Tuesday's Good Read: Double-Es Sustainability

In the midst of the economic downturn, people are rethinking some of the assumptions that we have taken for granted or are regarded as 'radical' when we try to challenge them. Among these assumptions are economic 'growth' and environmental protection. For too many people and for too long, we have been told that we need to maintain economic 'growth' to create jobs, reduce/eliminate poverty and crimes, and improve our standards of living. However, more people have come to realize that the society cannot sustain the economic 'growth' forever. As many hard-core environmentalists have argued, our current economic model is based on materialistic consumption, which is basically extracting the nature to create wealth. Such economic model is ultimately not sustainable because our planet has only a limited amount of resources and that destroying our environment for economic 'growth' does not improve our living standards from a more holistic perspective.

The unfolding of the biggest economic crisis in decades and the increasingly alarming environmental disasters lead to a tipping point of public conscience about the relationship between environment and economy. Thomas Friedman, a long-time advocate of free-trade, globalization, and environmental technology revolution (which ironically contradict each other according to the hard-core environmentalists), has written a column urging for revisit of our concept of economic 'growth.' While there is nothing groundbreaking in his article (as the environmentalists have been saying this for years), it is good to know that someone in the mainstream media like Friedman has finally come aboard with the environmental critics.

Not coincidentally, the current issue (Spring 2009) of Green American (previously Co-op America Quarterly) focuses on the green economy and its implications to the environment and the future of our economy. There are some very good articles that take aim at the concept of economic growth and how we should redefine it. An online article "Rethinking the GDP" is a part of the discussion.

I will have a follow-up entry after I delve into the articles. Stay tune.

Friday's Good Read: Who Are Net-Gen-ers?

When I went to Hulu.com today and watched The Daily Show, an advertisement by DoSomething.org came up. It was a surprise to see a 'do good' organization make its way to the air (wait, I mean wire). It intends to appeal to the young audience by asking them to text "30644" and join their cause. I think it's a good and necessary strategy to engage the next generation--Net Generation. Look at how Obama's election campaign had made the youngsters excited about and involved in politics. Obama understands the young generation and the importance of using internet technology and (of course) other wireless technologies to communicate with these young supporters. Similarly, I also believe that the charities should do the same to engage the youngters.

The first step to realize this is not to start thinking what technologies we use be using, but who are these Net Generation-ers. I have been planning to read Don Tapscott's books "Growing Up Digital" and "Grown Up Digital" to understand more about these youngsters that has been growing up with internet and computing technologies around them. Don is the person who coined the term 'Net Generation' and has written a lot of books about the internet revolution. His first book "Growing Up Digital" published a decade ago has been cited more than 1200 times! Just a few months ago, he came up with the latest version of the book called "Grown Up Digital." I have read the first chapter online for free on Google Book Search and will check the book out from the university library to finish the rest. I will share my thoughts here once I finish reading it.

Sunday's Food for Thought

Need an inspiration or a quote of motivation to start off the day? I have been receiving email postcard everyday from Dailythoughts.org and it includes a quote that stimulates your thinking for a moment. Dailythoughts.org is a partner of hungerfighters.com, so every time when you receive a e-postcard from them, you will also be reminded to click to donate for the hunger. You can also send this to your friends and family to show your love.

Sunday's Good Read: Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)

As promised, this entry I will delve into the details of socially responsible investing (SRI). SRI, as the name implies, is an investing that not only look out for one's long-term financial well-being, but also be mindful of the good of the society at large. It strikes a chord with me early on because it is based on the premise that individual acts, such as investing, have personal as well as collective consequences as a whole. Investing, however, has much broader implications on our society and environment than everyday acts because of the prevalence of capitalism. Big corporations, such as Walmart and Coca-Cola, have as much influence on people's lives as the government, which is a terrifying fact. Fortunately, as bad as the nature of capitalist system is, we can use the same tool (i.e., capital) that the big guys utilize to exploit others and harm the environment and turn it into an instrument that lifts others' life.

Thus, socially responsible investors would screen the businesses as part of their investment portfolio (usually through buying shares and/or bonds) so that their business practices are accorded with certain criteria, although these criteria are not universally observed. First, these corporations cannot be engaged in 'sin' industries such as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, and/or adult entertainment. Second, these businesses cannot carry out practices that violates human/worker rights, such as human trafficking, child labor, worker exploitation and exposure to harmful materials within their work place, and etc. Sometimes anti-unionization policies in an corporation are also viewed as a violation of worker rights. Third, the corporations' business practices cannot pose significant damage to the environment, and if they do, some measures have to be taken to remediate the problems. Industries that are inherently polluting, such as nuclear or coal plant, chemical fertilizer and cement production, are usually excluded from the SRI consideration. Fourth, which is arguably the most controversial and ellusive, corporations should demonstrate in their business practices that they are committed to the welfare of the society as a whole, as if everyone is a stakeholder in their company. The grey area in this is that sometimes it is difficult to judge whether the businesses are sincere about their commitment and not just use this as a PR tool for their own good.

In some cases, social investors use their power as shareholders in the big corporations and force them to conduct their business in a more socially and environmentally more responsible way. This is called shareholder activism (or shareholder advocacy according to Social Investment Forum). They would skillfully use their voting power as a shareholder to influence business decisions and sometimes demand or pressure the corporate management to change their practices.

Still, other social investors opt for an alternative business model that is outside of the big-corporate-dominated capitalist system. They focus instead on the local communities (usually the ones in which they reside) and small businesses that are independent of big corporate franchaise. This type of SRI is referred to as community investing. Instead of channeling their investment and purchasing fund to the big businesses, they use their capital to support the local small businesses that would bring a more sustainable development to the local communities.

Here are some links for further reading on SRI (highly recommended):
Social Investment Forum
Green America

The Story of Liao Fan: How Good Deeds Change One's Destiny

Today's food for thought reminds me of the story of Liao Fan, which was one of the reasons that aspired me to start this blog. Liao Fan Yuan (袁了凡) was the author of Chinese popular book of virtue called "Liao Fan Four Lessons (了凡四訓)." Being a scholar and a bureaucrat during the Ming Dynasty in the sixteenth century, this Chinese moral figure intended to pass down his words of wisdom to his son, Tian-Chi Yuan, in his book. He used his own life experience as a template to his lesson, emphasizing one's autonomy over his or her own destiny through the practice of kindness and good deeds as well as the eradication of unwholesome behaviors. Read the full original text here.


Liao Fan's Four Lessons:

The first lesson: Learning to change destiny
The second lesson: Ways to reform
The third lesson: The ways to cultivate goodness
The four lesson: The benefits of the virtue of humility