The Start of a Revolution
January 3, 2012: California becomes the sixth state to adopt law that allows the formation of corporations whose main purpose isn’t to make money.
A day at the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento, where California’s first twelve businesses filed to operate as benefit corporations.
California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Sacramento’s Capitol Park, only a short walk from the Secretary of State’s Corporate Filing Office, honoring Brien Thomas (B.T.) Collins, Vietnam War veteran and CA Assembly Member, who “never wavered in the belief that one should give something back to society.”
I hope five or ten years from now we’ll look back on this day and say “this was the start of a revolution, because the existing paradigm isn’t working anymore. This is the future.”
- Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, California’s first benefit corporation.
Photos by Debra Baida
Story by Sven Eberlein
How to start your own renewable energy company…
Ursula Sladek, photo courtesy EWS
This month’s issue of Resurgence Magazine features The Reluctant Rebels, an article I wrote based on my visit last summer with 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner Ursula Sladek in the small town of Schönau in the Black Forest region of Germany. It’s quite a remarkable story of a small community taking matters into their own hands, and you can read the whole piece here, but if there’s one moment in their journey that not only goes to the root of many of the ecological problems the planet and its inhabitants face but offers a textbook example of what motivates a determined activist, it’s this one:
As it turned out, the Schönau energy rebels would need all that energy in overcoming their next, more formidable obstacle. “We went to KWR, the power company that was operating the local grid, and asked them whether they’d like to join our conservation efforts,” Ursula recalls. “We just wanted to add a few energy-saving measures, like rates based on consumption, and incentives for more cogeneration units, but they said, ‘Conserve energy? Have you lost your mind? We want to sell energy, not save it!’”
Here’s the Goldman Prize video in which Ursula describes the transformation from a group of concerned parents into a non-profit energy cooperative that provides power from over 1,800 solar, hydroelectric, wind, biomass and cogeneration facilities to 115,000 homes and businesses throughout the country:
Also, Ode Magazine ran an article last month based on my visit with Peter Hasenbrink, pastor of the Schönau Lutheran church that became a legend when it covered its church roof in solar panels, calling them “Creation Windows” that provide “heavenly energy.”
Pastor Peter Hasenbrink in front of Bergkirche in Schönau
I’ll be writing more about Schönau and its cast of energy rebels in the coming months, but for now some visual impressions of this giant little town from my trip this summer…
Occupying the Future: Benefit Corporations now opening shop in NY, six other states
At midnight last night, New York became the 7th state to pass into law legislation that allows the formation of a new and different type of corporation, one that is required to create benefit for society as well as shareholders: The Benefit Corporation. I heard about this from my friend Barb, whose husband’s company will apply immediately to be one of NY’s first benefit corporations.
What is a benefit corporation?
Benefit Corporations are a new class of corporation that
1) creates a material positive impact on society and the environment
2) expands fiduciary duty to require consideration of non-financial interests when making decisions
3) reports on its overall social and environmental performance using recognized third party standards.
Benefit corporation momentum has slowly been building for years, with legislation passed in California, Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, New Jersey, and now New York, and pending in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington, D.C..
I have to admit that I didn’t know about these new entities until last week, when Deb told me that there was a call for a huge turnout on January 3rd at California Secretary of State Debra Bowen‘s office at 1500 11th Street in Sacramento, when companies in our state can start filing articles of incorporation under the Benefit Corporation designation, or existing companies can begin the process of transferring to a Benefit Corporation. (AB 361)
I’m thrilled to report that the seats were filled last week at the San Francisco Bay Area Green Chamber of Commerce’s sponsored presentation “How to Become a Benefit Corporation.” The enthusiasm in the room was palpable as Donald Simon, one of the three Bay Area attorneys who led this effort and co-wrote AB 361, walked attendees through some much amazing detail about this bill. Simon proudly pointed out that this is a piece of legislation that is written in English and not legalese!
I was thinking to myself, “wouldn’t this be a nice occasion for the Occupy movement to celebrate and cheer on the corporations lining up to change their status that day?”
