The first phase of the Disruptive Finance Policy project, run by the Finance Innovation Lab, is mapping policy ideas for sustainable finance system. We reviewed publications and conducted over 20 in-depth dialogues with key thinkers from the wide spectrum of mainstream finance, social entrepreneurs, academics, business and NGOs. For discussion and presentation purposes we needed a tool or platform to tell the story of project, show the policy ideas and develop a sense for dimensions in which they fit. The Prezi dashboard we developed incorporates infographics of the policy mapping, worksop working groups and introductory presentation.

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Artists as Bankers

In the midst of a dysfunctional financial system, a group of economists and artists have created an innovative cooperative to run an experiment of an alternative banking. The Art Reserve Bank will mint exclusive limited-edition coins for exchange of euros. Each month a different artist will design a set of four coins and each one will be issued in only 100 copies. The total circulation of the coins will be limited to 25,000 – 250 emissions of 100 coins, designed by over 60 artists.

The bank will open in April as the first set of coins will be designed by the Scottish avant-garde artist Bill Drummond who is very familiar with the relative value of money – in 1994, his K Foundation burned one million pounds as an artistic and public engagement act.

“Once the Art Reserve Bank opens its doors, you will be able to exchange your regular money into a new currency. We call this currency Art Works — for that is what our coins really are: unique works of art.” said Ron Peperkamp, member of the banks’ Board of Directors. I spoke with him about the idea behind the project.

“The Art Reserve Bank has been established as a monetary experiment to create awareness and involve the public in the discussion about redesigning the finance system. We think that at the moment only economists, bankers and politicians are engaged in the conversation about the money and the future of everybody.”

The goal of the project is to translate abstract monetary principles into tangible products and invite the public to reflect and discuss the very foundations of the finance system. The “art bankers” hope that more people will start to exchange ideas and co-create solutions for the challenges ahead.

Monetary Experiment

The project is a creative and playful artistic endeavor but it shows an important underlying reason for the financial crisis: the huge amount of virtual value pumped into the worldwide monetary system by the banking.  Therefore, the Art Reserve Bank will be running the five-year experiment in a way that challenges the existing banking system. The goal is not to offer an alternative currency or advocate for the gold standard. Rather, the cooperative aims at pointing the debate to the heart of the banking system problems. Therefore, the total circulation will be restricted and registered in advance and all coins will have a “money-back guarantee.” Each coin will be a transferable deposit, accumulating a simple 10% interest from the date the coin was issued. The exchange rate will be defined by the online market, where individuals can exchange, buy or sell coins. The initial rate will be set to €100 and with the guaranteed refund policy, it could not decline or create market crash.

Building the Bank

Not only the site of the bank is unique – in the center of the financial district of Amsterdam – but also, the “building” itself.  It will be a bank “stripped to its bare essentials: simple in concept and literally completely transparent.”  The head office will be a bare terrain, measuring 45 x 35 m with only three structures: the press house (a 4m glass cube for the 6-ton friction press), the safe (a heavy concrete cube, “safer than the Dutch National Bank”), and a counter where customers could exchange coins for euros. The blueprint of the bank was drawn prior to construction on the actual site with 1:1 scale (a brilliant idea).

Financial forecasts

Ron Paperkamp would not make prediction of how long the bank would be in operation: “It will not be more than five years as after the preset five-year period of the experiment the bank liquidates itself. Obviously the bank will by then have insufficient capital to answer all calls on deposits. We think however, that most people will not want to exchange their Artworks back to euros. Which immediately proofs the possibility of art as an intrinsic value of a reserve currency”

I am definitely thinking of getting a coin from the Art Reserve Bank! And I wonder… should we form an art innovation group at the Finance Lab?

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The Lab is a space that enables you to pause, step back and reflect. Looking back at how we created the video, I think I learned three things:

Number one: a story has many faces. The Lab is a “place where people can come together to rethink and repurpose” (as a popular video goes). Therefore, the story of the lab can be best told through the voices and faces of many people. We aimed at creating an authentic, even amateurish feel of the video that shows the personal and human character of the Lab. I think the main strength of our story is the honest and unscripted conversation between professionals, entrepreneurs, and innovators who want to work together to recreate the finance system.

Number two: you can never underestimate the importance of technical factors

You always need more light than you think you do – of course we knew light was essential but it was only after seeing the interviews in FinalCut Pro, we knew we needed more. And while there are software effects that could partially compensate for underexposure, it is best to have more light from uniform sources.

Footage is never enough – every scene in the story line could be told in a richer way if you have more footage to choose from. After making the mistake of recording short segments of “exactly what we [thought] we need” we realised that we need more. Having extra scenes to select from, is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Cameras enjoy the silence – hours spent in Adobe Soundbooth trying to remove the background noise of a cocktail chatter or the “Ground Floor. Going up!” from a suddenly opening lift, can teach you to listen before you speak. Having a quiet, uninterrupted space is really important, and we had to reshoot or play with most of the interviews in the video.

