Fast Company Social Capitalist Awards and the future of sustainable investment

List and descriptions available in the magazine's centerfold (!) or here, unfolded, online. The first thing that jumps out is how familiar most of the winners are. We may say that the long tail rules, but lists like this reinforce the "rich-get-richer" dynamic of our scale-free nonprofit network.

What really caught my eye on FC was this blog post about how venture capitalists are, despite the hype, quietly moving away from green investment.

In the never ending cycle of green paradoxes, many consumers say they would pay more for green technology, but the VCs have slowed their investments there. Granted consumers were talking about home electronics and the VCs referred to alternative energy, but it still shows how market forces aren't suddenly going to solve our climate problems.

Primary beneficiary of the shift: defense. Another symptom, I think, of green consumerism being a luxury good: its viability depends on the continuation of what has been a twenty-year+ market boom.