http://www.cchange.net Covering the transformations to social, environment and economic sustainability Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:08:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Sea Change Radio covers the transformations to social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Change is accelerating in positive and negative directions: the clock is ticking in the race to see which will tip first—the problems or the solutions. Join Sea Change's Host, Alex Wise, as he provides in-depth analysis to help our audience understand possible remedies and potential pitfalls. Sea Change interviews sustainability experts including Paul Hawken, Stewart Brand, Bill McKibben, Van Jones, Lester Brown, and many others. Sea Change airs on over 30 radio stations around the country. Alex Wise clean Alex Wise awise@cchange.net awise@cchange.net (Alex Wise) 2007-2011 Making Connections for Sustainability Sustainability, Climate Change, Human Rights, Environment, Corporate Responsibility, Socially Responsible Investing, Accountability, Stakeholders, Clean Tech, Renewable Energy, Green Jobs, Wealth Divide http://www.cchange.net/wp-content/uploads/cwr-images-archive/SeaChangeRadioTAG_square144_sm.jpg http://www.cchange.net Weekly http://www.cchange.net/2009/05/06/community-governance/ http://www.cchange.net/2009/05/06/community-governance/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 19:35:37 +0000 Bill Baue http://www.cchange.net/?p=840 http://www.cchange.net/2009/05/06/community-governance/feed/ 0 Community Economic Engagement,community governance,corporate governance,Fair Trade,Fair Trade Towns,Green Living,human rights,jessie smith noyes foundation,Labor Rights,Local Living Economies,Shareholder Engagement,southwest organizing project Longtime shareowner activist Steve Viederman discusses the notion of community governance, where communities reclaim democratic power of self-determination from corporations and other external forces.  Exemplifying community governance is the Fair Trad... (http://www.cchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/steveviederman-150x150.jpg)Longtime shareowner activist Steve Viederman (http://www.sustainability.com/about/profile.asp?id=84) discusses the notion of community governance, where communities reclaim democratic power of self-determination from corporations and other external forces.  Exemplifying community governance is the Fair Trade Towns (http://www.fairtradetownsusa.org/) movement, where communities commit to supporting Fair Trade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade) commodities such as coffee and cocoa.  We speak about Fair Trade Towns and World Fair Trade Day (http://www.worldfairtradeday09.org/) with Amherst Fair Trade Partnership (http://www.myspace.com/amherstfairtrade) Chair Yuri Friman and Bart's Cafe (http://www.bartshomemade.com/greenfield.htm) owner Al Sax, who is coordinating the launch of the fourth Fair Trade Town here in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Valley) where we produce Sea Change Radio.  And finally, this week's ViewPoint comes from Liana Foxvog of SweatFree Communities (http://www.sweatfree.org/) on its latest report, Subsidizing Sweatshops II, which identifies how communities can advocate for their state and local governments to avoid buying products such as firefighter uniforms produced in sweatshop conditions. In November 2008, Steve Viederman met with some of the best community organizers in the country at the the South by Southwest Learning Continuum: Southern Echo (http://southernecho.org/s/) from Jackson, Mississippi; Southwest Workers Union (http://www.swunion.org/) (SWU) from San Antonio, Texas; and SouthWest Organizing Project (http://www.swopblogger.org/) (SWOP) from Albuquerque, New Mexico.    "Community governance" was the buzz -- in other words, communities reclaiming democratic power of self-determination from corporations and other external forces.   As longtime president of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation (http://www.noyes.org/), Viederman helped steer grants to community organizations working to empower citizens and protect their local environment.  For example, the Noyes Foundation helped SWOP engage with Intel (http://www.noyes.org/97pres.html) over environmental issues such as water use and toxics in its New Mexico chip manufacturing facility.  On a recent visit to his grandchildren, Viederman stopped by the studios to chat about community governance. Among other things, he distinguished between communities as stakeholders, the current terminology, and stakeowners, the term Viederman proposes as a more accurate description of communities' rights and responsibilities.   (http://www.cchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/fairtradetown-150x150.jpg)Next, there's a movement afoot for communities to use their collective consumer power to promote Fair Trade, which sets a fair price for commodities like coffee and cocoa and deals directly with worker cooperatives to empower growers globally.  Fair Trade Towns is gaining steam in the US, particularly here in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where we produce Sea Change Radio.  