Green Options » free market

Obama Tells 60 Minutes That He Will Focus on Avoiding a Deepening Recession

Reenita Malhotra — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:53:16 +0000

In an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, his first since the election, President-elect Barack Obama talked about the economy, the housing market and how to create a sustainable auto industry. He said that the $700 billion bailout plan has done little to improve the economy so far, but he credited the Bush administration Sunday for working to address the global financial crisis.

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“There’s no doubt that we have not been able yet to reset the confidence in the financial markets and in the consumer markets and among businesses that allow the economy to move forward in a strong way,” Obama said. “And my job as president is going to be to make sure that we restore that confidence. We shouldn’t worry about the deficit next year or even the year after. … The most important thing is that we avoid a deepening recession.”

The president-elect also said that not enough has been done to address bank foreclosures and distressed homeowners.

Is There a Green Upside to the Economic Meltdown?

Jim Witkin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:41:53 +0000

The economic meltdown could be good news for the area of clean energy investing, according to Steven Fraser, a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the recently published “Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace.” Fraser believes that backlash to the recent economic crisis will result in a new era of enlightened regulation and investment akin to Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped America climb out of the Great Depression. Fraser offered these opinions in a recent interview on WHYY’s Fresh Air program.

In the interview, Fraser said he felt “very confident” that “real anger at Wall Street” will result in better regulation and more oversight of commercial and investment banking. The steady deregulation of these sectors over the past 25 years has created an “orgy of speculation” and brought us to the current crisis. The future of our economy will depend on rebuilding our infrastructure and a shift to new forms of clean energy, according to Fraser. Any overhaul of our banking and investment sectors should move capital into these areas and away from highly leveraged speculation.

Sustainability: Blending Lifestyle and Workstyle in a Green Business

John Ivanko — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:10:51 +0000

Last week I wrote about how much of my hard work when I toiled away for a large advertising agency (definitely NOT sustainability-minded) ended up contributing to the problems facing humanity. It didn’t get me much further ahead financially, either.

When I think about sustainability, I’ve come to the conclusion it needs to be something that’s holistic and inclusive of both my life AND my career, livelihood, or, if you must, “job.” It doesn’t make much sustainability sense to have an energy efficient home, drive a Prius and eat vegetarian when many of us — like I once did — trudge off to an office building powered by a coal-fired power plant, help a company sell products or services that were likely to destroy the planet or exploit people, and drink free coffee that was neither organic nor Fair Trade certified. All this to “pay the bills.”

The following chart from our book ECOpreneuring is my wife and my stab at contrasting the mainstream approach of being an employee in a typical company versus the owner of an ecopreneurial “green business”, ideally family scaled and locally-based. After more than a decade of interviews and meetings with ecopreneurs across the U.S., it became increasingly clear that truly sustainable enterprises provide far more than financial renumeration for its owners. These ecopreneurial businesses had owners who blended a sustainable lifestyle and workstyle, often enhancing the environment, their communities and their own quality of life by how they operated their green business.

What’s most striking from the above simplistic comparison is how the company approach seems rather disconnected from both the planet and the well-being of people as a whole. No wonder numerous studies keep finding that many employees are cynical, detached, unhappy, apathetic, and, some, downright angry.

What other aspects of an ecopreneurial life have you discovered that reveal the shortcomings of the highly touted company career in a global free market economy? In reality, there are far more ecopreneurs making the world a better place.