Podcast

Bren Smith: Restorative Ocean Farming/Fishing For the Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Bren Smith, GreenWave Executive Director and owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm, pioneered the development of restorative 3D ocean farming. A lifelong commercial fisherman, Smith has been called a “visionary” by Barton Seaver, Director of Harvard’s Healthy and Sustainable Food Program. Bren’s farming model is designed to restore ocean ecosystems, mitigate climate change, and create blue-green jobs for fishermen — while ensuring healthy, local food for communities.  In 2015 he was awarded the Buckminster Fuller Prize for ecological design. In 2017, he was awarded the European Sustainia Award. In 2013, Smith was chosen as one of six “Ocean Heroes” by Oceana and Future of Fish’s “Ocean Entrepreneur” of the year. He is an Ashoka Fellow and Echoing Green Climate Fellow.

With 1 out of 3 breaths we take coming from ocean-based phytoplankton, Bren’s model of restorative ocean farming for growing affordable food and fueling job creation for farmers was recently named a “coming attraction” in Paul Hawken’s recent book, Drawdown, the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.

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In my interview with Bren, we discuss:

  • Why Seaweed is the most affordable food to grow, and thus the most affordable food to eat

  • What Bren calls “the Nail Salon model of the sea” - How anyone with access to $20K and a boat can grow a seaweed farm, and Bren’s vision of 10,000 new ocean farmers

  • How Google’s appetite for seaweed is growing, with help from Greenwave.org and the for-profit arm SeaGreens LLC

  • Why “open-source sustainable seaweed models” are so important and a recent study about how the 3-D ocean farming model has the potential to create a plethora of new jobs

  • A polyculture approach within our sea systems and social systems - how collaboration between businesses, policy-makers, and ecologists is essential for regenerating oceans

  • how in CA alone Bren has a list of over 100 farmers waiting to be trained by Greenwave in his model of restorative ocean farming

  • How listeners will soon be able to dig their teeth into Bren’s seaweed at places like Brooks Headley’s Superiority Burger in Manhattan, NYC

  • His upcoming trip to sail from NYC to Washington DC for the People’s Climate March (please consider donating to Greenwave’s gofundme campaign in the Resources section below!)

 

Resources:

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Kate Raworth: Setting the Frame with the Regenerative Economic Paradigm

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on exploring the economic mindset needed to address the 21st century’s social and ecological challenges. She is a senior visiting research associate and advisory board member at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and teaches in its master's program for Environmental Change and Management.

She is also senior associate of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a member of the Club of Rome. Over the past 20 years Raworth has been a senior researcher at Oxfam, a co-author of UNDP’s annual Human Development Reports and a fellow of the Overseas Development Institute, working in the villages of Zanzibar. She is also on the advisory board of the Stockholm School of Economics’ Global Challenges Programme and Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Resource Observatory. Kate lives in Oxford, England.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Her idea of the “doughnut” or planetary sweet spot, that aims to bring our social and environmental systems into balance and how business can play a larger role in that transformation

  • How Brexit and the election of Donald Trump affect her work

  • How we can begin embracing complexity by reading Donella Meadows’ book: Thinking in Systems – A Primer

  • The idea of the “triumph of the commons” – that the commons and commons culture are an enormously important part of our life

  • Understanding that the household is an essential part of our economy

  • Transcending the grossly oversimplified perception and description of ourselves as consumers and recognizing our many social identities

  • Balancing the need to resist and protest with the need to build the models that make the existing harmful models obsolete

In addition, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Joy Anderson: Intersectional Impact and Investing with a Gender Lens

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Joy Anderson is a leader at the intersection of business and social change. She is the president and founder of Criterion Institute, a nonprofit that does research and education to broaden who and what matters in the work of reinventing the economy. Criterion Institute has helped launch and grow the gender lens investing field. She has been a teacher, a consultant, and a founding principal of Good Capital, an investment firm that increases the flow of capital to innovative ventures creating solutions to inequality and poverty. Her thought leadership focuses on shaping financial markets, investing with a gender lens, and combining theological and financial imagination. She holds a Ph.D. in American History from New York University.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • How Joy's experience in public education informs her approach to investing

