We’ve Built a Platform to Harvest the Next Great Thing(s)

Green X Prize is designed to address two admittedly ambitious and lucrative objectives.

First, the creation and affirmation of a new paradigm is establishing the clear link between building business and personal wealth with social and environmental responsibility. The natural synergies of Green Business will maximize the future profitability of both.

Second, building a platform bringing savvy investors together with the creators of the next great thing before it becomes the next great thing. As the old saying so aptly reminds us, timing is everything. We seek to be in the right place, at the right time, and be there first.

Throughout history, America’s growth and cultural capacity to create wealth has time and time again redefined what we believe is possible. Today, we see one great economic driver as the key today to competing in – and winning – the future’s richest markets.

Innovation.
Innovation and a Historical Perspective

It’s seen throughout history. From the Industrial Revolution to rising out of the financial ashes of the Depression; World Wars to nation-building forays in Southeast Asia and the Middle East; our recent recovery from the economic meltdown to coping with the rise of China, innovation has always been what has charted our path to the next era of prosperity.

And today it is a truly transformative, more powerful than ever driver of change and profit.

Properly nurtured, Green X Prize offers a rare opportunity to match ideas with investors.  We believe it is possible to serve the greater good and achieve unheard of ROI as we do.

Proven historically by new ideas reengineering the competitive landscape, creating new markets, and recalibrating what we believed possible. Consider just a few examples.

The spinning jenny, the cotton gin and the rise of fossil fuel engines in the 19^th Century; in the early 20^th Century FDR’s courage to rewrite the rules and reengineering America while simultaneously delivering Social Security, the Federal Reserve and prosecuting wars; and in the latter decades of the 20^th Century, wholly new technologies that changed how we do everything and putting computing power once housed in a warehouse in our hands.

Innovation that Unleashes Opportunity

For visionary investors the challenges are to optimally identify opportunity and to navigate globally changing markets while harvesting them with old school best practices that assure success.  Doing it requires strategies that don’t look for the future in the rear-view mirror.

For future opportunities to be seized, new realities must be understood and accepted. As an example, China’s rise reflects commitment, investment and calculated risk.  Their modern $4 trillion-dollar Silk Road, an ambitious, innovative network of disparate projects linked by national vision, also features willingness to adjust.  Once the world’s worst polluter, they are now transitioning to environmental trailblazer – seeing both the value and profit in it.

Ideology notwithstanding, during a time of 7% annualized growth and peace at home, the installation of Xi as president for life is central to China’s strategy to eclipse the US as the world’s greatest economic power. Beyond ideology, it’s both prudent and opportunistic.

Innovation Bringing Profit and Green Together
Welcome to the Green X Prize – www.greenxprize.com.

The platform is the actualization of the vision inspiring our foundational memoir, Go Green, Get Rich.  Combining historical perspective and the belief that innovation and sustainability should be at the heart of assessing investment opportunity and cornerstones of policy. Calls to combat climate change may fall upon politically deaf ears, but the ROI surely won’t.

The future belongs to the trendsetters.  Many will go above the limitations of the law while operating within the spirit of it. Others will challenge the status quo and see the profit in doing what’s right.  As an example, when Ralph Nader shocked the automotive industry with a vision for safety, he didn’t kill the car business; he ensured its ever-brighter future.

We seek to pair ethical venture capitalists with visionary innovators. Giving innovators a dynamic platform to post projects, where interested members vote them up and down, and reward them. Offering investors first access to the best and potentially the most profitable ideas.  Early access aligned with vetted, like-minded investors that understand how Green is not merely good for the planet but is also good business that will sustain the future.

Distinguishing us and all we envision, is a more balanced, sustainable and Green approach. The belief that profit need not come at the wholesale destruction of the greater good, profit need not be corporate speak for greed and exploitation, and that social responsibility can assure, ignite and protect future markets, it doesn’t have to restrict them.

www.greenxprize.com
The Green X Prize Team
Source: https://www.greenxprize.com/think-green-article/We%E2%80%99ve-Built-a-Platform-to-Harvest-the-Next-Great-Thing(s)

The Strong Do What They Can And The Weak Suffer What They Must

Plato Told Us What Trade Wars Really Mean:
“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

It should come as no surprise that insight into modern economic warfare was offered by Plato, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time, in 380 BCE. President Trump may casually dismiss trade wars as “easy” but the truth is they are anything but painful, yes, easy, no.

