Written by Jim Cummings.
Ikea and Apple have both recently bought up large tracts of working forest land, in order to assure that their wood and paper products are coming from sustainably managed forests. Ikea, which supposedly uses 1% of the world’s commercial wood supply, is aiming to scale back its use of wood by half, and to become net forest-positive (growing more trees than it uses) within five years. For its part, Apple is partnering with The Conservation Fund to manage its forests for both sustainable harvesting and habitat health; it hopes to see other companies doing the same in years to come. On the one hand, this could be seen as a corporate land-grab, but at the same time it represents an attempt to take more corporate responsibility for their supply chains; Ikea, for example, has been criticized for the un-sustainable practices of a Russian supplier. At the very least, in owning the tangible asset of the forest themselves companies will have clear incentives to assure that they remain healthy and productive for decades to come.
Tags: regenerative, sustainable global economy strategy
Written by Jim Cummings.
As readers of The Resilient Investor will know, we are always on the lookout for stories and movies that can help us envision the many different possible futures that we need to be readying ourselves for. So it was with some excitement that I followed a series of links on “cli-fi” after completing the post about how Margaret Atwood’s Everything Change essay can inform resilient investors’ life choices. The term was familiar to me (“climate fiction,” a growing topic within sci-fi), and the first couple of books I’d happened upon in the genre had piqued my interest. Now, after spending a half-hour of clicking through from Atwood’s original link, I’ve got a reading list, reviews, and even a syllabus if I want to really dive in. This post will share enough to get you started, too.
Let’s start with a few words from Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the better-known authors in this field:
Tags: climate, evolutionary strategy, personal assets
Written by Jim Cummings.
Virtual reality. For those of us who still enjoy THIS world, the idea of opening the floodgates of truly immersive virtual reality can seem like the ultimate triumph of the screen-mediated life, an abandonment of the core virtues of human relationship. If computers have sucked us further down the rabbit hole than TVs, then won’t these new systems—covering our eyes and ears, even stimulating our vestibular responses—create even more separation between us? Not necessarily, say a slew of folks who are tracking this nearly-inevitable and soon-to-arrive evolution of computer technology. Check out this collection of videos and articles from SingularityHUB, all of which explore the ways that more immersive virtual reality interfaces could actually increase our empathy and engagement, rather than leading to atrophy of these core aspects of being human. The promise here starts with recent studies on “mirror neurons” and goes on to ways that empathy-sparking VR could deepen journalism and enliven civic engagement. A real mind-bender for any of us with lingering Luddite tendencies.
Tags: driver, evolutionary strategy, future, personal growth
Written by Jim Cummings.
The investment world is on the cusp of many disruptive changes, just like the world as a whole. New online tech, artificial intelligence, and sharing platforms will all shake up the status quo—and the livelihoods of investment advisors like us—far more than the emergence of online brokerages did a generation ago. There’s no telling which innovations will deliver on their promise, but this article on a new outfit called Motif caught our eye this week. The idea is that you can put together a group of stocks that target a market segment you’re interested in being invested in:
Walia gave the example of the mobile Internet: How do you invest in that trend? Jim Cramer proposed a mobile Internet index in 2009, but no one seems to have done anything with the idea. Or, say, Facebook. So far, buying actual shares of Facebook doesn’t seem to be paying off as a way to play social networking. Walia’s alternative: Buy the companies with the most likes on Facebook. (Hey, it’s outperformed the S&P.)…Notice how much money you and your friends spend at Starbucks? Buy into a motif called Caffeine Fix. See iPads everywhere? There’s a motif for that: Tablet Takeover.
Motif users will be able to create their own motifs and share them with friends—either small groups of trusted fellow investors or one’s entire Facebook friends list.
The interface is simple (see image above), and of course you can track your results to see if your bright new “fund” is a winner. Former top executives at eTrade and Bank of America are on board and they are emphasizing keeping trading costs very low, making it an appealing platform for bringing your own values, passions, and interests to bear in your investment approach. But remember, the past pleasure of your particular passions is not a guarantee of future results!
Tags: financial assets, investing, sustainable global economy strategy
Written by Jim Cummings.
Everywhere I turn lately, there’s another reminder that cities are central to our hopes for a more sustainable, resilient future. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group—a decade-old collaboration among 75 of the world’s largest cities that are home to over a half-billion people and a quarter of the global economy—is on the forefront of these efforts, as is the Compact of Mayors, involving 84 cities, many of them smaller or mid-sized. Both groups are gearing up to have a major presence at the upcoming Paris climate talks. The C40 has just released a new report, Powering Climate Action: Cities as Global Changemakers, which highlights the collaborative potential of cities working together: “The evidence shows that cities are taking action even where they have limited power, by collaborating with other cities and non-state actors and catalysing wider climate action in the private sector and civil society.”
NRDC’s OnEarth magazine recently produced an issue devoted to city-based climate action that is full of inspiring stories, including
Tags: climate, close to home strategy, collaboration, community groups, personal assets, sustainable global economy strategy
Written by Jim Cummings.
Iroquois Valley Farms, one of the first ventures that raised investment monies to purchase and restore farmland, has successfully completed its initial phases and begun offering redemptions to its early investors. Going forward, investors will be able to redeem their investments any time after a 7-year hold period. The original 100 investors had bought in without knowing when, or if, they would get their money back, seeing this as a long-term investment in Iroquois’ mission of preserving and providing access to farmland. Having reached this point, Iroquois is gearing up to scale their project by raising $20 million in new investment (accredited investors only).
Since 2007, Iroquois has purchased 25 farms in Michigan, Maine, New York, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana; 70% are being farmed by young farmers, most of them from second or third generation farming families. As with the investors, the farmers leasing land from Iroquois have the right to move forward, by purchasing the farms after seven years of working them. Likewise, they are welcome to continue leasing for as long as they’d like.