  • Privilege 101 and addressing structural inequity by co-imagining what role finance can play in driving social change

  • Moving from the idea of “economy” as an abstraction to a more granular systems change view of market systems that work for people

  • The endless temptation of end-results and the arrogance embedded in expectations around “getting” results

In addition, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Andrea Armeni: Transforming Finance To Finance Transformation

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Andrea Armeni is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Transform Finance, a field-building non-profit organization working at the intersection of capital and social change by building bridges between investors, communities, and other stakeholders. Transform Finance provides thought leadership and advisory services as well as innovative tools and investment structures that promote social change both in and through finance. Andrea is also the lead convener of the Transform Finance Investor Network, a community of practice for progressive investors that launched at the White House with an initial investment commitment of over $500 million and has since grown to $1.3 billion.

A prominent public speaker, he is recognized as a leader and innovator in the field of impact investing, particularly at the intersection of systemic change and social justice. Andrea combines a corporate law and finance background with a deep passion for and engagement with social justice activism. He has taught at the Yale Law School and at Université Paris Dauphine in France. He has been recognized as a BMW Foundation Young Leader, is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and sits on the board of directors of the NGO Finance for Good Brazil and of CARE Enterprises, Inc., a business venture started by the international NGO CARE to fund transformative enterprises worldwide. He is based in New York, NY and San Francisco, CA.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Well-intentioned investors working with indigenous communities have often taken conventional approaches which fail to account for the importance of community and broader power dynamics and we discuss how to support investors to deploy capital in ways aligned w/ values and needs of community

  • Organizing asset owners around 3 principles: 1) deep engagement in affected communities 2) ownership and asset building opportunities in communities 3)fairly allocating risks & returns between investors and communities enabling their

  • How Transform Finance dovetails with other organizations within the broader ecosystem of impact investing

  • Navigating the tension and sometimes uncomfortable interstitial space between finance and social justice

  • Including finance among the set of tools one can use for social change in addition to advocacy and political action

  • Rebuilding the ship while we are sailing it as an analogy for transition to the next economy

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Matthew Monahan: Technology in Service to Justice Through Enlightened Enterprise

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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“Lead with values and make sure you are doing business with people you really trust and enjoy working with and the rest will find its way.”  - Matthew Monahan

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Kevin Bayuk, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Matthew Monahan, co-founder and CEO of the 150 person technology company and certified B Corp, Inflection.  Matthew is humble and successful entrepreneur, a thoughtful and compassionate human being and a leading steward of the emerging ethic of service and giving through enterprise and through appropriate application of technology.

You will hear how Matthew and his brother, co-founder of Inflection, have expressed their generosity in the way they have integrated a for profit and nonprofit model.  The Namaste Foundation, which they started when they sold a portion of Inflection, owns 10% of Inflection and the company also voluntarily dedicates a portion of revenue and employee time to diverse expressions of service in the community.  

Inflection is extending its core technology to begin to support new possibilities in restorative justice.  Matthew also shares his enthusiasm for New Zealand as a prime launch pad for innovating on practices to address the core problems of our time, like climate change and social inequities.  

In the interview you will hear Matthew share about some the groups and organizations that the Namaste Foundation is supporting such as Enspiral and Mindful Schools which are developing scalable models for transforming how we live, how we organize and how we communicate to create that a more beautiful world we know is possible.    Matthew also shares some insights on corporate culture, technology, the pressures imposed by capitalization.  

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Carol Sanford: Evolving the Mindset of Business Leaders for the Regenerative Paradigm

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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“My work goes into helping people understand what it means to help people evolve capacity in the way that life works....”  - Carol Sanford

 

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Kevin Bayuk, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Carol Sanford.  Carol is a much celebrated author and speaker sharing examples that inspire and instruct businesses to re-imagine their way of working and change industries, social systems, cultural beliefs and governing practices.  Her highly-praised books, The Responsible Business and her latest The Responsible Entrepreneur, are required reading at leading business schools including Harvard, Stanford, Haas Berkeley and MIT. Carol has worked with and works with all functions and levels of businesses: from C-suite executives of Finance, Business Development and Sales, Marketing, IT, R&D, to operations leadership.  