To find out more, we invited Yuri Friman, Chair of the Amherst Fair Trade Partnership, and Al Sax, who's helping launch Greenfield as the fourth Fair Trade Town in the Valley, into the studio. Bill Baue clean 29:31 http://www.cchange.net/2009/02/04/slow-money-compost-growing-new-economy/ http://www.cchange.net/2009/02/04/slow-money-compost-growing-new-economy/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:00:32 +0000 Bill Baue http://www.cchange.net/?p=514 http://www.cchange.net/2009/02/04/slow-money-compost-growing-new-economy/feed/ 2 Alternative Economic Models,Climate Change,Community Economic Engagement,Fair Trade,Green Living,jessie smith noyes foundation,katy lederer,Local Living Economies,steve viederman,Sustainable Agriculture,Sustainable Business,Sustainable Innovation Today we measure the speed of money.  Woody Tasch discusses his book, .  And Katy Lederer transforms her experience working in the fast money culture of Wall Street into poetry in the book , . - We're all reeling from the roller coaster-ride of fast m... (http://www.cchange.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/woodytasch-150x150.jpg)Today we measure the speed of money.  Woody Tasch (http://www.chelseagreen.com/authors/woody_tasch/) discusses his book, .  And Katy Lederer (http://www.boaeditions.org/authors/lederer.html) transforms her experience working in the fast money culture of Wall Street into poetry in the book , . We're all reeling from the roller coaster-ride of fast money, where trillions of dollars transact daily across silicon microchips, and trillions evaporate in the shifting sands unfettered capitalism.  The solution?  Slow money, according to Woody Tasch, recent founder of the nonprofit by that name (http://www.slowmoneyalliance.org/).  In his book, also called Slow Money, Tasch consciously riffs on the notion of Slow Food (http://www.slowfood.com/), the Italian-gone-global movement of reconnecting our eating with the land that produces our food.  As he hints in the subtitle of his book -- Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered -- Tasch plays on the agrarian metaphor of slow money as compost in which to nurture a new kind of economy. For a decade, until 2008, Woody Tasch chaired the Investor's Circle (http://www.investorscircle.net/), angel investors who deploy patient capital toward a sustainable future. In the 1990s, Tasch served as treasurer of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation (http://www.noyes.org/).  There, he and foundation president Steve Viederman first critiqued the dissonance (http://www.noyes.org/94essay.html) between foundations' grantmaking, which aligns with their missions, and investing, which often counteracts social and environmental commitments of their missions.  They sought to harmonize their foundation's mission with its investing, which typically accounts for 95 percent of an endowment, as well as its granting, which accounts for the remaining 5 percent. Bill Baue clean http://www.cchange.net/2008/06/25/bob-monks-exxonmobil-exemplifies-corpocracy/ http://www.cchange.net/2008/06/25/bob-monks-exxonmobil-exemplifies-corpocracy/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:03:00 +0000 Bill Baue http://www.cchange.net/2008/06/25/bob-monks-exxonmobil-exemplifies-corpocracy/ http://www.cchange.net/2008/06/25/bob-monks-exxonmobil-exemplifies-corpocracy/feed/ 0 Climate Change,corporate governance,EPA,exxon,human rights,Renewable Energy,shareholder resolutions,steve viederman The ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this year carried high expectations from shareholder activists. Members of the Rockefeller family, descending from the founder of the Standard Oil monopoly that splintered into Exxon and Mobil, (http://bp1.blogger.com/_i87Eno9Cr6U/RzEZaT2d6eI/AAAAAAAAAAc/sxXjfoOqPmQ/S220/corpocracy_sm.jpg)(http://www.ragm.com/images/BobMonksHome.jpg) The ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this year carried high expectations from shareholder activists. Members of the Rockefeller family, descending from the founder of the Standard Oil monopoly that splintered into Exxon and Mobil, attended the meeting to support four different shareholder resolutions on corporate governance and climate change. Of these four, the resolution supported by most Rockefellers asked the company to split the CEO and Board Chair positions. Today's CWR guest, Bob Monks, has filed this resolution at ExxonMobil since the early 2000s. His struggle to hold ExxonMobil accountable exemplifies the broader struggle to hold corporations accountable described in his new book, Corpocracy. Monks is co-founder of Institutional Shareholder Services, The Corporate Library, Lens Governance Advisors, and a former Labor Department official in the Reagan Administration. Bob Monks' Website (http://ragmonks.blogspot.com/) Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World's Greatest Wealth Machine -- And How to Get It Back Web extra: Bob Monks chats with CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon about the US presidential candidates' ability to take on corpocracy. Listen (http://www.cchange.net/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/Monks-extra.mp3) CWR Headlines: --ExxonMobil loses appeal to Supreme Court on human rights abuse case (http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D91B7PHG0.htm) CWR ViewPoint:  read (http://vcr.csrwire.com/node/8711) (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.) Longtime shareholder activist Steve Viederman presented this statement at the ExxonMobil Annual Meeting in May 2008 to introduce resolution 19 asking Exxon to adopt a renewable energy policy. He filed the resolution along with other individuals, families, foundations and religious orders, joined by 20 institutional investors worth over $740 billion in combined assets, including Exxon Mobil stock valued at more than $8.6 billion. Steve Viederman Bio (http://www.sustainability.com/about/profile.asp?id=84) Bill Baue clean 28:46