If the elevator didn’t stop…
another new poem to challenge old assumptions…
If the elevator didn’t stop
you’d go straight to heaven
that is assuming
heaven is at the top
an idea we feed
with a hungry mind
until the high rise made of paper leaves
is strewn in the wind
like a million little snow flakes
Change
Some thoughts on impermanence. I guess some would call it a poem…
Change
what there is
may not be there
and what may come
has always been
what is a rock
is tomorrow’s sand
your deepest wish
buried in your hand
the seed you sow
may not become
the plant envisioned
but it will find its way
if you water it
change eats
from the bowl of the past
slowly emptying
the reservoir of certainty
with each spoonful of dwindling prospects
remember
you’re being nourished
HOT STUFF! From Durban to Rio – Introducing International Ecocity Framework & Standards
After largely ignoring the role of cities and local governments at its first 15 climate conferences, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took a huge step at COP16 in Cancun when the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) for the first time in history officially adopted local governments as “governmental stakeholders”. What this means in plain English is that the work being done in cities, towns, villages and communities around the world to lower our carbon footprint will from now on have a direct impact on the highest levels of decision and policy making in the UNFCCC.
Sounds somewhat trivial, unsexy and anticlima(c)tic, but a quick look at the UN’s own Global Report on Human Settlements 2011 – Cities and Climate Change as summarized by BBC news (UN report: Cities ignore climate change at their peril) shows why this was such a significant breakthrough:
- Urban areas are set to become the battleground in the global effort to curb climate change, the UN has warned.
- The assessment by UN-Habitat said that the world’s cities were responsible for about 70% of emissions, yet only occupied 2% of the planet’s land cover.
- While cities were energy intensive, the study also said that effective urban planning could deliver huge savings.
- The authors warned of a “deadly collision between climate change and urbanisation” if no action was taken.
The conversation about a Local Government Climate Roadmap process continues this Friday through Sunday at COP17 in Durban with the Durban Local Government Convention: adapting to a changing climate – towards COP17/ CMP7 to build on the outcomes of the Resilient Cities 2011 congress, which focused on “understanding and improving the profile of adaptation as a critical tool in achieving local developmental and sustainability objectives.”
What this means is that there’s going to be more talk about the role of cities at COP17, though it’s not exactly the kind of stuff that gets bodies moving and booties shaking.
But I betcha this will…
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The Watsonville Files: Everyone is trapped in a vicious cycle of failed immigration and farm policy
There are tens of thousands of children and young people in America who came to the United States as babies of parents who worked in the fields, or on construction sites, or in hotels or restaurants. These kids have grown up as Americans, they are culturally American, and they have American dreams, but they have no future. In the thirty years that I’ve worked on farms and ranches around California and Oregon I’ve gotten to know some of them well. I listen to the radio and read the news and I understand the complexity and frustrations of the immigration situation as well as most, and I’m probably more familiar with the intestinal workings of immigration enforcement better than many, but I think that it is cruel, unworkable, and actually insane to talk about deporting these young “aliens” back to countries they barely know. My wish is that we Americans summon up the integrity for an honest debate what a real and comprehensive immigration policy should be, and my dream is that we welcome these kids in before we have a huge toxic permanent underclass that brings out the worst in everybody.
- California organic farmer
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A couple of Sundays ago I went on a Farmworker Reality Tour to Watsonville, CA, organized by Dr. Ann López, founder of the Center for Farmworker Families and author of The Farmworkers’ Journey. A bunch of my blogger friends at Daily Kos made the journey to the heart of one of California’s major agricultural centers to visit four different homes and “challenge us to better understand the conditions of Mexican farmworkers in Northern California by sharing in their lives, food, and living quarters.”
It was quite a trip. From leaving the Burger King parking lot armed with care packages…
through holes in the fence…
to the first home…
and the signs pointing to the harsh realities of living in poverty, exposed not only to the elements but lawlessness and violence…
Death never felt so full of life
“Let’s have fun at a death party” is probably not the most commonly uttered combination of words in the English language. There’s something a bit too irreverent and dangerously inappropriate about the image, like a friendly slap on fearsome Lord Voldemort’s back, affectionately calling He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named “Voldy.” Death and celebration don’t usually get to tango in our collective psyche, and yet, every year on November 2nd, right down the street from my house, a throng of hip-shaking, candle-carrying and guitar-strumming neighbors do just that: Celebrate the dead.