 

In this interview Carol shares about some of the current focus of her work on a core education and development process for leaders in business that fundamentally informs the actions that they can take from a Regenerative Perspective.  Carol is extremely erudite in sharing her observations and precise in her diction.  Her decades of work and writing have revealed a significant gap in mindset.  Using mnemonics that reminded me of  the style of  adages of ancient wisdom traditions from around the world, Carol walks us  through the way she approaches educating the mind to transform the way one sees life and the the way to evolve personal and organizational capacity to discover and become a greater expression of one’s essence in a  way that contributes to one’s role, nested in a living system.

 

One key take-away from this podcast is the importance of acknowledging that simply having lists of “best practices” or checklists of actions is not adequate to actually move us to a regenerative paradigm.  Changing mindset first is critical to enable us to have the greatest leveraged or “nodal” impact.

 

The interview also touches on the distinction Carol makes between empathy and caring, how Carol shares her work in the world with curated groups, events, media and with individual clients (ranging from Shell to Google Innovation Labs - check out http://carolsanford.com/).  Carol shares some of her personal story that brought her to expressing her essence in the world and some fun foreshadowing about her new forthcoming book.

 

You can find more about her work at these additional sites:

http://carolsanfordinstitute.com/

http://seed-communities.com/

http://theregenerativebusinesssummit.com/

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Vincent Stanley: Patagonia's Director of Philosophy on the Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Our guest on Next Economy Now is Vincent Stanley, Director of Philosophy at Patagonia and a Visiting Fellow at Yale School of Management.

If you’ve been following Next Economy Now, you might notice that Vincent is the fourth person we have interviewed from Patagonia since this podcast was launched in the Fall of 2015. It’s no secret that we love this company.

Not surprisingly, our listeners do too. For instance, our interviews with Phil Graves, Managing Director of Tin Shed Ventures (Patagonia’s venture capital arm); Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Initiatives; and Rose Marcario, Patagonia’s President and CEO, are the top three “most listened to” episodes of Next Economy Now of all time.

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So, what do Vincent and I discuss? Here are some of the highlights:

  • How he grew up in the 60’s in the San Francisco Bay Area and went to an alternative high school in Santa Cruz mountains

  • How an economic collapse, a car wash, and a postcard from his grandmother led to his working at Patagonia

  • Jonathan Rose’s book “The Well Tempered City,”

  • Bren Smith of Greenwave and 3D Ocean Farming

  • And finally, at many conferences that Vincent attends, people often say to him “I love your company. How can we scale what Patagonia does?” His answer to this question was very fascinating for me.

To listen to this podcast, please click the image at the top of the article. In addition to listening above, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Marjorie Kelly: Democratizing the Economy from the Ground Up

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Marjorie Kelly is Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President at The Democracy Collaborative. The Democracy Collaborative is a non-profit organization that works towards a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable and inclusive outcomes, fosters ecological sustainability, and promotes flourishing democratic and community life.  Marjorie is author of the book, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, released June 2012 by Berrett-Koehler. In it, she explores many experiments with new forms of ownership, which she calls generative: aimed at creating the conditions for life for many generations to come.

Marjorie Kelly is Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President at The Democracy Collaborative. The Democracy Collaborative is a non-profit organization that works towards a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable …

In this interview we discuss:

  • The election of Trump and its correlation with the economic challenges faced in Appalachia and rust belt states

  • 5 design elements of a company: membership, governance, purpose, finance, networks

  • The Democracy Collaborative’s work supporting Native American businesses and what listeners can do to support rural economic development

  • Strengthening the backbone of communities by engaging anchor institutions (like universities and hospitals)

  • Getting bipartisan support from politicians to support resilient local economies & employee ownership

  • How the democratization of aristocratic government happened without the democratization of our economics, and how we can bring this about

In addition to listening above, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Fran Seegull: Introducing the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Fran Seegull is Executive Director of The U.S Impact Investing Alliance, which is supported by the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network and the F.B. Heron Foundation, among others. The organization's mission is to champion the power of impact investing in the United States and foster deployment of and demand for impact capital across asset classes globally. Previously, she was Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director at ImpactAssets – a non-profit investment firm seeking to increase the flow of capital to impact investing.  Fran holds a BS in economics from Barnard/Columbia and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  At USC’s Marshall School of Business, she is the Adjunct Professor at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Senior Fellow at the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab. She serves on the board of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, the Investment Committee of the Goldhirsh Foundation and the G7 Social Impact Investment Task Force Working Group on Asset Allocation.

