Introduction
Polly Courtice, Director, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership

THE TOP 50 SUSTAINABILITY BOOKS
1 A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold (1949)
2 Silent Spring Rachel Carson (1962)
3 Unsafe At Any Speed Ralph Nader (1965)
4 The Population Bomb Paul L. Ehrlich (1968)
5 Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth R. Buckminster Fuller (1969)
6 The Limits to Growth Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William W. Behrens III (1972)
7 Small Is Beautiful E.F. Schumacher (1973)
8 Gaia James Lovelock (1979)
9 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra (1982)
10 Our Common Future (‘The Brundtland Report’) World Commission onEnvironment and Development (1987)
11 The Dream of the Earth Thomas Berry (1988)
12 A Fate Worse Than Debt Susan George (1988)
13 Staying Alive Vandana Shiva (1989)
14 Blueprint for a Green Economy David Pearce, Anil Markandya and Edward B. Barbier (1989)
15 For the Common Good Herman Daly and John B. Cobb Jr (1989)
16 Human Scale Development Manfred Max-Neef (1989)
17 Changing Course Stephan Schmidheiny and Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) (1992)
18 The Ecology of Commerce Paul Hawken (1993)
19 Maverick Ricardo Semler (1993)
20 When Corporations Rule the World David C. Korten (1995)
21 Biomimicry Janine M. Benyus (1997)
22 Cannibals with Forks John Elkington (1997)
23 The Hungry Spirit Charles Handy (1997)
24 Banker to the Poor Muhammad Yunus (1998)
25 The Crisis of Global Capitalism George Soros (1998)
26 Factor Four Ernst von Weizsäcker, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (1998)
27 False Dawn John Gray (1998)
28 Development as Freedom Amartya Sen (1999)
29 No Logo Naomi Klein (1999)
30 Natural Capitalism Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (1999)
31 Business as Unusual Anita Roddick (2000)
32 The Mystery of Capital Hernando de Soto (2000)
33 The Civil Corporation Simon Zadek (2001)
34 Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser (2001)
35 The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg (2001)
36 Cradle to Cradle William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2002)
37 Globalization and its Discontents Joseph E. Stiglitz (2002)
38 The Corporation Joel Bakan (2004)
39 Presence Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers (2004)
40 The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid C.K. Prahalad (2004)
41 The River Runs Black Elizabeth C. Economy (2004)
42 Capitalism as if the World Matters Jonathon Porritt (2005)
43 Capitalism at the Crossroads Stuart L. Hart (2005)
44 Collapse Jared Diamond (2005)
45 The End of Poverty Jeffrey D. Sachs (2005)
46 The Chaos Point Ervin Laszlo (2006)
47 Heat George Monbiot (2006)
48 An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore (2006)
49 When the Rivers Run Dry Fred Pearce (2006)
50 The Economics of Climate Change Nicholas Stern (2007)
Mike Peirce, Deputy Director, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership

We would like to invite bloggers and reporters to an exclusive free webinar on July 15^th at 12pm EST, hosted by Colin Beavan (No Impact Man). Colin will be the moderator for a discussion with Sandy and Frank of e3bank about green banking, investing, finance issues and trends.

Sample issues and trends to be discussed:

• What makes a “green bank” really green? (Many are claiming this position)
• The Triple Bottom Line business approach, can it really work?
• Profit versus public service, how does this play out in sustainable ventures?
• New technology/new innovations in sustainable banking products

Webinar participants will be encouraged to engage in a Q&A session with the opportunity to shape the discussion about issues related to the triple bottom line business model, the banking industry, green investments and more.

Log-in information and additional details are below, but space is limited. If you have any questions or would like more information please let us know.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/889269451

Title:                e3bank Webinar moderated by No Impact Man

Date:                Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Time:                12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements:

PC-based attendees: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

I’ve had multiple accounts for both personal and business use at a large bank for years. For the sake of anonymity, let’s just call it Big Bad Bank (BBB). A few weeks ago I stopped by the Big Bad Bank ATM machine near my home in Philadelphia to deposit a number of checks. BBB now uses a great technology called remote capture in their ATMs, which scans and digitizes the check and gives you back a receipt with a copy of the check image. Remote capture also allows the bank to immediately process checks as data rather than paper, greatly reducing both the cost and the environmental footprint of the transaction.