Every little helps – consistency and design elements can really help bring in the whole story together. Instead of using standard and default fonts and effects, we tried to incorporate design elements from the Lab’s brand.

Renewable energy – who hasn’t ran out of battery power during the most memorable moment worth recording. Even though I could blame it on poor design of battery level indicators, I have to admit it happened twice, even with the back-up camera. It is so easy to get carried away, when you work on something you truly enjoy! And this leads to the third lesson…

Number three: you can’t do great things unless you have fun. Indeed, video and sound editing asks for long hours, strong coffee and high processing power. But working with the amazing Rachel Sinha opened another level of combining creative fun with productivity. We really had fun making this video! And the enthusiasm and energy of everyone who helped us was truly contagious.

What’s next? I am eager to continue exploring new ways of engaging design thinking and communication in influencing sustainability strategy. My professional interest is in utilising visual and data tools that nudge financial and economics behaviour. I would love to connect with more people and collaborate on creative projects with greater purpose.

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Indeed, it is a neat idea to utilise the ubiquitous radio-frequency ID technology into a behaviour change campaign that will save billions and will reduce greenhouse emissions.

This solution to food waste misses the main point of the problem: the very existence of food waste. Instead of trying to motivate people to recycle more and compost more food waste, why not try eliminate the food waste in the first place? Of course, banana peels and avocado seeds should be composted and I could be rewarded for making the effort. But what about leftover take-away lunch or spoiled 1-gallon milk crate (bought in bulk quantities from the big-box grocery store)?

In most lower-income countries very little food is wasted (the higher proportion of field-to-fork waste in production and collection of food is another issue). This “food efficiency” is due primarily on the scarcity and lower income but also on social culture and traditions (comparing recipes from different countries would show interesting results and correlations between current food waste and culinary traditions).

In our advanced and rich world, where convenience and speed dominates food manufacturing we continue to grow disconnected with the source of our food and destination of our waste. And this is my main objection to the simple admiration of the South Korean innovation. I could see some niche applications but overall it is a distraction from the more systemic view of the food waste problem. Unfortunately, way too many great ideas and innovations (like energy efficiency, recycling, EVs, etc) are not seen in the perspective of the bigger picture and major challenges ahead.  As a consequence, behaviour and thinking do not change (and often savings are diminished by rebound effects).

A better approach, I think, would be to design campaigns that focus on food education and engage people in behaviour that minimises food waste (which will be collected in the food-waste-ATMs). A designer’s starting point would be to analyse the type of food waste, eating habits, demographic, and so on in order to understand and treat the root of the problem rather than to create innovations that deal its effect – the food waste.

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A long late-summer-night discussion with a dear friend of mine, who has completed a two-year graduate programme in one of the top five US business schools, made me think about another aspect of education for sustainability:

What type of education is needed or suited for solving sustainability issues?

Actually, “solving” might be a wrong word choice as it comes from the same mindset of general and business education, focused on splitting knowledge into disciplines.  Conventional business education works with the model of combining rigorous expertise in one or several areas that would ultimately provide the right answer, the solution to the problem. This approach would probably work well for improving the energy efficiency of production unit or increasing the recycling rate of a plant.

However, the fundamental challenges that we are facing would require more than stitching together expert knowledge from different subjects using cutting-edge models. (One of the reasons why Einstein is over-quoted with his “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it”).  I think we need to disrupt the business education that depletes the creative and cognitive capital into narrow highly specialised areas. Instead of constantly working in a fast-forward mode, focused on growth solutions, business leaders need to learn to pause, step back and reflect.  They need to be able to immerse in the reality of not-knowing, where the key is not finding the right answer or solution but rather to participate in a knowledge network of inquiry.

Action research easily comes to mind. I am not sure what a symbiosis of MBA with action research would be. Whether the linear business models would bend in the cycles of action and reflection, or whether learning by doing would suffice the bolstered business ambition. I am eagerly awaiting for a new tome on action research with reflections from the MSc in Responsibility & Business Practice at the University of Bath. It would be interesting to find more about their experience.

I would really like to see more education programmes that enable thinking in wide and interconnected ways…

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What was really striking to me is that this is not news – it has been going on for almost ten years (just search online for “honey laundering”). It is not news to FDA either – they have even indicted about a dozen chief executives for honey smuggling. One of the earlier great investigations is done by Jessica Leeder for The Globe and Mail.

The issue is really sticky and I recommend reading one or two of the articles.

The important question is what are the implications for out global food system. Do we just need to ditch BigBrickGrocery and head to the local organic farmer’s market? For honey, it might be easy (although, the US might need to cut their consumption, as currently about half is imported). But could we ALL (7 billion) go to the local organic farmer for rice, potatoes, meat, fruits, vegetables? And why would we trust one grocery store but not the other? Does organic/local equal trustworthy?

I think we need a better understanding and transparency of the global supply chain. Businesses need to step up and show responsibility. Maybe link authenticity with quality competition between brands and products?

And do we even have 2 kg plastic jugs with “Pure Clover Honey” (great value of under $8 in Walmart)?

