your spirit is essential to survival as a species.
Desperately seeking technological change that maintains the current reductionist, Cartesian based economic model will not get us to sustainable argues Dr. John Ehrenfeld, author and professor emeritus of MIT. The only hope to save ‘ourselves from ourselves’ he says, is to care more about each other than about what we can consume.
CEO pay has been rising since the late 1980s and has reached incredible heights, defying any correlation with work performance. Rosanna Landis Weaver of As You Sow explains why it rose and how it is bad for all things sustainable.
Listen to Alex Counts, former Executive Director of the Grameen Foundation USA, and The Sustainable Century podcast host Marc de Sousa Shields, as they discuss stories of leadership and professional development from Alex’s three decades of experience.
Join Anuja Sawant as she recounts her journey from India to Canada via New Jersey, sharing perspectives on sustainability and culture she encountered and learned along the way.
A former sustainability manager at IKEA, Anuja is an environmental & social sustainability specialist working on a variety of consultancies. She blogs at https://anujasawant.com where she has interviewed a range of sustainability experts from both North America and India.
How can we have more environmentally friendly, habitat restoring food? Listen to Daniel Moss, of the Agroecology Fund on The Sustainable Century Pocast as he describes how the world can feed itself and restore millions of acres of natural habitat.
For 25 years, Shared Interest has been providing loan guarantees to low income entrepreneurs and farmers in Southern Africa. Join host Marc de Sousa Shields and his special guest, Donna Katzin of Shared Interest in this Sustainable Century Podcast.
Cities in the future will be more numerous, densely populated, and complex. How we manage them will be key to a sustainable future. Join Jo Flatt of Evergreen and host Marc de Sosua Shields as they discuss all Sustainable Cities!
In 2018, more human produced carbon was disgorged into our biosphere than any other year, yet Big Oil drags it feet on change. With the clock of irreversible ecological damage running out, the only possible solution we can enact in time: nationalize Big Oil.
Join Lee Perry of Fleet Farming and The Sustainable Century Podcast host Marc de Sousa-Shields as they talk local food production and front yard gardens.
David Slutzky's Fermanta Energy is disrupting energy and automotive industries by connecting electrical vehicles (EV) to the grid, making EVs and clean energy more affordable for all.... and saving the planet!
Rebelling against extinction, says Dr. Gail Bradbrook of the Extinction Rebellion, may be our last chance of averting impending planetary ecological collapse.
In this Sustainable Century Podcast, I speak with Alice Korngold, of Korngold Consulting. Our discussion examines how companies can positively act on pressing social, environmental and economic challenges by having employees work with non-profits on the front line of change.
A football stadium full of rabid fans has transcendental potential to address pressing environmental issues and ugly social and economic divisions. Imagine that: sustainability in sports!
Who should Head the World Bank, What about the Green New Deal, and did you hear about The End of Capitalism?
Tune in with host Marc de Sousa Shields and guest John Friedman as they discuss this and more in The Sustainable Century Week podcast.
Rebecca Burgess shares an amazing wealth of information with straight forward candor that spells hope for a more ecologically balanced future, strong local economies, and a healthier, more just world. A dye artisan, weaver, and ecological futurist, Rebecca rejoices our inner beauty, works to restore ecological balance, and rejects fast fashion as a terribly destructive machine. Join her in this fantastic interview!
How too many Black Friday ‘s’ created an industry and threatens the planet with economic Patriotism
Have you seen Storage Wars? It’s the reality show where a cast of characters bid on the unseen contents of abandoned warehouse lockers.....
The US mid-term elections were all health care and hate, but they also projected America’s insecurity and desperate need for a more sustainable world.
Last week I suggested that we are witnessing the emerging confluence of authoritarianism, hyper-consumerism, and carbon. Or in the vernacular: Putin, plastics and profits.
I fear the emerging trajectories of climate change and the authoritarian right is seriously, if not irreparably damaging hopes for a democratic, market-based sustainable world order...
In a recording made late spring 2018, I had the honor to speak with Fazlul Kader, Deputy Director of the PKSF. Fazlul’s treasure chest of knowledge combines sweeping historic perspective with starkly honest assessments about his countries potential for sustainable development. This, combined with his exuberant good nature and fathomless optimism, provides hope for a more sustainable Bangladesh and world.
If movies tell us about our darkest thoughts, we should be scared. A dystopian future is upon us, and like deers in the headlights we start at end of the world movies in fascination, meanwhile the climate boils up endless hurricanes, droughts, resource conflicts and all things unsustainable....
Andrea Learned is a thought leader on Sustainability Thought Leadership! For anyone, in any context, any part of their life who wants to step out a bit for a healthier and happier world, check out Andrea on this installment of the The Sustainable Century Podcast.
Susan Shane has written for many outfits including the New York Times, and is a practical thinker about how to live a happier, healthier (sustainable life!).
