Links to longer pieces in PDF format. Many of these first appeared in Responsible Investor in 2020 and 2021.
The Towering Problem of Externality-Denying Capitalism. 22 pages
A major first response to our sustainability challenges has been to try and turn profit to more sustainable ends. Alas, even ‘purposeful profit’ seems unable to overcome the deeper momentum of what might be termed ‘externality-denying capitalism’ – ‘externality-denying’ in that billions of daily investment and consumption decisions ignore certain of their social and environmental consequences. Hence, there is a pressing need to appraise this larger system…
Our predominant response to the climate and biodiversity crises has been a succession of Voluntary Market-led (VML) strategies – CSR, SRI, ESG, impact investing and more. Alas, these increasingly fit the systems archetype of a ‘fix that fails’ – a first-order solution offset or even overturned by second-order unintended consequences. However, VML strategies are not the only response available to us. Other, ‘deeper’, strategies are possible and now need to be accelerated.
Win-Win in the Time of Net Zero: A Tale of Two Sustainabilities (May 2021). 16 pages
The real value of today’s ‘Net Zero moment’ may be less the actual pledges (non-binding, long-dated etc.) than that the term might helpfully awaken people to what ecological ‘sustainability’ actually means and requires. Net zero upends the appealing narrative that sustainability is a ‘win-win’ and reveals there have all along between two interpretations of sustainability: ‘more sustainable than before’ and ‘sustainable enough before it is too late’…
Can ESG Grasp What Ecology Says? (February 2021). 11 pages
‘Ceteris paribus’ says the economist; ‘everything is connected’ says the ecologist. Until the economist – and financier – fully acknowledges the innate limitations of an ‘economic’ perspective, ESG and other voluntary market-led strategies are unlikely to achieve the sustainability impacts they aspire to.
Can Economics Grasp What Ecology Says? (February 2021). 35 pages.
A longer, more detailed version of the essay above, delving into how the left and right brain uphold ‘economic’ and ‘ecological’ perspectives of the world respectively.
Trump Happens When Cultures Believe Private Can Cover for Public (January 2021). 10 pages
History shows that when societies favour ‘private’ too much, tyrants emerge and public problems accumulate that private cannot fix.
Sustainability is a Quicksand Problem (October 2020). 10 pages
The exquisite dilemma of quicksand is that you must escape as quickly as possible but anything you do to escape only drags you further down. Our ecological crisis is becoming a quicksand problem…
Friedman’s Feedback Loop (September 2020). 6 pages.
Fifty years ago, with Economics in the grip of reductionism, Milton Friedman argued: ‘the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’. Placing Friedman’s statement under a modern ‘systems’ lens reveals that he initiated a feedback loop – ‘Friedman’s Feedback Loop’ – which propels the runaway corporatism destabilizing our society and environment.
EBITDAC Earnings in a BESDA Economy (May 2020). 10 pages.
We build our economies with arbitrary metrics, while the Earth keeps track of the real score.
The History of the ESG Movement – in Cartoons! (April 2020). 6 pages
Pretty much what it says!
Keep Calm but Don’t Carry On (In This Situation)? (March 2020). 4 pages
Short primer as COVID-19 pandemic broke (not updated since March 2020).
From Machine to Network: The World Metaphor Changed in 1989 (February 2020). 12 pages.
Was the most important event in 1989 that we started to use the word ‘network’ more than ‘machine’ for the first time? And have never looked back?
Pigou and the Dropped Stitch of Economics (February 2020). 16 pages.
A century after Arthur Pigou coined the term ‘externality’, the question our
sustainability crisis poses is whether our economy is more market failure than market. What says economics, then?
Greenwish: The Wishful Thinking Undermining the Ambition of Sustainable Business (June 2019). 17 pages.
We may be facing a new affliction of greenwish – the earnest hope that well-intended efforts to make the world more sustainable are much closer to achieving the necessary change than they really are. This unsought condition may prove every bit as harmful as greenwash, and possibly harder to unpick, because it is more widespread and arises mainly from good intentions.
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