Here are my sketchy notes on the Michael Kramer talk last week.  His website is http://naturalinvesting.com/about-ni/michael-kramer  Please double check anything I've written below.

Linda

Locally-owned isn’t the only solution.  For instance, should you buy your lumber from a locally-owned hardware store that doesn’t stock sustainably-harvested lumber or should you go to a chain box store that does?

We need to use the power of our spending and investing dollars at every level: green investing at the macro level (we have power to change corporate practices as shareholders) and at the local level. We can create change both top-down and bottom-up.

According to Michael, we will always need some products (e.g. solar panels, bicycles) that won’t be produced locally.

Michael believes in regenerative economics.  

He suggests we check out corporations at www.goodguide.com and www.responsibleshopper.org

Investments are what we do with any surplus money.

Michael talked about socially-responsible investing (SRI) and how that typically works.  Some “screens” block out just the “sin stocks” like firearms, porn, military contractors.  He calls this “sector analysis.”

Other “screens” look at corporate behavior and screen out things like animal testing, bad record on workplace diversity, benefits, environmental footprint.

Some more recent SRI “screens” are called Affirmative screens. Domini fund was one of the first of these. Morningstar is another.

Kramer calls himself  a “recovering anti-capitalist” and is optimistic about the ability of shareholder groups to affect corporate policies.

Many corporations now have "Corporate Sustainability Officers.”

He also recommended credit unions like the Permaculture Credit Union that foster community development.  A good website is www.communityinvest.org

He also talked about microfinance and Shorebank

Kramer mentioned 3 kinds of investments: 1) degenerative (toxic) 2) generative (e.g. solar panels and bicycles that give greater benefits than their environmental/social cost and 3) “regenerative investments” – investments that cycle and recycle their benefits.  Two books he recommended were “Cradle to Cradle” by McDonough and “The Ecology of Commerce” by Paul Hawken.

In permaculture terms, Kramer says we’re now at an “edge” – a fertile margin between two ways of living.