Panelists: Ben Powell, Founder of Agora Venture Fund and Mark Cheng, Director of Social Finance at Ashoka

Ben is using Agora to demonstrate to donors, future business leaders, and investors that investing in impact entrepreneurs in the developing world is an effective means to fight poverty and unemployment. Like Muhammad Yunus used Grameen Bank to demonstrate the feasibility of banking to the poor, Ben is using Agora to show that entrepreneurs in the developing world are a profitable target for socially impactful investment.

Prompted by a comment of James Cameron, that “every one in five pounds paid out as a dividend in 2009 came from BP” we checked the figures. It is indeed true. UK companies paid out £56.9bn to investors in 2009. BP and Shell paid a quarter of all UK dividends according to the Guardian newspaper. [...]

Fiona Harvey – Financial Times; James Cameron – Climate Change Capital; and Colin Church – DECC will be discussing who in government and in business has the resources, the vision and the mandate to deliver the major changes which are needed to help the UK’s transformation to a sustainable economy.

Earlier this week Renault were exposed by the Advertising Standards Authority for proudly advertising in the UK press a 90% reduction in carbon impact of the Renault Fluence, an electric powered vehicle due to launch in 2012. The company based the calculation on an assumption that the car is drawing its energy from the French [...]

We have posted some video clips from the Green Leaders event. Scott McGregor of Camco discusses progress to systematise sustainability/emissions management in business in the UK and the US. You can view Jeremy’s comments on Peak Oil and the process of “re-engineering capitalism” which is needed to avoid severe global macroeconomic impacts.

Jeremy Leggett – SolarCentury; and Scott McGregor – Camco will be sharing their personal views on how the politics of energy and climate change will create business opportunities over the coming 5 years, how companies – private and public – can be entrepreneurial in the sustainability space, and where in the world to expect low-carbon business leadership in 2010-2011.

Adair Turner, the chair of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, memorably expressed the belief that “market economies will not of themselves combine [enterprise] with environmental sustainability or with a reasonably just and good society.” Dramatically he declared that “capitalism needs to be saved from itself.”

Net Impact London Professional submitted a Freedom of Information request to UKFI. The response implies that the company did not consider the UN Principles of Responsible Investment (UNPRI) part of best institutional shareholding practice.

Do you think the “hand holding a growing seedling” is the worst visual cliché in sustainable business PR? If you want to join my Corporate Rejection of Anatomical Plant Pots campaign make a supportive comment on the site.

‘Social Drinks’ is an informal get-together organised by Matt Scott and Sharath Jeevan for people involved / interested in ’social innovation’, from CSR, Cleantech and Fairtrade through to Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy.  Look for the cordoned-off area. Smollensky’s on the Strand http://www.smollenskys.com/strand/

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