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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 Trade Towns movement, where communities commit to supporting Fair Trade commodities such as coffee and cocoa. Read the show transcript
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Currently, communities are unwittingly supporting sweatshop labor when state and local governments use tax dollars to buy things such as firefighter uniforms. Liana Foxvog, National Organizer of the advocacy organization SweatFree Communities, discusses findings of Subsidizing Sweatshops II, the latest research on sweatshops perpetuated by government contracts.Read the show transcript
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Green jobs are all the talk nowadays, which has predictably led to healthy debate. On today’s Sea Change Radio, Co-Host Francesca Rheannon talks with GreenBiz Senior Writer Marc Gunther about his controversial article, “The Phony Green Jobs Debate.” Bob Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, author of a report criticized by Gunther, responds. To end the show, Rhennon speaks with David Johnson about Transition Towns.
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William Greider talks about a new moral order for capitalism, drawing from his new book [amazon-product text=”COME HOME, AMERICA: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country” type=”text”]1594868166[/amazon-product]. And in the Sea Change ViewPoint, Hazel Henderson of Ethical Markets Media predicts the rise of “new financiers” whose prime currency is information, not money.
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The Center for Popular Economics (CPE) recently hosted the first Forum on the Solidarity Economy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst — home of Sea Change Radio. CPE Executive Director Emily Kawano explains the theory and practice behind the solidarity economy, and discusses strategies and next steps for the US Solidarity Economy Network in cultivating a socially and environmentally sustainable economy. And Chilo Villarreal of the Coalición Rural in Mexico illustrates solidarity economy concepts through story. Finally, the News Analysis examines the business of water.
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BuildingGreen.com founder Alex Wilson discusses the history, current state, and future of the green building movement. Erin Gorman, CEO of Divine Chocolate USA, welcomes the move by Cadbury to source Fairtrade cocoa from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana that owns Divine, and Bama Athreya of the International Labor Rights Forum also applauds Cadbury’s move. And Karl Frisch of Media Matters brings us the ViewPoint on how the mainstream media is dropping the ball on covering climate change.
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Cadbury, the popular British chocolate maker, just agreed to source Fairtrade cocoa for Cadbury Dairy Milk, the top-selling chocolate bar in the UK. The move effectively triples sales of Fairtrade cocoa for farmers in Ghana, where Cadbury sources from Kuapa Kokoo. It was one of the first cooperatives there to be Fairtrade certified in the ’90s. In the late ’90s, Kuapa Kokoo also started its own brand, Divine Chocolate, to keep more of the value that typically gets skimmed by middle-men and big chocolate companies. Erin Gorman, CEO of the Divine Chocolate USA, welcomes the move, which validates its model of Fairtrade sourcing. Bama Athreya, executive director of the activist NGO International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), also supports the development.
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Stephanie Kaza links buddhism and sustainability in her new book, [amazon-product text=”Mindfully Green: A Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking” type=”text”]1590305833[/amazon-product]. Sea Change Co-Host Francesca Rheannon covers coal protests at the Mount Tom Power Plant in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where she interviewed local activists Glen Ayers and Tina Clarke. And finally, this week’s ViewPoint comes from Business for Social Responsibility CEO Aron Cramer, who proposes three corporate reforms.
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Corporation 20/20, an organization promoting alternative corporate structures, just announced the Second Summit on the Future of the Corporation, slated for this June in Boston. Discussion amongst those who attended the first Summit in November 2007 was abuzz about the future of boards of directors. In the broader press, fingers are pointing, primarily at the banking industry as the culprit and at outrageous executive pay. As accurate as these points may be, the troubles run deeper and wider, according to Aron Cramer. He’s CEO of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a global nonprofit network of businesses focused on sustainability, and he’s on the convening committee for the Future of the Corporation Summit. In this week’s Sea Change ViewPoint, Cramer calls for more structural reforms.
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In January 2009, Human Rights Watch issued a briefing paper entitled Employee Free Choice Act: A Human Rights Imperative. The paper details some of the glaring deficiencies in current US labor law that significantly impair the right of workers to freely choose whether to form a union. It recommends that the US Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act to help remedy these shortcomings and bring US law closer to international standards. Arvind Ganesan, Director of Business and Human Rights at Human Rights Watch, brings us this week’s ViewPoint.Read the show transcript