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While the recalled MPs were eloquently and vividly discussing what happened, I had the privilege to attend the London screening of a unique “silent” film – City Delhi Symphony, an amazing production of Sergio Lopez Figuerosa, founder and director of Big Bang Lab. The film is a short, 20-minute visual poem, created by underprivileged children living in sheltered homes in Delhi. Under the direction of Sergio, the kids had learnt how to work with a video camera, how to interview people, how to shoot and edit film. They participated in the creation of their own documentary about their city, shooting around their neighbourhoods, the streets and a Heritage site. By coming up with their conclusions about social and environmental issues affecting the city, they also engaged with their own musical heritage by producing new music for a contemporary digital silent film.

The film was a truly mesmerizing visual symphony! But what really grabbed me was the followed showing of a documentary film about the making of the project. The story of the idea, its supporters and challenges, weaved around several dozen children who took the film in their hands. And while some of them were uncertain or reserved at the beginning, during the live performance of the production on World Heritage Day in New Delhi, their eyes were full of inspiration, hope and gratitude.

I could not help but to compare the communities from the screen with the burning streets of London. On the screen you see inspired children, thinking about their communities, asking questions to parents and adults, raising questions about important and difficult issues, dreaming about their future. On the streets of UK: angry, bored, unhappy youths spontaneously get together for random opportunistic acts of violence, looting, and destruction. Rioters seemed completely disconnected from reality or the impact and consequences of their nights out. It is true that people could be sceptical of the impact of one man with a camera in a city with several million children, and some would even criticise him for giving unreasonable hopes to children with uncertain future. But I think what Sergio showed is a way to connect one’s life, purpose, and future with others in the community.

These two melodies – City Delhi Symphony and London Violent Opus – resonated with my thinking about how resilient our communities are. Or, rather, how we lack resilience, in a broader sustainability scope. Resilient communities are connected entities of people, who live, work and create with awareness and purpose. Resilient communities are built by individuals understanding their environmental and social impacts. Instead, what keep most of our communities together are not strong bonds between people, but very thin webs of systems and organisations. We grew disconnected from each other and started to rely more and more to connect (unwillingly and inevitably) to everything through the fragile web of systems – for our finances, our food, social networks, energy grids.

We did create these global systems and they significantly improved our lives (at least, for billion or two of us). It is true, that we can no longer live in isolated, feudal, self-sufficient villages – we are too many, we are too inefficient in smaller groups, and we are running out of resources. But our comfort, built on complex web of systems, organisations and infrastructures made us more disconnected with the impact and consequences of our own activities and choices. We no longer know or care where the strawberries in a plastic container come from. We do the “right thing” by separating waste and recycling but we don’t know what is happening with our own rubbish. We heat and light our homes and fill our gas tanks without understanding the vast infrastructure behind this comfort. We pour tax money and savings into the opaque box of the ill financial system and choose to keep it on support rather than to call Dr. House. We rely so much on this convenience that we do not see how disconnected we are indeed from other human beings and our own life purpose. And our disconnectedness with everything (except consumptionism and financial wealth) is making our communities less resilient.

These kids destroying businesses and livelihoods of their own neighbours do not feel as part of a community, they do not fully understand the consequences of what is happening. They might even feel they are brave and brake away from the “system”. Parents, teachers, community leaders are also distanced and apparently unaware of their youth feeling lost. We somehow rely on law and order to keep everyone calm so we can carry on. And the events of the last few nights show that if we do not have durable relations within our society, the thin walls that we insist on building will not hold.

Now is the time to focus on building resilience within our communities and our lives (and probably start with defining what that would mean). We should not wait for the next horrifying disruption but start the discussion and plan action steps. There are many questions that could help framing the discourse: in how many days city supermarkets will run out of food, should transportation system shut down? How long can we survive without ATMs and banks, should payment systems freeze? How many zeros we need to add to our salaries to feel happy?

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First, there is the (rather) long article by Margaret Munro about Canadian government silencing scientists from talking with journalists about a report that could help explain the crashing of salmon stocks off the West Coast. There is a controversy and lack of transparency as to why the Council Office would stop the taxpayers-funded scientists to talk about their findings. The most possible theory I get from the article and its comments is lobbying efforts by the fish farming industry. The scientists team could possibly link the mysterious killing of fish by a virus associated with leukemia, transmitted from farm fish.

As for the second story, I still cannot decide whether it is funny, sad, ridiculous or absurd.  When I read Leo Hickman’s post on the Guardian’s Environment Blog, I was hoping he might be joking. Indeed, the young neoconservative Alykhan Velshi has created the unbelievable EthicalOil.org site: a world of dichotomy for the ethical Canadian tar-sands oil and the conflict oil of the “muslim world.” The campaign ads say it all:

(I have to admit that, unfortunately, the concept and design of the ads are rather ingenious. What a shame that talent is wasted this way…)

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Currently reading  this great story of Joshua Foer: his training and journey towards US Memory Championship.

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