Sustainable Ventures is a non-profit citizen advocacy organization dedicated to creating a sustainable marketplace by expanding business practices to include impacts on people and places.

The Evolution of Sustainable Ventures

In 2002, Theo Ferguson, the Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Ventures, realized that beneficial owners – people who have pension and trust funds invested in their names – had little influence over the management of their investments. In addition, more than 50% of all U.S. investments are assets invested in their names. Thus this huge body of capital that drives U.S. global policy essentially has no oversight!

After interviewing Socially Responsible Investment metrics professionals, Theo found that financial risks are not currently presented in ways that make clear their impacts on people and places. To shift this system so people could make values-based purchasing decisions, they would need access to integrated environmental, social, governance, and financial sustainability factors. Developing and implementing this true costs pricing practice (the inclusion of all costs impacting people and places products and services) as well as true cost accounting (accounting for the integrated performance profits achieved) would enable people to actualize their values in the marketplace.

Sustainable Ventures serves as a translator and catalyst of integrated performance so all of us can make more informed purchasing decisions. This provides the foundation on which to educate beneficial owners and inspire them to leverage their significant influence.

The Task – Define: where are we going?

To build a sound basis for values-based decision-making through the exploration of integrated sustainability "true costs" in products and services, SV sponsored the 2005-06 "Our Daily Bread, What Does It REALLY Cost?" Prize. In October, 2006 SV awarded the first Our Daily Bread Prize for a professional study that presented a view of the issue – a systemic analytical framework that measured or illustrated the relationships of integrated environmental, social, governance, and financial – sustainability – factors that impact the costs of a loaf of bread – a grain-based staple that many eat daily.

Getting There

To accomplish Sustainable Ventures' goals and engage a variety of audiences, SV has posed the question: "What constitutes true cost pricing to you?" In the process of hosting this discussion, several strategies have emerged:

1. SV qualified, invited, and supports Sustainability Market Leaders from nine market sectors to work together to incorporate sustainability Best Practices in their organizations' policies and operations.
2. During Implementation Forum 1 in June 2007, Sustainability Market Leaders framed Calls for Papers, Action Plans, and Case Studies for the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize to investigate "What are the barriers to True Cost Pricing and True Cost Accounting and what are the solutions to overcome them."
3. In parallel with the launch of the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize, Sustainable Ventures is rolling out a field collaboration with the Berkeley Farmers' Market – Growing Good Food Language: True Cost Pricing in Certified Farmers' Markets – to test expanded business practice language across diverse populations.
4. In August 2008 at the Slow Food Nation Conference in San Francisco, Sustainable Ventures will reconvene the Sustainability Market Leaders in Implementation Forum 2, and cultivate them as a Community of Practice – a self-governing body that supports each other to address shared challenges and practices and creates space for collaborations. Jurors and Community Outreach Leaders involved in the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize as well as eaters from Slow Food Nation are invited and are welcome to participate. The day also includes reviewing the field collaboration results from the Growing Good Food Language Initiative, previewing abstracts received for the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize, evaluating how the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize findings could support participants' work, and crafting and promoting market messages and an action plan to communicate current findings, resources, and opportunities to further the true cost pricing and true cost accounting dialogue.

With the results of the 2009 Our Daily Bread Prize widely communicated into the marketplace, people will begin to understand, use, and experience the implications of their daily purchasing decisions so they can make more informed choices in the selection and use of products and services to protect and restore our world.

True to its original intent, Sustainable Ventures is now positioned to begin to provide investors and beneficial owners the information they need to influence their fund managers to select companies for portfolios invested in their names based on integrated sustainability performance to significantly impact U.S. domestic and foreign investment policies.

Key Project Milestones

• October 29, 2006: The 2005-6 Our Daily Bread Prize Winner was announced at the SRI in the Rockies conference in Colorado Springs.
• June 8-9, 2007:
  • Implementation Forum 1 was held in collaboration with the 2nd Environmental Studies Summit at SUNY in Syracuse, New York, (June 7-10, 2007)
  • 2007-2008 Our Daily Bread Prizes framed by Sustainability Market Leaders at Implementation Forum 1
• September 2007: Article by Theo Ferguson, Purchase for a World that Works for All, Green Money Journal, Fall 2007 Issue.
• August 28, 2008: Pricing the Food on the Table Forum

Fall 2007 Newsletter

News from Our Daily Bread Leadership Team, Sustainability Market Leaders, and Sustainable Ventures