About a week later, I received an individual piece of mail for each of the checks that I had deposited (so much for environmental footprint). The letters included a crisp image of each check and notified me that the deposits, which had already been credited to my account, had subsequently been withdrawn and that the checks were being returned to me. The reason for this was that the name on the checks did not exactly match the name on my accounts. In fact, the first name on all of the checks was my nickname.

I immediately took the letters to the local branch where I presented them to the customer service agent. I explained to her that I had been depositing checks made out to my nickname in BBB’s ATM for years without incident. She responded by burying her face in a computer monitor. After ten minutes of facial gesticulations accompanied by much hemming and hawing, she announced to the air that there was nothing she could do. I asked to see the branch manager.

The branch manager is an affable fellow with whom I’d had some personal interactions regarding my accounts. I repeated my story and explained again that I had never had this problem before. He apologized and immediately immersed himself in his computer monitor. After several minutes he asked me if I could get him proof that I had deposited checks made out to my nickname in my BBB accounts. I ran back to my house to fetch the evidence.

A few minutes later I returned with a stack of ATM deposit receipts that bore images of checks made out to my nickname, all of which had all been accepted into my BBB accounts. The manager seemed quite optimistic now and proceeded to open a “trouble ticket” on my behalf. Completing the procedure, he told me that their Problems Resolution Unit would take care of it within 24 hours. I went off to work satisfied that the matter was under control.

Less than an hour later my voice mail beeped. I listened to a polite young man from BBB’s Problems Resolution Unit explain that the issue had been resolved and the matter closed. In spite of my morning’s aggravation, I felt satisfied – even pleased – that my bank had taken care of me.

The very next day I opened my mailbox to a handful of overdraft notices from BBB complete with big bucks in overdraft fees. I went online and looked at my account, which was indeed overdrawn due to the fact that the rejected checks had not been redeposited. Breathlessly, I ran to the local branch and presented the offending notices to the now wary customer service agent, explaining that the Problems Resolution Unit had fixed the problem. She dutifully dove into her monitor and typed furiously. Yes, she told me, the issue was closed and the Problems Resolution Unit had determined that BBB would not accept my checks.

BBB got its fees, but lost my business. Relationship matters. At e3bank, we are building a culture that empowers every co-worker to use our guiding principles to build relationships by making decisions and solving problems for our customers.

Do you want to learn about investing in e3bank?

Join us for an Investor Presentation to learn more about our triple bottom line business model and our capital campaign.

Thursday, July 9: White Dog Cafe 5:30 - 7:30PM
3420 Sansom St, West Philadelphia

Thursday, July 14: The HUB Cira Center 8:30 - 10:30AM Breakfast 30 S. 17th St, 14th Floor, University City Philadelphia

Tuesday, July 21^st: Thin Flats (The nation’s first LEED-Homes Platinum Certified residential duplex project) 6:00 - 8:00PM
147 W. Laurel Street, Northern Liberties Philadelphia

RSVP: Invest@e3bank.com

As we continue our capital campaign, every bit of support counts. And our community is growing! Thank you to everyone who has already invested.  If you are unable to join us on the 25th, please consider attending another upcoming salon:

Attendance at the Salon is open to the public, but limited by space. If you cannot make the Salon but would like to learn more about investment opportunities in e3bank and our capital campaign, please contact  Julie Lorch at j.lorch@e3bank.com.

The phone rang again on the morning of Jan. 2, 2008, and there was Frank. With a bit of prompting, I remembered our brief conversation from October and agreed to meet with him. Over dinner later that week, he shared his story with me. It was a story I had heard many times before from green building colleagues across the country, and one that recalled my own story.

As we ordered appetizers, he related how he had reached out to the local Philadelphia green building community a year before, thinking they might represent a growing market niche for his bank’s services. What he hadn’t expected was an education. The group opened his eyes to the connections between business and the enormous environmental issues threatening the human family. He also found that the way in which these particular business people were addressing those issues was deeply resonant with his own values. By the time he called me in fall 2007, he had realized that he was part of the problem and had decided to do something about it.