In this interview we discuss:

  • Moving away from a paradigm of maximizing shareholder value in the short term to one focused on stakeholder value and longer term value creation

  • Questioning tax-sheltered foundations yielding net-negative mission-related impact

  • The backstory on and intentions of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance

  • Integrity and innovation in impact measurements & reporting

  • Cases where there may or may not be tradeoffs between financial return and impact

  • The silver lining of the Trump administration: spurring entrepreneurship and livelihood creation in rural & urban communities

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Dana Lanza: Mission-Related Philanthropy and Owning What You Own

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Dana launched Confluence Philanthropy in August of 2009 as a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, after serving as the executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). While at EGA, Dana provided networking services to over 250 grantmaking organizations from across North America and Europe in 15 strategic funding areas. As director, Dana worked with the Rockefeller Family Fund, and led a then 20 year old EGA into an independent 501c3 organization. Dana served as the Program Director and Board Advisor at The Swift Foundation while launching Confluence. 

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In this interview we discuss:

  • How the economic events of 2008 seeded greater interest in values-aligned investments

  • Top challenges investors face in aligning their money with their values

  • The debate about whether or not impact investors should seek market rate returns on investments

  • The trend for philanthropy to focus on mission-related investments rather than offering grants or program-related investing (PRI)

  • The subjectivity of measuring impact and its value versus objectively owning what you own

  • Place-based, regional, localized investing, challenging investment managers to elevate their socially-responsible platform, and being loud and proud about divesting from the fossil fuel industry

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Birju Pandya: Money, Social Good, and Inner Transformation

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Formerly a consultant for McKinsey & Company, Birju Pandya focuses on the nexus of money, social good and inner transformation and works with organizations on the cutting edge of this inquiry. He is a Managing Director with Armonia, a private equity firm specializing in “regenerative investing” using nature-based solutions. He is Chief Mindfulness Officer for Nessel Development, working in 'beyond sustainable' real estate and also a senior advisor to RSF Social Finance, focusing on projects which facilitate “inner impact.”  Birju is a longtime volunteer of ServiceSpace, a non-profit that has been popularizing gift culture paradigm.  

 

In this interview we discuss:

  • Blossoming into meditation and mindfulness with small steps

  • Whole person development in the workplace

  • Dynamic interplay between inner work practices with transcending limiting organizational structures and linear-thinking approaches

  • Contrasting “ripple effects” with our concepts of “scaling”

  • The subtle yet profound role of psychological work in using business as a means for personal transformation becoming a better person

  • Having the vulnerability and courage to ask others “What do I not see?” 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

John Abrams: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Top Scoring B Corp

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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In this episode of Next Economy Now, Shawn Berry, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews John Abrams, founder and CEO of the South Mountain Co, a Design Build construction firm operating for over 4 decades on Martha’s vineyard. They are a worker owned cooperative and boast the highest B Corp certification score in the world! His book Companies We Keep, is a seminal work for the growing movement of worker coop buyouts.

 

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In this interview we discuss:

  • John’s background coming from the back to the land movement in the 60’s

  • The political climate following the recent election

  • Climate change and the need for solutions

  • Triple bottom line peer business support network

  • Their strong family centric culture

  • ROI on the best employee benefits package in the world including home ownership and renewable energy

  • Their limits on building big

  • Commitment to affordable housing & place

  • How they survived the great recession and their plan for the next one

  • Building a company culture that makes it safe to fail

  • Trust in people is paramount

  • What the company looks like after he is gone

 In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Jessie Spector: How Much Wealth is Enough?

