"Transforming Finance Statement Circling the Globe"
By Rosalinda Sanquiche, Executive Director, Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil)
On September 13, 2010, the Transforming Finance group released a unique statement boldly insisting that international financial markets be viewed, and therefore treated, as a Global Commons. Organized by futurist and evolutionary economist Hazel Henderson, president of Ethical Markets Media, the multinational gathering of career market participants included such premier scholars as Graciela Chichilnisky, Columbia University, and Prof. Zhouying Jin, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and responsible investors including John Fullerton, former managing director of JP Morgan, and Karl Kleissner of the KL Felicitas Foundation.
The Transforming Finance group, as beneficiaries of global capital markets, accepted responsibility to reform finance consistent with the reality that 24-hour global capital markets are dependent on public infrastructure technology and bailouts financed by taxpayers around the world. Their statement is gaining traction in the financial community with over 50 international signatories representing investors, asset managers, business executives, philanthropists, academics and financial authors such as:
Rebecca Adamson, President, First Peoples Worldwide; Trustee of Calvert Group, USA
Lawrence Bloom, Executive Chairman, Bhairavi Energy, London
Rinaldo Brutoco, JD, Founding President, World Business Academy, USA
Prof. Orio Giarini, Director, The Risk Institute, Geneva
Michael Haradom, President, Fersol and ALINA, Brazil
Ashok Khosla, Chairman, Development Alternatives, India
Paul E. Metz, PhD, Co-founder, European Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Belgium
Robert A. G. Monks, Founder, ISS, The Corporate Library, The Lens Fund, USA
Herman Mulder, Board Member, GRI; initiator ofthe Equator Principles, NL
Ron Nahser, MBA, PhD, Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, DePaul Univ., USA
Ann Pettifor, Co-founder, JUBILEE 2000 and the PRIME network of economists, UK
Woody Tasch, Founder, Slow Money; board member Investors Circle, USA
Tessa Tennant, Co-Founder, ASrIA, UK and Hong Kong
Eva Willmann de Donlea, MBA, Director, Sustainability Intelligence Pty Ltd, Australia
Today, market abuses such as high-frequency trading together with a misguided self-regulatory ideology have damaged the trust on which all markets depend, and led to new calls for taxing financial transactions to reduce speculation and "short-termism."
The global financial commons can rebuild trust by establishing a reliable global currency regime beyond recent competitive devaluations; channeling savings into productive and sustainable investments; managing transparent payment and settlement systems; and providing appropriate, dependable, tools for managing financial risks. The global financial system needs to incorporate commons' principles such as stakeholder co-governance; access for all participants without sudden, cyclical capital market disruptions; acknowledgment of the intrinsic value and assignment of rights to the environment; decision-making at the most local level possible; and commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice globally.
Current reforms, including Dodd-Frank and the Basel III capital rules, still fall short, and future crises require fundamental restructuring. The statement on Transforming Finance is being widely circulated by such notable publications as Cadmus, a journal of the World Academy of Art and Science. It was chosen to support the WorldShift 20 Declaration of the WorldShift Council on the G-20; was posted by the US chapter of the British Royal Society for Arts; reported by JustMeans, Mother Pelican, the Pelican Web's Journal of Sustainable Development, the World Business Academy's Currents in Commerce and many others.
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Rosalinda Sanquiche is Executive Director of Ethical Markets Media. Rosalinda was on the drafting committee for the Transforming Finance initiative. She has written on and taught environmental policy and was a George Washington Fellow at George Washington University in D.C. where she worked for the American Wind Energy Association.
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