Blog

With all this talk about the “triple bottom line,” I have found very few companies who have actually achieved such a thing. Better World Books is one of the few. And I had the privilege of interviewing co-founder Xavier Helgesen to get the scoop. Triple bottom line refers to an organization which considers its impact in terms of people, planet, and profit – or social, environmental, and financial returns. Read more...

The ability to benefit financially from positive environmental activities can be a great motivator (e.g. advances in clean technology, green building and ecotourism). Indeed, harnessing the profit motive to get people to reduce carbon seems like a win-win. But in commoditization there is also a danger—the danger of losing sight of the real source of value. Read more...

Joel Makower, co-founder and executive editor of Greener World Media, kicked off today’s State of Green Business Forum which coincided with a release of GreenBiz.com’s second annual State of Green Business report. Nearly 500 attendees filled the PG&E Auditorium in San Francisco, representing 20 states, Fortune 500 companies, NGO’s, government entities, consulting firms, the media and more. I was lucky enough to attend and cover the piece for the GreenBiz.com blog where you can see my in-depth coverage of the event. This piece contains excerpts from that coverage. Read more...

Carbon and carbon markets are a hot topic today as the climate change reality becomes clearer. But, can we predict activity of the market and possibly avoid disaster? Read more...

In “Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered” Woody Tasch, former Chairman of Investor’s Circle, argues for a new financial system that brings money back down to earth by supporting small food enterprises (SFEs) and the local agricultural economy. In addition to myriad environmental problems in the public eye (i.e. carbon, water), Tasch introduces another in this collection of essays – depletion of soil fertility – which he links to our financial system. Read more...

We are currently witnessing a shift in the job market away from the more traditional MBA path, which is crumbling as I type, towards traditionally riskier start-ups, social ventures, and entrepreneurial careers with social and environmental impact goals. Each year, business school students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management embark on a “Tech Trek,” visiting companies of interest in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Boston to make connections, get career ideas and generally explore. Read more...

We thought we’d start the year off with a recap of the impact management basics we’ve covered so far.

1. This is the era of “impact intelligence”
The world has moved beyond minimizing damage, figured out that we need to be able to measure our impact, and now we’re working toward getting smart about how to actually manage to impact. This is the era of impact intelligence.

2. Context matters
A first principle for impact metrics is that they should always be viewed in context. Two key questions are:
• Does the measure capture something meaningful? Read more...

2008 comes to a close in a matter of days. This was a bittersweet year indeed. We saw great progress in the field of impact management and social capital investments. We saw industry groups come together to address impact issues in areas ranging from ecotourism to microfinance to affordable housing and beyond. We saw the first ever Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap 08) host a double-capacity crowd in San Francisco and give birth to SoCap Media to continue convening the leaders in this field. The list of achievements goes on. Read more...

In keeping with the theme of investor frameworks, I was just perusing a report published in June 2007 by Standard & Poor’s that documents the Microfinance Rating Methodology created by (you guessed it) the Microfinance Rating Methodology Working Group. The report is called “Microfinance: Taking Root In The Global Capital Markets” and was sent to me by Cynthia Stone, previously the Chair of Standard & Poor’s’ Emerging Markets Council, whom I met recently at SoCap ‘08. Read more...

The story of Andy Funk left me impressed, amazed, envious and motivated. I think it will do the same for you. Funk moved to the US from Germany at the age of 19. Just six years later, without a formal college education, he had founded and sold 3 companies, and then became the youngest founding member of a venture capital firm in the country. His firm, Funk Ventures, is also one of the leaders in a new category of VCs that maximize social and environmental impact as well as financial return in its investments. Read more...