By dessert, Frank had laid out his vision for starting a new kind of bank focused on helping people integrate sustainability into their lives, homes and businesses. I was excited by his story and offered enthusiastic support for the change he was contemplating. Then, over coffee, he asked me if I would join him as chairman. I confess that, at that moment, I couldn’t think of anything that interested me less. But I told him I’d think about it.

It took me only a few days of thought and due diligence to realize that Frank was onto something critically important. The mindset of the financial industry had been one of the persistent barriers I had encountered over the long decade I have worked to develop ever-greener building projects. It’s an experience I have heard echoed by many friends working to affect similar change in other industries. What if we could create a bank that was the lubricant rather than the friction in the system for building a sustainable
economy?

When I called Frank back the following week, I suggested we test our potential partnership by writing a set of guiding principles for the enterprise. It was a seminal exercise. e3bank was born.

Guiding Principles
The name “e3bank” comes from our foundation principle of a triple bottom line, the common shorthand for which is “People, Planet, Prosperity.” It is a business paradigm based on the idea that we can no longer afford to look for profit as the sole return from our business activities. Everything we do — every decision we make — needs to also have a positive return for the environment and for all people affected by our decisions. e3bank was created to build sustainable enterprise, protect the environment, and invest in social equity.

At its core, the triple bottom line springs from a radically conservative view of the world. Our economy cannot exist without a healthy and productive natural environment, from which come all the resources that support it. A healthy environment cannot be maintained without the support of every human being — support that is impossible by anyone living in poverty, famine or war. Therefore, to build real and lasting prosperity (think of it as perpetual profi tability), all our business decisions need to be made in consideration of all three domains of the triple bottom line.

What makes e3bank different from other businesses that are in the process of “greening” themselves is our 360-degree focus. Many businesses are taking steps to be more sustainable by focusing inwardly on their own operations: building green, increasing energy efficiency, reducing paper consumption, green purchasing, recycling and the like. These steps are critically important. But the real environmental footprint of almost every business is defined by its external focus: the products or services it delivers to the world. In the case of a bank, how it chooses to deploy capital determines its real impact.

How capital gets deployed is solely a function of the decisions we each make every day as bankers and customers. In response to that maxim, we have designed e3bank’s policies, products and services to support our customers in making better environmental and social choices and to enable us to measure our returns across the triple bottom line. Some of our products provide financial incentives for our customers to take the next step up the ladder of sustainability. Others provide free or low-cost, value-added knowledge resources, designed for the same purpose.

e3bank received its provisional charter from the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in March of this year. We are currently raising equity through a private offering and anticipate opening for business in the fourth quarter of 2009. More information is available at www.e3bank.com.

By Sandy Wiggins

I love our new Greenworks Philadelphia plan. Goal #7 calls for diverting 70% of our City’s solid waste from landfills by the year 2015. It’s an ambitious target considering our current 12% recycling rate, but one that is achievable as evidenced by other cities across the country like San Francisco, which is currently recycling 72% of its solid waste.

Philly recently took a step in the right direction with the deployment of BigBelly solar powered compactors throughout Center City.

By mid-summer, 500 of these WALL-E-esque mechanical wonders will dot our streetscapes from South to Spring Garden and the Schuylkill to the Delaware. They are projected to save Philadelphia $12 million over the next 10 years due to their increased storage capacity, which reduces by 80% the number of trash truck trips needed to empty them.

Mayor Nutter showing off a new “Eco-Station” / Photo by Bonnie Weller

Unfortunately, only 210 of the 500 proclaimed “Eco-stations” have recycling containers paired with the compactors. The other 290 might be more aptly called “Trash-stations” in spite of their solar powered machinery. This omission brings to mind a simple lesson that I have been sharing with the green building community for years - Design influences the way we behave.

