Yet, our world faces massive global challenges. Climate change. Deforestation. Pollution. Over-population. International conflict. A wealth gap that keeps growing. Despite recognizing these problems, and being in general agreement that they need to be resolved, these issues continue to threaten our way of life.
Why is this so?
We believe part of the reason for this contradiction between the world we would like to embrace and the one that exists lies in how we process and cope with daily life. We tend to separate and compartmentalize many aspects of our lives to the extent that much of our behavior directly conflicts with our individual values — and by extension, conflicts with the core values of our communities and the world at large.
Nothing illustrates this more than the way mainstream capital management is conducted. Despite our best intentions, time and again we put our values aside when it comes to capital management. We tell ourselves: investing is purely about maximizing financial returns. We then invest in companies whose practices may be in direct conflict with our own values, or worse, whose day-to-day activities, whether intentional or not, may actually be destroying the very foundation upon which our civilization is built. We then engage in the process of giving our investment profits to NGOs who try to use this “tainted money” to solve the social issues created by our invested capital in the first place.
We believe that the purpose of wealth should be to improve the world — not destroy it.
