With more than 550 US and Canadian public pension fund members managing $3 trillion in assets, the NCPERS is influential and far reaching. The best practices include establishing fiduciary training and risk assessment initiatives across administrative, member services and client functions.

Download the Best Practices here »

****

May 24th and 25th, London, UK – an invitation from NSFM Participant, Chris Hewett to The Role of Household Savings and Debt in a Sustainable Economy. 

Over a day and a half the event will share learning and generate discussion about the role that household finances, and the balance between debt, savings and consumption, plays in the wider economy and how policy shapes this. This is to help develop a deeper understanding of the impact of different uses of consumer credit and saving behaviours on the development of a sustainable economy capable of operating within ecological limits.

You can register for the event through Eventbrite, following this link.

Does Northern Europe possess unique characteristics that cannot disappear and do not need to disappear, or will globalisation inevitably result in uniformity, divested businesses, lower wages and huge pressure on social security provisions? This is one of the main questions addressed by the book, which is the result of a research programme undertaken by the Professorship International Business of the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen.

The role of social ties in Northern European institutional structures are assessed, and attention focussed on long-term relationships and a high level of institutional trust (trust in government, trust in collective arrangements). The authors plea for a renewed attention on economics in which both financial objectives and social ties are important.

Download a PDF summary in English »

The book is currently published in full only in Dutch. An English version will be published later this year.

We’ve just found out about a competition being run by Harvard Business Review and McKinsey & Co to encourage a long-term approach to capitalism.

They are looking for stories (about projects in action) and “hacks” which are bold, radical ideas.

We are sure many of you could contribute and some of you may not have heard of this competition.

It’s very simple to register - http://www.managementexchange.com/m-prize

Then for your “hack” you just need to fill out a simple web-based form: title/summary, problem definition, solution descritpo, practical impact, challenge, frst steps and then any credits.  Please do mention NSFM as a community that encouarges this kind of thinking/action!

If by chance you decide not to enter, you can still contribute by signing up and saying if you like/don’t like any of the ideas.  There aren’t so many investment professionals/academics on the site so NSFMers can play an important contributory role.  And we may be able to encourage new people to join NSFM.

The deadline for everything is 11^th May – you have  5 days!  Let me know if I can be of any more help – Charlotte[at]sustainablefinancialmarkets.net

Good luck!

I was the president of a philanthropic foundation supporting work on economic and environmental justice, and reproductive rights, with a particular focus on communities of color, and sustainable agriculture, and investing its assets to harmonize its creed and deed. That was easy, if long winded. My vocation was institutionally based.

In “retirement” I found myself fumbling to answer the question. I am writing, consulting, and lecturing on philanthropy and democracy; fiduciary duty; sustainability; environmentally sound and just community economic and social development; environmental justice; science and public policy; climate risk… I also serve on a number of boards committed to action in these fields. But without an institutional base telling people ‘what I did’ was equally long-winded and without focus. And to say I was ‘retired’ was vague (as I am really trying to define what that means for me) and ambiguous, conjuring up images that were unrelated to my day-to-day activities, my goals, and my vision. I do not now nor ever have played golf, nor do I fish.

During the 2006 Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays spent with my kids and grandkids I finally figured out what I do, and what, in fact, I have been doing for most of my career.

My vocation: I am a Grandparent. [1]

Let me explain since to me Grandparenting means more to me than what usually comes to mind.

First there is the physical proximity and interaction, listening, learning, helping them to learn, I hope without pedantry, and most of all loving. The fact that my grandchildren live in Amherst, Massachusetts and London, England while I live in New York, means also longing and periods of intense gratification when we come together, which is as often as possible.

But as a vocation Grandparenting is much more.

It means doing what I can do to secure a decent future for them. Yes, personal inheritance is a part of this, but not the essence of what I mean, especially in my case given the relatively meager amount of dollars that I might be able to leave to them. Rather it relates to the inheritance that all Grandparents through their actions as individuals and through their institutional settings can leave to their Grandchildren, and, the ultimate hubris, to all grandchildren around the world. A global view of Grandparenting is a necessity because my grandchildren’s’ futures cannot be secure unless all grandchildren’s futures are secure. There is no moat that can separate my grandchildren from the world.

Whatever any of us do, at any age, and regardless of our family situation, we are all grandparents bearing responsibility for the next generation. By this I mean more than a simple act of chance family circumstance. We all have responsibilities to future generations. This is a moral and ethical burden that we carry as humans. We can (must) accept that role consciously because the intended and unintended consequences of our actions, for better or worse, cannot be denied. Whatever other vocations we have, we always in everything we do, in small ways and large, affect the concentric circles of the world around us. And the cumulative impact of all our actions is the determining factor in what we leave for our grandchildren.

Accepting the vocation of Grandparenting has been enormously helpful to me. It helps to integrate the various activities I engage in and the substantive areas that are the focus of my attention. It helps to identify and force me to systematize the gaps that were seemingly random in my thinking, and has served the always useful function of identifying where I am ignorant. It helps me to identify the questions that need to be asked that will bring others and me to action. It helps me to clarify what are my commitments as differentiated from interests.

Grandfathering is thus at the core of what follows: Thoughts on sustainability.

The mid-19^th century American essayist and practical philosopher Henry David Thoreau observed that “The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”

To expand on Thoreau, from the perspective of my vocation as a man well into his eighth decade, I conclude that the role of the older person (me) is to work to ensure that the materials the young need are available for them to build the bridges or palaces or temples, the woodsheds, or whatever else they feel is necessary for them to fulfill their dreams and visions. And since we at the beginning of the 21^st century are obviously facing qualitatively and quantitatively different issues than Thoreau’s time the “materials” needed must be more broadly defined. When Thoreau was writing access to sufficient supplies of clean air and clean water were assumed.  Climate change, gross inequities in the distribution of in the distribution of wealth and justice accompanied by extreme poverty, were not matters of high priority, but are now just a few of the interconnected issues that the vocation of Grandparent requires attention to now. So too must we relate to the broader global context as the materials are no longer locally sourced.

It is not for me the older person to tell the young—my, our, grandchildren– what to build or how to build or to live but rather to keep their options open to fulfill their dreams and visions. An essential part of this is to share whatever wisdom I may have gleaned over the decades of what I have learned for better or worse, but not shackle them with history.

This is the essence of sustainability: our generation’s obligation to keep open options for future generations.

I have written much on sustainability over the years, starting in the early 1990s. These talks and publications have been academic if not scholarly. Although almost all of the included some call to action, I do not recall using the first person in any of them. “We should do …” was common.

The thoughts here are more personal. They are the thoughts of an older person who has just discovered what his vocation has been and is now well into the 8^th decade of his life. E.L. Doctorow towards the beginning of his novel Ragtime, wrote about the murder of the architect Sanford White by his mistress. “ The tabloids called it the crime of the century, but it was only 1906. And how were they to know what was to come?”

[This is very much a work in process and comments are very welcome. My email is s.viederman[at]gmail.com]

A Network for Sustainable Financial Markets fringe workshop prior to the opening of the Just Banking conference was held in Edinburgh, Thursday 19th April.