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#35 If money grew on trees, occasionally at least, how should we spend it? This was the intriguing question that I faced last week.
I didn’t find money on a tree but I found £20 (about 200 SEK) between the leaves of a book at the office, a book that I took from the shelf to read. No one laid claim to the money so I began thinking – what would be the absolutely best thing to do with £20?
First I asked my family. My youngest son, aged 11, recommended immediate consumption, of ice cream to be specific. The slightly older members of the family responded that with planetary boundaries being over-reached and the impacts of climate change confirmed by the IPCC’s latest reports, consumption was perhaps not the absolutely best thing to do with £20.
So the debate moved on to creating value from the money. But what to invest in? How to create most value from the money? What kind of value would we want to create? And for whom, or for what?
After a week of discussions, with family, friend and colleagues, I’ve reached the inevitable conclusion – like so many other questions, there is no easy answer.
But here come some suggestions for you to ponder, in no particular order:
1. invest in a company that’s developing or implementing life-saving or planet-saving technologies
– contribute to the necessary redistribution of finance towards good causes, accepting the risk that a particular innovation may not win out
2. give the money to someone in need locally
– real, immediate human need as the motivator, but less long-term impact
3. buy a share in a company that’s not taking care of the planet, so you can get a say at their Annual General Meeting
– at a seminar earlier this year the Group Sustainability Manager for ABB said that public pressure is one way to make big companies change their ways
4. send the money via an NGO to support the education of a girl in a developing country
– Hans Rosling argues that education of girls is key to development
5. contribute to a project – a carbon offsetting project perhaps – that will use the money to plant trees in a developing country
– trees provide so much over so many years, for the people living with them, for ecosystems, for the climate, even fruit and other produce
What would you do?
Here at U&We I think we’ll take a vote and see where it leads. Who knows, once we’ve dealt with the mysterious £20, perhaps we’ll make other small decisions so we’re doing our absolute best with the money we have, rather than contributing to business as usual.
Detta är inlägg #35 i initiativet #blogg100 som går ut på att skriva ett blogginlägg om dagen i 100 dagar med start den 1 mars 2014