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Jessie Spector, Executive Director at Resource Generation.  As an activist and donor, Jessie participates in several innovative cross-class models of wealth redistribution: the Criminal Justice Initiative, a circle of donors and activists who use consensus to fund the transformation of the criminal justice system in the US, and the Solidarity Family of POOR Magazine, a cohort of young people with wealth learning from and fundraising for POOR and the project of Homefulness, a permanent and sustainable pilot model of co-housing for homeless people. Jessie is constantly inspired by the power of organizing within her own community of young people with wealth and class privilege in partnership with people working for justice from all class backgrounds.

 

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Leveraging privilege toward equitable distribution of land, wealth, and power

  • The question of ‘how much income and wealth is enough’

  • Taking collective action and partnering with social justice groups

  • From negative investment portfolio screens to more just, values-aligned positive screens

  • Listening, building trust, and being in relationship with marginalized communities

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Kristin Hull: Realizing The Next Economy with Your Investment Portfolio

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews

Kristin Hull, Partner & Portfolio Manager at Green Alpha Advisors and President & Co-founder at Nia Global Solutions.  Kristin’s background is in impact investing having founded the Nia Community Investments in 2010. The Nia Community Fund is focused on consciously investing for social justice and environmental sustainability in Oakland. Prior to Nia Community, Kristin served as President and Chair of the Board of the Hull Family Foundation from 2007 to 2011, where she oversaw all of the investment efforts and transitioned the endowment from a traditional investment portfolio to one of the country’s first 100% mission impact invested portfolios. Kristin is also a co-founder of Impact Hub Oakland and is devoted to promoting inclusion and diversity in leadership, and to re-envisioning capitalism.

 

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Redefining finance by engaging from a foundation of intention and purpose

  • Barriers preventing people from investing in their local communities

  • Building investment portfolios around publicly traded companies leveraging best-in-class solutions as a vehicle to realize the next economy

  • Considerations in measuring impact both quantitatively as well as qualitatively

  • Balancing impact with financial returns

  • The need for financial literacy education and aligning our money with our values 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.


Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Kate Poole: Redistributing Wealth and Power

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Kate Poole.  Kate co-leads Regenerative Finance, a collective of young people with wealth working to shift control of capital to communities most affected by racial, economic and climate injustices. Kate is also a member-leader of Resource Generation, working to redistribute land, wealth and power.  Kate creates comics and zines about Buddhist economics, Jewish economics, racial justice and wealth redistribution, and the intersection of economic and spiritual practice.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Buddhist economics & right livelihood

  • The backstory to the Resource Generation collective

  • Applying values-based principles to investing through non-extractive finance, shared risk, & zero percent interest loans

  • Stewarding accumulated wealth and returning it to communities from which it was historically extracted

  • Karmically sound methods of accumulating capital

  • Emotional challenges that can come with inherited wealth that was derived from the trauma of others

  • The Buen Vivir Fund and other examples of inverting power relations, centering the work on acting from love, and being in authentic relationship with communities to build the self determination

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Omar Freilla: Worker Cooperative Development as a Comprehensive Solution for Our Time

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Shawn Berry, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Omar Freilla. Omar is the founder and coordinator for Green Worker Cooperatives in the South Bronx, where they run the Coop Academy to empower a new generation of small local businesses that are cooperatively owned and operated.  Shawn first met Omar in 2004 after the founding of the USFWC when he came to visit Shawn at his woodworking co-op in SF.  It’s been a pleasure for Shawn to see Omar’s work grow and develop over the years.

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In this interview we discuss:

  • Why coops are such powerful and deep solutions, socially, environmentally and economically.

  • Omar’s experience visiting the Mondragon Coops in Spain

  • Common misconceptions about coops

  • How the current political and economic climate make this work more important than ever

  • New York City’s groundbreaking funding & coalition for coop development

  • Successes and best practices from the Coop Academy

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

 

Jessica Bonanno + Adam Trott: Cooperative models for community based economic development

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Shawn Berry, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Jessica Bonanno from the Democracy Collaborative and Adam Trott from the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives. The Democracy Collaborative has been doing important work around community wealth building, one of their most notable projects being the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, OH.  The Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC) is a cooperative  of 8 worker-coops in Western Massachusetts created to serve their members and promote the development of the cooperative economy.

