Over the last century, a lot of people, especially Americans, have become conditioned to think that environmental leadership is the realm of charities. Environmentally-minded people, and others interested in social values such as peace and equality, tend to habitually consider that charities are “good” and corporations and businesses are “bad”.
This acculturated point of view, when held and repeated as a “fact”, maintains a static, built in conflict between change advocates and the mainstream culture. This communications gap prevents environmentalism and the notions of ecology from becoming widely accepted by society.
Today, there are thousands of green businesses formed by environmentalists who are ready to try using the full range of financial tools and conversations available to for-profit companies in new ways, so they can break free of the cultural constraints to progress that come from viewing protecting the environment as a charity project.
Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of corporations are taking pride in their environmental policies and track records, and promoting this on their websites. While these companies deserve praise for taking steps forward, there is something still missing in society that a company would make their environmental record something to crow about. If we could imagine a future where all environmental issues are solved, no corporation would take special pride in their environmental achievements, just like no corporation today makes a big deal that they have a telephone system in place.
Fortunately, we now have some success stories that demonstrate how environmental values can become ubiquitous. The organic food industry provides the most obvious example. What makes a person choose to purchase an “organic” apple instead of an “industrial” apple? You can’t really see the difference at arm’s length. Perhaps you can taste the difference. But the real difference is a matter of cultural training. Those of us who purchase “organic” food have simply been trained that it is better for us than industrial food.
In the organic food business, like most other green businesses, this cultural training creates the primary financial value of the green product or service. This suggests that the more a green company can afford to teach ecology and environmentalism to the public, the more profitable that company can be, and the more progress it can achieve for the health of people and the biosphere.
The economy can become very dynamic as we move away from static notions of environmental good and bad and toward the notion of ubiquitous environmental understanding. During this dynamic phase, enterprises that understand that green education equals capital will emerge as the new economic leaders.
Until now, the job of teaching culture about the environment has been held by charities. Now, as it is becoming clear that this training creates a real monetary value in society, the role of educating society about nature and the environment will shift more and more to for-profit companies who have the financial tools to provide mass-education and to profit from the financial value created by that cultural training. Some green charities might want to take note, and jump on board before they become artifacts of history.
208-596-6500 | 
28
May 09
On Beyond Kiva – Merging the Gift Economy with Green Entrepreneurship
A lot of you have probably visited Kiva.org. It’s a great site that helps 1st world donors move money into the hands of 3rd world entrepreneurs. Since their founding, they’ve moved over $33 million into the hands of people who really need it to start a business.
Kiva’s success points to new opportunities to expand social equity and capital parity. On the shoulder’s of Kiva’s success, we can reach some profound new heights for people and the planet.
As you know, I’m pretty focused on growing the green economy. So, I study every funding strategy. Unfortunately, Kiva was not designed to grow the green economy, in the U.S. or elsewhere. In fact, when I last looked, they don’t even have a category for green business, even though this is a rapidly expanding field in many developing nations.
Expanding on Kiva’s Model to Grow the Green Economy
The core feature of Kiva is that donors put money into the system to benefit entrepreneurs. This is a huge breakthrough in conciousness. Before Kiva, most people felt that you should donate money to charities, but you should only “invest” in businesses. This old, default cultural philosophy has really limited the amount of good we can accomplish in the world as a society.
Soon, I’m told, Kiva will add a new program allowing donors to support loans to U.S. entrepreneurs. Here’s where I’m really wanting to see some expansion in our thinking as donors. The news is that Kiva will lend up to $10,000 per U.S. entrepreneur. Truth be told, there are very few green businesses that can really scale up inside the U.S. economy and impact the health of the biosphere with just $10,000 in seed capital. That won’t really even get a startup to first base in a first-world country.
Here’s where EcoSector comes in. We’ve created a gift system that allows the general public to donate a $1 or whatever amount they like into EcoSector’s “launch system”. This money is then used to pay the costs required to get a green business through their first “real” capital round. The fact is, what with securities attorneys and other essential services, it can cost an entrepreneur anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 to raise their first meaningful round of capital. In today’s default capital system, this seed capital bottleneck is keeping 499 eco-solution companies from succeeding for every one that threads the needle. That means real solutions to our most urgent eco-challenges aren’t getting done.
Don’t take my word for it. This gap is real. Here’s a slideshow put together by a big venture capital firm that tells the same story from their point of view.
While you’re at it, I hope you’ll check out the video above that lays out EcoSector’s launch system in a fun and enjoyable way, or you can see click straight to it on YouTube to learn How to Launch 1000 Eco-Solution Companies by 2016.