GREENWICH, Conn., Apr. 22 /CSRwire/ – Capital Institute, a non-partisan think tank founded in 2010 by former JPMorgan Managing Director John Fullerton, launched an alternative framework for capitalism yesterday at an event hosted by Yale University’s Center for Business and the Environment. The collaboratively created framework and accompanying white paper calls on business leaders and policymakers to fundamentally rethink economics and how our free enterprise system operates.
Despite its many remarkable achievements, the dominant form of capitalism is driving our global economy along an unsustainable path, asserted John Fullerton, Capital Institute’s founder and the white paper’s author. The purpose of finance and investing is now primarily to grow financial capital, but often at the expense of the well-being of the planet and society as a whole. This is evident in an ever-widening global wealth gap and in the twin crises of natural resource depletion and climate change.
Moving beyond this diagnosis, Capital Institute’s white paper, entitled “Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy,” asks the critical question: What role can modern finance play in spurring healthy outcomes for the economy and for society that people on the left and the right can both support? The paper envisions a natural evolution of capitalism that embodies a deeper purpose than merely optimizing financial returns, with the goal of promoting the long-term health and well-being of our human communities and the planet.
Aligned with our latest understanding of how the universe actually works, the Regenerative framework illuminates eight key principles backed by solid science and transdiciplinary scholarship. The principles were also distilled from the close observation of enterprises that are the subjects of Capital Institute’s Field Guide to Investing in a Regenerative Economy, and from John’s personal impact investment experience. These principles provide a guide for a next stage of Capitalism that supports healthy economies and human systems. They call upon us:
- To understand that the human economy is part of an interconnected web of life and that we cannot separate ourselves or our economy from the earth’s life-supporting systems;
- To view wealth not just as money in the bank, but as the richness we acquire through cultivating human connections and our connection to the natural environment;
- To ensure capital flows towards every level of our human networks enabling all individuals to reach their potential and to make their fullest contribution to society as a whole, both for themselves and the health of the whole; and
- To maintain a balance as economic actors between collaborativeness and competition; efficiency and resilience; and small, medium, and large organizational structures.
“While current approaches to sustainability take a ‘reductionist,’ problem-solving approach to addressing the challenges we face, Regenerative Capitalism takes a ‘holistic’ approach, aimed directly at building healthy human networks,” said Fullerton. “It draws on universal principles and patterns, with ‘sustainability’ being the natural outcome of systemic health.”
To explore the exciting emergence of Regenerative Capitalism, please visit CapitalInstitute.org/Regenerative-Capitalism.
About Capital Institute
Capital Institute is exploring and effecting the economic transition to a more just, regenerative, and thus sustainable way of living on this earth through the transformation of finance. http://www.capitalinstitute.org
About The Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY)
CBEY joins two world-renowned graduate schools – the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies – with a network of internal and external leaders working at the interface of business and the environment. It tackles one of the central management challenges of the twenty-first century: our transition to a sustainable economy. http://cbey.yale.edu
This post was originally published on CSRwire.com
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