Sustainability explained through animation (Video)

What is sustainability? - United States Environmental Protection Agency

Sustainability in Government Agencies

Equalize opportunities

Government is supposed to benefit all people, but campaign financing gives undue weight to the big, rich players who are often wedded to the status quo. Sometimes, however, their interests are not mutually exclusive. When Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, decided to give preference to public transportation over those who could afford cars, he didn’t just make life better for the poor, he made the city more liveable for everyone. He invested in infrastructure for public transportation which could benefit everyone, instead of infrastructure for personal vehicles alone.

One way government can improve the life of the majority of its citizens is to promote policies that broaden ownership. In The Ownership Solution Jeff Gates tries to answer the question, why does capitalism create so few capitalists? Why does such a small percentage of the population benefit wildly, while the rest struggle with comparative insecurity?

One of today’s most profound tests – morally, economically and socially – is whether global capitalism can be coaxed to create more haves and fewer have-nots. That, in turn, may well determine the fate of democracy – which will never realize its full potential until based on an economically just foundation in which its constituents are full participants, not simply wage earners and occasional voters.

Company share purchase plans and retirement plans are insufficient. According to a Harvard study, 71 per cent of US households hold less than $2000 of shares in any form.

Gates again: Expecting a broad base of wage earners to buy their way into significant ownership (ie from their already stretched paychecks) is what I call ‘Marie Antoinette Capitalism’ – only instead of urging, ‘Let them eat cake’, the modern refrain is, ‘Let them buy shares’. Today’s closed system of finance has much the same economic effect as the enclosure movement of the eighteenth century – creating pools of people who, deprived of any realistic chance to own, find themselves competing against each other for an ever dwindling number of well-paid jobs.

Gates presents a number of different options to increase the level of ownership of everyday people. For example, in Jamaica they developed related enterprise share ownership plans (RESOPs) that allowed employees not only to acquire shares in their small enterprises (which are notoriously unstable) but also in their suppliers and distributors (which could allow them to gain shares in larger firms). Under programmes like this, even migrant farm workers can build a portfolio so their wealth is not just based on the number of hours of back-breaking work they can do. Customer Stock Ownership Plans allow customers to gain shares in such organizations as local utilities. Alaska’s oil fund, which pays money to all residents annually, is another example where the benefits of a natural resource are shared by the community. Local, barter-based currencies also tend to favour small, local enterprises. Perhaps the best-known example of this is in Ithaca, New York. There citizens created their own local currency called Ithaca Hours.

These pay for everything from groceries to professional services but can only be redeemed at local businesses.

Gates calls into question our slavish attention to job growth as an economic strategy when real wealth and economic security are more likely to be created through ownership and capital. He asks good questions in his book. We have environmental impact assessments on public investment; why don’t we have ownership impact assessments? Why do most of the growth benefits go to institutional investors instead of employees? Why not offer preferential tax treatment to employee-owned ventures including cooperatives, which are used extensively in Costa Rica, for example, as an economic development strategy

Ref: Gates, Jeff (1998) The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Use public pension funds as a signal to business

Socially responsible investing is the fastest growing sector on Wall Street. Government pension funds have on occasion played an important role, for example in protesting against apartheid South Africa. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has even worked to oust directors of corporations. As their Global Proxy Voting Principles (19 March 2001) show, they use their clout intentionally.

However, actions taken by CalPERS as a shareowner can be instrumental in encouraging action as a responsible corporate citizen by the companies in which the Fund invests. Moreover, through its Economically Targeted Investment (ETI) policy, the Board has recognized that the interests of CalPERS’ beneficiaries can be served by considering – in addition to maximizing investment returns to the Fund – collateral benefits to the national, regional and state economies.

Government has such an important role to play in driving us towards a sustainable future.

Whether you work in a small, local department or in regional or national government, you can facilitate the emergence of new markets through your purchasing and contracting practices and use sustainability to uncover ways to do more with less. Emphasize positive incentives to encourage performance beyond compliance. In the core work of your agency, keep the long, sustainable view in mind and seek ways to deliver even greater benefits. Take risks, even though your workplace may discourage it – we can’t get to sustainability without your leadership.

 SCORE GOVERNMENT

NOTE: This assessment focuses on the larger impacts government has on its community. This assessment is intended to be used at a municipality, regional or national level, although an individual agency may want to score itself on a practice that directly relates to its mission. Governmental agencies should also take the services assessment to capture their internal impacts and the appropriate functional assessments.