In a new Wiki Book (www.citizenrenaissance.com), authors Robert Phillips and Jules Peck explore the potential of a new Tripartite Contract between Business, Politics and Citizenship; a Contract built and conducted in the spirit of openness, transparency and real engagement; one designed to deliver the common good and safeguard the future of the planet.

Can Copenhagen deliver a new industrial revolution?  – David Vigar, Climate Change Adviser, Tomorrow’s Company, david@davidvigar.co.uk As December’s Copenhagen climate summit approaches, new evidence is emerging of the massive scale of the action needed to avert the risk of runaway global warming. At the same time, contradictory signals emerging from the pre-summit discussions don’t inspire confidence that it’s likely to be taken.  The scale of the task is underlined in a new report, Climate Solutions 2, produced for WWF by Climate Risk, a company that advises insurers and others on climate-related issues. Their modelling takes into account targets for stabilising greenhouse gases, available low-carbon technologies and the speed at which industries can grow in a market economy, given physical and financial constraints. The report’s bottom line is that world’s governments, businesses and investors have five years to shift low-carbon industries into a high growth phase to avoid...

Marking the 20th Anniversary of SRI in the Rockies offers more than an opportunity to review the hard-won progress of investors to prove that socially responsible investing is viable and now clearly out-performs traditional mainstream investing.  Since the credit crises of 2008-2009, we can now assert with confidence that investing for long-term sustainability and taking ESG factors as material to asset valuation could have actually helped avert these crises.   We investors are now winning the paradigm battle and cite the evidence to show that the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is bunk and by the same token show that the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and, yes, even the sacred tenets of the "rational investor" and the Black-Scholes Merton Options Pricing Model all are part of history.

David is Climate Change Adviser to Tomorrow’s Company and was the author of the Tomorrow's Company report Tomorrow's Climate - beyond peak carbon which you can find here. This article is based on David Vigar's speech at the launch of that report on 16th July 2009.

This is an executive summary report on the “Coal Plants in Transition: An Economic Case Study” prepared by Natural Capitalism Solutions in Colorado. The report makes a strong business case for energy providers to consider transitioning away from coal to a combination of renewable and energy efficiency technologies.  The transition becomes cost effective and quite profitable when combined with revenue streams that result from selling pollution credits (NOx, SO2), carbon credits, water rights, and also fuel savings.       The study specifically considers the Navajo Generating Station as an example. But the report is designed to provide information to utility managers all over the country who are faced with serious economic decisions regarding the future of their coal plants as we enter a carbon and water constrained world.