Avoiding the Reckoning: A Proposed New Convention for Thinking Differently
About Society, Prosperity, the Economy, Art, Science, Civil Society, Enterprise, Finance, Government and the Past and Future History of Humanity's Relationship With Nature, and With Our Own Humanity
Changing Our Relationship with Nature, and Each Other
The Vision and Values of the Bank of Nature program within The Cape Cod Center for Sustainability are focused on changing Humanity’s relationship with Nature, transforming Modern Society from extractive to interactive, for climate security and true endgame Sustainability.
Within that program, we see that we, as humans, owe Nature everything, but Nature does not owe us anything.
Which means that when we take from Nature, there has to be an accounting. And if that accounting is not made currently, if we don’t keep our accounts in good account, then, there is going to be a reckoning.
For a very long time now, Modern Society has not been keeping current with our accounts. And Nature is not happy about it.
A reckoning is coming.
And it will be catastrophic. Not for Nature. For Modern Society.
But it is still not too late.
We can still act to pay our growing debt. We can still put ourselves back into good standing with Nature, and each other, and avoid a catastrophic reckoning.
The Bank of Nature program is stepping forward to take the lead in leading Modern Society towards paying our debts to Nature, both retroactively and going forward.
Our strategy for doing this is Pensions, and Finance more generally.
Yes. There is a BIG role for Politics and Government, but not until we break Corporate Capture of public opinion and governmental policymaking.
To do that, we first need to break Corporate Capture of Pensions, setting them free from the false identity as Asset Owners in which they are now trapped, to embrace their true identities as Fiduciary Owners of society’s shared savings aggregated into Pensions (and also Endowments) for programmatically providing certainty against certain of life’s future uncertainties for an evergreen open class of current and future generations, and the future of current generations, entrusted with the powers of size, of purpose, of time and of technology to negotiate, and regulated by civil society through the common sense of the common law of fiduciary duty of intergenerational loyalty and prudence, as to who they choose to negotiate with, and what they choose to negotiate for.
To do that, we first have to break Corporate Capture of our own Common Sense, setting ourselves free from the false normalities that Markets are everything, that enterprise is the corporation and that Finance is a Black Box controlled by the Wizards of Wall Street who are the Masters of the Universe, that doesn’t really matter!
To do that, we have to open up the Black Box of Modern Finance, and take a look at what is actually inside.
When we do that, we will see that Markets (Exchanges & Funds, aka Corporate Finance) are not the social structures of social decision making that we can use to make good on our accounts, and avoid a catastrophic reckoning, with Nature, and with our own Humanity. Pensions & Endowments are.
I know. That’s a lot!
It challenges our conventional thinking, because that is not how we are being taught to think about these things.
But our personal experience within the Bank of Nature program - and, we expect, your own personal experience, as well - is showing us that conventional thinking is not working at finding a way out of the conundrums that conventional thinking is creating for us, and our posterity.
Time to think different.
So, here, in broad strokes, is our new convention for thinking different:
IF we can get to an agreement that Finance Matters,
because that is how society decides what our future history of prosperity can, should and will be made to be,AND IF we can get to an agreement that Pensions also matter, as institutions of financial decision-making
because of their size, their purpose, their time and their technology,AND IF we can get to an agreement that Pensions are accountable to us for the choices that they make with the savings of society that we entrust to their good judgement
as fiduciary financing institutions of intergenerational responsibility,THEN we can begin to change the way they move our money,
and collaboratively co-create our future,To finance the future we choose.
What is the future we choose?
These are the values that Bank of Nature is being designed to value:
Give Nature Agency. Establish Nature as “the Commons” - an independent proxy for nature and legally recognized peer to international governments and industries.
Engage the Heroes of Climate Security. Partner with the financial organizations that have both the mission and the opportunity to fully engage in the stewardship of climate security.
Invest in Future Generations. Enforce existing intergenerational responsibilities through our partnership with nature.
Make More Nature. Invest directly in nature building, innovation, detoxification, capacity and reversing “overshoot”.
Pay Nature Rent. Make good on what we owe for the extraction from nature to make our society.
Internalize Externalities. Move towards the true costs of our society by paying nature damages for our negative consequences.
Define Endgame Sustainability. Set a path toward a time in future when the climate threat is behind us.
Restructure the Economy. So that it no longer needs fossil fuels, and becomes heedful of Nature, and Humanity
How will we value these values?
That will require a new language, of Evergreen Fiduciary Money; for applying a new logic, of Evergreen Equity Payback Finance, to Pension and Endowments decision making about which enterprises they are going to negotiate financings with, and what priorities they are going to negotiate for in those financings.
This will require a new institution, not of Asset Ownership, but of Fiduciary Stewardship, for speaking that new language and applying that new logic to its financing choices.
The good news is, we already have the institutions of Fiduciary Ownership that we need. These are our Pensions and Endowments. We just need to create a new institution, of Fiduciary Stewardship, for those institutions, to teach them this new language and apply this new logic.
That new institution of Fiduciary Stewardship for our existing institutions of Fiduciary Ownership we conceive as Bank of Nature.
So, we have this new puzzle. What are the right pieces for making Bank of Nature as an institution of Fiduciary Stewardship for institutions of Fiduciary Ownership? And how do we put those pieces together?
Our proposal begins with a new convention for how we think about enterprise.
Instead of thinking corporately, about hierarchies of decision making authority delegated to subordinates, who delegate to subordinates, let’s think more humanly, about Vision & Values, Language & Logic, and about configurations of Knowledge, Networks and Routines for putting learning into action collaboratively co-creating surpluses for sharing with others through commercial exchange.
Here’s a puzzle with one version of the pieces that we need and want to have in place in oder to make Bank of Nature become what we imagine it can and should be made to be.
Can you make this puzzle part of your own new way of thinking?
If not, will you tell us why not?