This selfie is a graph that shows the state of humanity in 12 social aspects such as health, education, or social equity and 9 environmental aspects such as climate change or air pollution.
When observing the diagram, the current situation is critical: globally, we did not even reach the acceptable minimum in any of the social aspects and we exceeded the limit in 4 out of the 9 ecological aspects. According to the author, this means that the current economic paradigm failed as it could not meet the basic needs of the world’s population and, at the same time, exceeded much of the planetary limits on which life depends on.
Raworth points out that prosperity is only possible if a dynamic balance is achieved between the social dimension – ensuring minimum conditions so that all the planet’s inhabitants can have ultimately a decent life – and the environmental dimension – not exceeding ecological limits. In order to achieve this, it is essential to co-create all kinds of innovations that contribute to this objective.
We had the honor in speaking with Nicolás Xanthopoulos, co-founder of Sumatoria, an innovative organization in the field of sustainable finance that connects conscious investors with projects, companies or institutions that have a positive impact. To make this possible, Sumatoria works through 4 vehicles: an impact investment crowdlending platform, an impact investment fund, strengthening and training programs, and a research space on alternative finance.
Nicolás emphasizes the importance of becoming aware of the great transformation potential that money holds. Additionally, money is never the problem, the issue is always on how it is utilized. Similarly, it also invites us to realize clearly the influence that the financial system has on us. Basically, it decides what to consume before we can do it: if something was not financed, it could not exist.
“The financial system should only generate opportunities for projects that go in the two directions that Raworth talks about; projects that improve people’s lives and help lower the required ecosystem thresholds. If a project fulfills these two visions, we are facing a project with a positive impact that will aid to improve humanity”.
As conscious consumers, we have a responsibility to ask ourselves what variables are taken into account when financing the companies that provide us with the products and services we consume. If the economic aspect is privileged over the other variables, we will surely end up consuming things that do not respond to our values.
You might be also interested in this article about alternatives to single-use plastic, or this one on eco-friendly sunglasses.