We love this model of farmland regeneration and ownership; kudos to Iroquois Valley Farms and its initial investors for showing that it can work for young farmers, for the land, and for investors. Visit their site to learn more; here are a couple of stories about farmers they’ve worked with:
Tags: farming, financial assets, impact investing, tangible assets
Written by Jim Cummings.
Resilient investors always keep their eyes on the horizon, so they’ll be ready to respond to whatever’s coming their way. A few things out there in the haze have caught our attention in recent weeks, and we thought we’d pass them along. One deals with a longtime holy grail, fusion energy, another is an out-of-the-blue development in brain science (wiring brains together seems to actually increase performance!?!), and the last highlights a much-hyped company that just pivoted on a dime in a new direction, exemplifying the power of a nimble resiliency when Plan A comes up short. All three represent potential game-changing breakthroughs, fascinating in their own right and worth having on your long-term resilient investment radar.
Tags: evolutionary strategy
Written by Jim Cummings.
Two recent posts on the excellent Locavesting website zeroed in on the challenges and opportunities facing women entrepreneurs. The first looks at numbers suggesting that traditional channels of investment capital may be harder for women-led companies to access, due to a mis-match in goals and too much focus on fairy-tale Silicon Valley style venture capital channels. Author Jenny Kassen sees that women-led companies are more apt to be mission-driven, and suggests that they will benefit from pursuing sources of capital that are not so focused on making quick or exponential returns. This dovetails well with the second article, which summarizes a recent report, Stand out in the Crowd: How Women (and Men) Benefit from Equity Crowdfunding: “Women are achieving a higher success rate raising investment capital online than they are through traditional offline channels: 24% for online compared to 19% for offline.” Still, far fewer women-led companies even seek outside funding—and this represents a huge opportunity for those that pursue these channels. We highly recommend both articles for anyone who’s gearing up to raise funds for their business; keep reading for a few key quotes to whet your appetite.
Tags: crowdfunding, financial assets, investing, local investments
Written by Jim Cummings.
While big-picture trends continue to paint a worrying picture of our future, those of us with a more optimistic worldview find solace and inspiration in the countless smaller—but socially and environmentally transformative—initiatives taking place around the world. Yes, the race between environmental calamity and evolutionary transformations is neck-and-neck, but the Dreamers, Drivers, and Doers among us see a real potential for rapid, exponential advances in the tech realm, alongside a wave of on-the-ground entrepreneurial visionaries driving rapid progress in health, education, and clean energy in communities around the world. We received a fresh dose of inspiration from a compendium of “22 of the Most Fascinating Social Good Startups Changing the World.” The common thread here is empowering individuals to create small companies that create new jobs and incomes while tackling local issues including poor sanitation, recycling, access to electricity, and supporting small farms. Click through for a look at five of our favorites.
Tags: dreamer, evolutionary strategy, global, impact investing
Written by Jim Cummings.
Homesteads designed to increase self-suffiency are not just a throwback to the 60’s or a prepper fortification against total breakdown. In today’s uncertain world, they are investments in personal and local resiliency that offer substantial returns in any future scenario. And it doesn’t take much land to shift your family’s balance from total dependence on unsustainable (and potentially fragile) global food and energy systems, toward a much more rewarding and reliable balance of local, regional, and global supplies. After a few years, you may even find yourself feeling a lot less nervous about the “what if” consequences of a major economic or environmental crisis that could disrupt your access to distant goods.
But where to start? And why would you want to? We recently came across a great introduction to these questions, in a profile of Melliodora, a 2-acre homestead in a rural village setting; click through for more details.
Tags: close to home strategy, food, resilience, tangible assets, your home
Written by Jim Cummings.
The one-two punches of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy have spurred cities throughout the northeastern United States to invest in more reliable backup power systems. These “Resilient Power” initiatives reduce reliance on generators (which too often fail when fired up) in favor of more resilient solar, fuels cells, and power storage systems that can provide benefits between outages as well. A new Resilient Power Guide from the Clean Energy Group highlights early state-wide projects from Maryland to Vermont, which have spurred 40 municipal programs. The first target is emergency response facilities: “More than 90 critical facilities in the Northeast – including emergency shelters, wastewater treatment plants, firehouses and other first responder facilities – will have resilient electrical systems in place to improve emergency response in the next year, and to protect neighborhoods in the next power outage.” Click through to learn more about these trailblazing programs, then dig in a bit in your area to see how you might engage in some Zone 4 resilient investing to advance these efforts in your community.
Tags: climate, close to home strategy, collaboration, community groups, renewable energy, resilience
Written by Jim Cummings.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program is providing funding to cities from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Amman, Jordan. A City Resiliency Framework, including twelve “drivers” in four major areas (see illustration) helps each city focus on its particular chronic resiliency challenges, and to set the stage for a nimble response if an acute shock occurs. As examples: El Paso/Juarez is targeting water supplies as the southwestern drought deepens, while a 2013 mapping project in Kathmandu was reactivated after the recent earthquake to help guide recovery efforts. From a resilient investing perspective, this effort is centered in Zone 4 (involving a wide range of community organizations as well as municipal agencies and government, which is funded to hire a CRO, or Chief Resilience Officer) and Zone 1 (nonprofit and volunteer efforts) and Zone 6 (habitat, landscape). So far, two-thirds of the cities have been chosen, with the rest set to be announced later this year.
In looking over their blog, we were especially taken by the post on the mapping project, which jumped from the Kathmandu story to an Indonesian project that worked with an artists collective to map the city of Semarang:
Tags: community groups, local, resilience