The reality is trade wars plant the seeds of economic unrest, are fertilized by political instability, and typically paid for in the end by the people most impacted and least capable.

In our book, Go Green, Get Rich, we addressed the rise of China and debunked many of the inconvenient truths that simply no longer exist or apply.

China has become not just a formidable economic power, but possibly the most powerful. Beyond the vast products that we buy and sell with China and ignoring for the moment the troubling amount of our national debt they own and can potentially leverage against us, it’s political analysis that best explains the potential impact of a trade war with China.

Again, as noted in the book, this isn’t to suggest that all is rosy in China, it’s not.  In the end, they may be better prepared to wage a trade war, endure it and possibly win it.

It may be uncomfortable, but politically China is doing a lot of things right.  In the book we talked about the Central Politburo as a most effective example of sustainable leadership, however heavy-handed and one-sided. Their vision for the future has critical threads of capitalism running throughout it. As the world’s greatest environmental offender, they are addressing environmental issues. Contrast this with our daily roll-backs of EPA regulations.

And innovation, what at Green X Prize we believe is fundamental to our future, the Chinese are using it and bringing millions of their citizens out of poverty.  To their credit, they are honoring, as a culture, their ancestral environmental consciousness, and proactively confronting the world’s worst pollution.

Presidents Trump and Putin still operate under the assumption that ‘might makes right’ and while we can debate whether that was ever true in the past, it certainly isn’t today.  As we noted in Go Green, Get Rich, “What is ‘right’ has become rather muddy.”

From the environment to the truth of trade today, nations that falsely believe they can assume the ideological upper hand may find themselves coming-up empty-handed. 

Presidential bluster aside, what we once relied upon internationally as the Washington Consensus before our very eyes may be morphing into the Beijing Consensus.  Many of us are rightfully surprised – and at least for the moment relieved – by the restraint China is showing by resisting Trump’s trade war bait.

To pick a fight we may not win seems short-sighted and dangerous.  Picking a fight that was avoidable and unnecessary seems socially and politically irresponsible.  And if that fight is one where American consumers are the most likely biggest losers, it’s a horrific price to pay for a president desperate to change the subject, whatever the cost.

Recently, Stephen Collinson of CNN wrote a fascinating analysis of a president in search of a national emergency. 

As examples he listed the Border ‘Crisis’, the Missing Landslide, the Travel Ban, and Transgender Troops.  To that we can add Tariffs and Trade Wars.

Chest pounding about tariffs and provoking a trade war to solve a problem that may not be a problem – or better off avoided for the moment – may fire up the base but it only leaves the rest of the world cold and increasingly nervous.  At a time when the president is under ferocious legal and political pressure, we need steady, thoughtful, sustainable leadership. 

Yet, as we’ve noted in the past, our leadership and most of the global community typically fails the sustainability test, and until a commitment is made to align success with sustainability, may be destined to continue that trend.

Thoughtful leadership that prizes green innovation and creates a platform to encourage is what the Green X Prize is all about.

We invite you to visit and learn about us, and pledge to continue the dialogue that looks beyond politics that divide us to causes that unite us.

www.greenxprize.com

The Green X Prize Team

Source: https://www.greenxprize.com/think-green-article/The-Strong-Do-What-They-Can-And-The-Weak-Suffer-What-They-Must

What Is Social Responsible Investing

Financial investments are primarily done with the expectation of achieving a profit. Yes, money still drives the main investment portfolio decisions and yet it isn’t the sole criteria any longer. People are conscious of the changes happening all around and care enough to invest in projects and things that make a positive impact. These investors aim to contribute their little bit in plans that will lead to global, social, environmental and even governance advancements.

Social Responsible Investing – What Is It?

Social Responsible Investing or SRI is also known as Sustainable Responsible Investing. It can be described as a discipline or school of thought that firmly believes in impact investing for social good. Hence, it means not investing in companies and products that are harming the environment are socially corrupting or addictive in nature. All in all, SRI is all about socially conscious investments.