 

In this interview we discuss:

  • Their personal stories bringing them into this work

  • Trends in cooperative development

  • Ownership as a pathway to community development

  • VAWC’s inter-coop development fund

  • Evergreen Coops network of companies

  

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @sd_berry or email him shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Jeffrey Hollender - Taking a Systems Approach to Designing the Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

“It’s not enough to build your own company, you have to participate in building the whole ecosystem... ” - Jeffrey Hollender

 

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Kevin Bayuk, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Jeffrey Hollender, Founder of Seventh Generation, the American Sustainable Business Council and Sustain Natural among other enterprises and organizations.

Jeffrey is a thought leader on corporate responsibility, sustainability and social equity.  His decades of experience have covered decentralized models of education, ethical community banking, starting and growing sustainable, and now net positive, enterprises and using the power of coalition building as a lever for creating change in policy and governance.  

 

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In the interview we discuss how important it is to take a systems view when engaging in changing the economy.  In fact, systems thinking emerged as the consistent theme in our discussion and Jeffrey encourages listeners to check out this lecture by Peter Senge to develop a basic literacy of systems thinking.

We also delve into a diverse array of topics including the following:

  • Which type of scale (many small businesses or few very large businesses) is better to change the economy

  • The role of worker ownership in addressing wealth inequality

  • The role and power of everyday consumer choices

  • “Net positive” business compared to business just “less bad”

  • The dysfunction of the “business as usual” capital and the return mandates on that capital to serve the innovation of small emergent next economy enterprises

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Alison Lingane: Worker-Ownership, the Coop Incubator, and Addressing the Silver Tsunami

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

“Good decisions are built into worker cooperatives from the inside out.” - Alison Lingane

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Alison Lingane, Co-Founder of Project Equity.

Project Equity is a nonprofit organization that fosters economic resiliency by demonstrating and replicating strategies to increase worker ownership.

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In our interview, Alison and I discuss some of the differences between worker-owned cooperatives, ESOPs (or Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and employee stock options (like you might get as an employee of a tech company like Twitter or Facebook).

We’ll also discuss the startling fact that there are only 300-400 worker owned cooperatives in the entire United States. Alison hopes to change this with her new Coop Incubator program at Project Equity.

Finally, if you are interested in increasing worker ownership at your business, we go over some of the frequently asked questions and steps you will need to consider before making the transition.

You can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Sandra Kwak: Solar as the Backbone for a New Economy - in Haiti and Beyond

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

“Solar is the backbone of an economy.” - Sandra Kwak

 

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Erin Axelrod, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Sandra Kwak, Founder and CEO of 10 Power, a woman-owned company that finances renewable energy in developing communities.

 

Sandra and Erin discuss the opportunities of bringing solar to countries like Haiti - where the most recent Hurricane Matthews has caused an extraordinary amount of devastation and destruction and yet where there is so much potential to build a regenerative economy leveraging cutting edge renewable energy technology.

 

As you’ll hear, Sandra is enthusiastic about the promise of solar, especially for the potential it offers to communities who are currently lacking access to electricity. For these countries, it offers a way to modernize in a more efficient, cost effective, and sustainable manner than what fossil fuels have offered since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

 

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In this interview, Erin and Sandra discuss a number of topics, including:

  • How “third-party financing” spurred the adoption of solar in the US, and how 10 Power is leveraging that to springboard adoption of solar in Haiti.

  • Why solar is the backbone of a local, living economy

  • The importance of building ownership. The 10 Power model fosters local ownership of the companies and all installations are done via a pay-to-own model.

  • Why fossil fuels are “not a good investment anymore.”

  • The importance of the divestment movement - the largest movement to divest from fossil fuels in financial history.

  • Gender equality as a key element that is driving 10 power’s business model

 

In addition to listening on B the Change Media, you can listen/subscribe to Next Economy Now on iTunes, Overcast, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting platform.

 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is a shepherdess, indigo farmer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.