Let me explain what I mean. Three years ago, I was changing flights in Chicago’s O’Hare airport when I noticed something new – recycling containers. Moving from terminal to terminal, I noted that every single trashcan had a recycling container adjacent to it. Being someone who would rather carry an empty plastic bottle in my brief case than toss it in the trash, I reacted to this discovery with exuberant relief.

Recycling bins are paired with trash cans at Chicago’s O’Hare airport

Sitting at a gate waiting for my next flight, I watched with delight as people automatically and universally sorted their refuse into the proper container. This thoughtful act of design – to pair every trashcan with a recycling container – was influencing behavior on a grand scale. Everyone was recycling.

On a more recent trip through O’Hare, I realized that many of the recycling containers and trashcans had become separated from their mates and now stood independently of each other. Within the span of a few minutes, I observed a dozen weary travelers deposit their recyclables in the nearest convenient receptacle – a trashcan – oblivious to the recycling container 20 yards down the concourse.

There are real environmental benefits to Philadelphia’s BigBelly program. The huge reduction in trucking required to empty them will reduce the City’s carbon footprint. Their compactors run on integrated, clean, solar electricity. The fully enclosed bins will keep trash off of our streets and, more importantly, out of our storm drains through which thousands of tons wash into our rivers each year. But like the orphaned trashcans at O’Hare, BigBellys on our streets without companion recycling containers are destined to send tons of otherwise recyclable material to the landfill every day.

I love our new Greenworks Philadelphia plan. With thoughtful implementation, every one of its initiatives has the power to help make Philadelphia a truly great, truly green city. Let’s make sure we get it right by design.

Sandy Wiggins

Sandy Wiggins is chairman of e3bank, the first green, triple bottom line bank on the east coast. A leader in the green building movement who founded the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, Wiggins serves on the Philadelphia Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board and the Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance.

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]]> http://e3bank.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=79 http://e3bank.com/blog/?p=75 http://e3bank.com/blog/?p=75#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 20:07:14 +0000 e3bank http://e3bank.com/blog/?p=75

Our recently planted garden includes heirloom varieties from the Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds. The lima beans are sprouting, the tomatoes are growing, and the lettuce is fighting for its sweet dear life. We have beets, basil, kale, peppers and eggplant to boot! Pictures & updates forthcoming.

In the mean time, our compost pile is filled with hungry worms, shredded bank records, coffee grinds and apple cores. We put a few glasses of compost tea on the lettuce, which is currently a sad yellowish color. The lima beans have jumped into an early lead in the garden race, though what we’re hoping to be a massive pumpkin patch is a close second.

We also found a very interesting looking fungus growing in the garden. My best description is an upside down carrot with an olive on top. And really smelly. After a few google image searches, we determined this fungus to be an “elegant stinkhorn” and not an alien. So that’s good news.

Stay tuned!

This past week has been a busy one for e3bank. On the capital campaign trail, we sat down with the most amazing group of people. They represent the entire spectrum of awareness in sustainability. We had lunch with energized veterans of the environmental movement; we talked with foreign investors who not only share our triple bottom line ideology but also have been successfully executing and living it for over 20 years, and we met people who began taking their first few steps on the journey after meeting us.

Although it would be unlikely for the people that we met this week to sit together and have a meal, we brought them all to the e3 table. And the similarities in their response to our business plan were striking: an optimistic tone of voice, a shift in body language, an aura of excitement. They got it.  We felt it. The momentum is building.

A (much) younger colleague asked me, “Where is this momentum going?”

I didn’t have an answer at first.  But as I thought about the question, and about the places where our capital campaign trail continues to lead us, the momentum in our community from Boston to Brussels is moving towards solving the problems we face instead of contributing to them.

We are facing some very challenging times. But after seeing such an intelligent, passionate, committed and diverse group of people coming together to tackle our collective problems, I believe there is nothing that we cannot solve. I feel a huge amount of hope and optimism knowing that we are not facing these issues alone. As a bank, we are able to contribute to this sentiment in a unique and tangible way. Now, it’s not a question of “if” it happens, it’s a question of “when” (stay tuned as we define exactly what “it” is). We can solve these problems. We will solve these problems.

And it starts with momentum!!!