Who Are SRI Investors?

SRI investors are people like you and me. Additionally, they also include venture capitalists, religious institutions, foundations, hospitals and medical schools etc. The only thing that differentiates these people from others is their personal decision to give back some to the society.

Goals of SRI

There are two main goals of Social Responsible Investing. One is obviously financial gain and the other social impact.

• Financial Gain – this one is a no-brainer, an investor in any field wants better returns. When it comes to SRI, the return might not be high but sufficient to soothe the conscious. It is not necessary that a socially responsible investment will always give poor returns. Hence, the investor needs to assess the monetary outlook of the proposed investment.
• Social Impact – go-green projects, clean technology, community development funds etc., are some examples of SRI that have a notable social impact. The idea is to create a better social and environmental set-up which will automatically benefit all and reduce dependence on anyone and anything.

How to Accomplish Social Responsible Investing

• Invest In Companies That Have Social Values – investors need to be more aware of the fact that they invest in those companies that give importance to values. These values may be associated with the uplifting the society or environmental protection or green technology etc. Ideally, before investing it is necessary to understand what values guide the operations of the company. Once satisfied that they are indeed working in conjunction with their advertised beliefs you can study the financial side of things.
• Community Investing – this is an extremely fast-growing sector. Herein, the capital of the investors is intended for those communities which are still served by conservative financial lending institutions. Community investing allows for low-interest loans for investment capital and at the same time provides significant group benefits that incorporate housing, healthcare, education and much more.
• Shareholders Influencing Corporate Decisions – shareholders have the right and moral responsibility to positively influence corporate decisions which could otherwise have a damaging impact on, both, the environment and the society. The idea is to pressure the board into improving their policies and practices for a better and safer future. Shareholders can influence corporate decisions through voting, attracting media attention, raising awareness in the masses etc.

Performance of SRI Funds

Sustainable and socially responsible investing includes a wide and developing range of products and assets. It includes not just investment in stock or public equity but also cash and other forms of alternative investments. Just like any other investor an SRI investor also wants the highest possible return as such they look for a stock option that is going to yield the maximum profit.

Off late, the companies are also changing their policies and work environment to focus on changes that would have a lasting impact on the society. Reduce, reuse and recycle was earlier the most common way of showcasing their responsibility towards the environment. But now, “Go-Green” is the new mantra. Not only that, but they too do not advertise or associate themselves with products that are harmful to the environment.

Coming back to the question of fund performance, it has been seen through numerous research studies that those companies who shoulder their corporate and social responsibility are in fact sound investments. There exists a positive correlation between Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance or ESG and the commercial financial performance. Therefore, it can be rightly summarized that a good fund manager can indeed get you exceptionally good returns by investing in stocks, assets, and programs that satisfy the SRI criteria.

Future of SRI

Slowly and steadily, the awareness for a better future is rising amongst one and all. Mostly, people try to emulate what others are doing. Hence, when one begins it starts a ripple effect with far-reaching effects. As consciousness about SRI increases, more and more people will be driven towards it. And as more people get attracted towards it, every business, big or small, will have to make changes to make way for a new, ethical and moral way of conducting business.

After all, it is not possible to climb on others back to reach the top. Together as one if we move forward, we can improve not only the living standard of the society as a whole but also make our planet a safer place for the future generations.

Final Thoughts

SRI investing options and strategies are many and varied. But since, it is still a relatively developing concept; there are very few takers for it. Nonetheless, the rising awareness amongst the masses for investment in socially responsible options is gaining momentum. This change of mindsets is making it difficult for any company to overlook their social responsibility. Hence, business values are changing and undergoing reformation. Green global communities like Green X Prize are setting the stage for socially conscious change. They are encouraging people to share their ideas which will benefit communities and generate profits for corporate, public, and private investors. The future is bright and every person is aiming to make it even better. SRI is ensuring that money grows for all in a responsible manner without harming either the society or the environment. All in all, Changes are happening for the good of everyone. A happy society will make way for the prosperity of all.

By,
Thomas Addaquay

Source:  Social Responsible Investing