Terrific Trends for Enlightened Capitalists: Fixing Hunger, Poverty, War, and Catastrophic Climate Change for Fun and Profit

Shel Horowitz

Starting with the idea that we continuously do things that used to be considered “impossible” accomplishments, that we now take for granted—from iPods to space travel, from organizing to save a local mountain to a South Africa emerging out of apartheid and into democracy—the talk demonstrates that hunger, poverty, war, and climate are all resource issues. Once we look at these crises that way, they become solvable.
Then, this inspirational and empowering talk moves into the advantages to business of solving the biggest problems of our time. Motivating not through guilt or shame but by combining the vision of a better world with the power of profitable business, this talk demonstrates that real change is not only possible, but profitable.

Examples (curated for each individual audience) may include:

A company whose solar-powered LED lanterns are a ladder out of poverty for thousands of households in Africa and Asia
A fair-trade organic coffee roaster who funds village-led community development projects that attack poverty and injustice at their roots
A major carpet company that not only shifted its entire enterprise toward sustainability but slashed costs by initiating eco-friendly, economical manufacturing processes
A retailer that created a NEW $15 billion/year market, selling organic food to people who for the most part don’t go to Whole Foods (the name of the company will shock some in the audience)
A company that makes a soccer ball into an electric charging station: play for 30 minutes, and charge a device for up to 3 hours
A major UK department store whose soaring profits after publicly measuring 100 sustainability indicators caused the company to add another 100 metrics
A solution to mobility for wheelchair users that replaces bulky, fuel-inefficient, and slow paratransit with individual transportation the size of a Smartcar

Numerous creative ventures that are pushing the boundaries of physics and biology, developing new “biomimicry” products and systems that model nature’s principles: high materials strength, waste-as-input, adaptability, and other state-of-the-art, innovative approaches to the most challenging issues that we humans and our planet must solve.