Fair Trade Federation

The Fair Trade Federation (FTF) is an association of fair trade wholesalers, retailers, and producers whose members are committed to providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide.

FTF directly links low-income producers with consumer markets and educates consumers about the importance of purchasing fairly traded products which support living wages and safe and healthy conditions for workers in the developing world.

FTF members are committed to principles and practices that include: fair wages, cooperative workplaces, consumer education, environmental sustainability, financial and technical support, respect for cultural identity, and public accountability.

The New Economics Foundation

The New Economics Foundation is the radical think tank. It is unique in bringing together the ideas, people, resources and influence to challenge business-as-usual. They create practical and enterprising solutions to the social, environmental and economic challenges facing the local, regional, national and global economies.
(via Rebecca's Pocket)

Money Is Green Too

Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth by Lester R. Brown


Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken with Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins


Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart


The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World by Joel Kovel


The New Economy of Nature by Gretchen C. Daily and Katherine Ellison




Good Money

Wealth is not just about the exchange of goods, services, and money. Wealth is about empowerment and equipping as much as it is about enrichment. Enrichment is the exchange and accumulation of goods. Empowerment is equipping with creative potential.

Both enrichment and empowerment are about abundance, but the abundance of enrichment is stuff. It is material goods and surplus. It is accumulation and hoarding. It is quantitative. The abundance of empowerment is energy and generosity. It is appropriate use and giving away. It is qualitative.

Empowerment and equipping are based on communion and connectedness beyond simple survival or opulent wealth. For a society to sustain itself, there has to be economic justice. This does not mean everyone will have an equal share in everything. It means everyone will have an equal opportunity to develop and engage their gifts and talents.

The material needs of survival and growth come with the territory and are justly met when enrichment is not attained for the mere benefit of an individual or special group, but is generated to contribute to the communion and equipping of others. Like the intellectual capital of our aging information age, as it morphs into the age of ecology, wealth grows and is further enriched through sharing.

Not unlike the blogosphere that this site operates in, abundance doesn't mean how much we have, or how much we know, but rather how rich and open our links are - how connected we are. Like open source software, open links generate new insights and are a measure of our capacity to be a part of and contribute to mutual equipping.

Our finite world is in contact with an infinite spirit of potential and creativity. When we link well, we appropriate skills that honor our individual creativity and allow us to give back to our world. To pursue individual enrichment is to pursue an illusion. To pursue community is to pursue abundance.

This is spiritual economics - break the mold - let the people be sustained.