Joel Solomon is author of the Clean Money Revolution, chair of Renewal Funds, Canada's largest social enterprise investment fund, among many other activities. In this installment of The Sustainable Century podcast, Joel and host Marc de Sousa Shields talk about what former Canadian Prime Minister Stephan Harper call Joel's position at the 'nefarious' nexus of politics and radical progressive movements. A better characterization of Joel: huge heart, sharp mind, and someone cares deeply for the welfare of the planet and its people. Listen to the cast and you decide who is right!
How do you get a message of sustainability out in the howl and fervor of the social media universe?
Join hose Marc de Sousa-Shields, with special guest Marissa Rosen of Climate Social, a social media and sustainability communication consultancy, as they explore community building at the intersection of sustainability and social media.
The Sustainable Century (mostly) Weekly Wrap - International Women's Day, Guns (again), Lacoste and Lego making sustainability news. Picture credit New York Times ( http://nyti.ms/2tt7h3v )
Are there enough stakeholder voices pressuring politicians to make substantive changes to gun control laws? What pressure can sustainable and responsible investment and corporate sustainability advocates bring to bear? Marc de Sousa Shields with guests Jonas Kron of Trillium Asset Management and David Chandler of the University of Colorado Denver School of Business explore the possibilities.
Looking back at the The Sustainable Century week, a peek forward to the next, thanking The Sustainable Century contributors, and something I learned from my kid's Grade 10 class about stakeholders.....
In this edition of the Sustainable Century Podcast, host Marc de Sousa Shields speaks with Mark Regier, Vice President of Stewardship Investing, Praxis Mutual Funds about sustainable investment.
Listen to Mark explain sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) in plain language, and hear why some SRI mutual funds seem a bit disappointing at first, yet are full of great social value creation opportunity. Other topics include the delights of high impact investment and the vitally important work of shareholder advocacy.
New to SRI, or already made some trades, you'll enjoy listening to Mark's twenty plus years of experience in the field.
Guns, we know the stats, we know the pain. Which "rights" do we favor? A 200 year old right whose time has long come and gone. Or the right to safe and secure communities. If government is unable or unwilling to act, can corporate America step up? Recent announcements by Blackrock and Unilever suggest some hope.
With comments by Heather White, Tim Mohin, DAvid Chandler, Andrea Learned, John Friedman, Joel Solomon, and more...
Unilever says it could pull advertising from digital platforms like Facebook because they have become “ ‘swamps’ of fake news, racism, sexism, and extremism.”
This is on the heels of Blackrock CEO Larry Fink’s recent warning to corporate America where he said to capture Blackrock interest companies will need to bring social value to the table, and not just the pursuit of profit.
Two big announcements. What are experts thinking? And will there be lasting and meaningful impact on the way companies do business?
Host Marc de Sousa Shields talks with Jennifer Boynton, Editor in Chief at CR Magazine, and VP member Engagement, 3BL Media about the recent Blackrock Proclamation on business social value contribution, future trends in CSR and a bit about the changes at 3BL Media.... join us on the Sustainable Century....!
In this edition of The Sustainable Century Podcast, host Marc de Sousa-Shields speaks with Ruth Solomon.
Ruth is director of Organization for Social Development in Ethiopia, a vibrant country, rich in culture at the cross roads of Africa and Arabia. Its recent history is one where hope and poverty abound in frequent destabilizing events from war, to mass immigration in and out of the country. The country, says Ruth, is emerging with its own model of growth and development, and we spoke of how companies can play a role in the emerging new Ethiopia, and how Ethiopian companies are, or not, beginning to take their social, environmental and economic roles more seriously.
In this episode of The Sustainable Century podcast, host Marc de Sousa Shields continues his conversation with Coro Strandberg about how companies and stakeholders can create shared value on seemingly intractable social, economic and environmental challenges.
In this special edition of The Sustainable Century Podcast, host Marc de Sousa-Shields speaks with Heather White about sustainability in supply chains, brand responsibilities, vegans saving the world, and about her powerful new film: Who Pays the Price - The Human Cost of Electronics.
Is it the stakeholder's fault when things go terribly wrong for a company? According to David Chandler it is. And are all stakeholders equal? What if one stakeholder has more power or money than others, what happens then? Is their opinion more important simply because they can dominate the message?
If you caught David Chandler's The Sustainable Century podcast "Corporate Sustainability Strategy & Whose to blame when things go Wrong" Part 1, you are going to love Part 2.
David is a professor at University of Colorado and is co-author of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation.
In this episode of The Sustainable Century, host Marc de Sousa Shields speaks with Coro Strandberg about shared value, her vision of transformational companies and why it’s in a company’s interest to help resolve some seemingly intractable social, economic and environmental challenges.
In this episode, David Chandler of the University of Colorado discusses corporate sustainability strategy, exploring the themes of corporate influence and responsible consumerism.
With a PhD and M.S. in Management, David knows his stuff! He is co-author of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation.