Toward a Steady State Economy

An optimistic alternative to the current boom and bust economic cycles.

Please join us on Oct 6th at this Gaining Ground shoulder event where Rex Weyler, Neil Dawe, Mike Kennedy and Jane Sterk explore with you why we need an alternative to our current economic system of booms and busts and what that alternative could be.

For the past 3 decades we have been dipping into our capital! Rex Weyler (http://rexweyler.com/) an author and director of the original Greenpeace Foundation will be discussing overshoot. Overshoot is the amount of ecological services demanded by humans over what the planet can provide. For most of human history we have been living off interest. Now that our demand exceeds what nature can provide we are dipping into our capital.

The solution to overshoot is a Steady State Economy. Neil Dawe from the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (http://steadystate.org/) and the Qualicum Institute (http://www.qualicuminstitute.ca/) will be discussing the economic model called Steady State Economy which recognizes the limits to growth and the fact that perpetual economic growth is neither possible nor desirable. Growth, especially in wealthy nations, is causing more problems than it solves. Recession isn’t healthy or sustainable either. The positive alternative is a Steady State Economy.

What does all this mean to business in BC? Jane Sterk, Leader of the Green Party of BC will be discussing how we can transition to a Steady State Economy. The role business can play in the transition and what the BC Government can do to help accomplish a transition in a globalized world that devalues strong local and regional sustainable economies.

Mike Kennedy of the Pembina Institute (http://www.pembina.org/economics/gpi) will talk about the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). GPI is a measure of economic health that can be used in addition to GDP or, as a replacement for GDP. GPI measure how well we are doing as individuals, families, communities and as a province. It uses 51 economic, social and environmental indicators. Mike has done extensive research into the use of GPI as a measure that governments can implement to see how well they are doing.

Date: Wednesday October, 6, 2010

Time: Networking at 6:30 PM, Panel Discussion at 7:00 PM

Location: Segal Graduate School of Business, SFU, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver

Cost: $15.00