By Vincent Siciliano, President and CEO, New Resource Bank
Do you know where your money spends the night?
We’ve been asking that question in a variety of venues, and it typically produces a strong (often visible) response of intrigued uneasiness. Many people are familiar with the concept of socially responsible investing applied to stocks and mutual funds. While far fewer think of it in terms of their bank deposit accounts, these accounts also are funding business activities that they may—or may not—support. My focus is not on the customer service issues and acceptance of bailout funds that have largely driven the “move your money”campaign, but on the fact that financial institutions lend out deposited funds to advance all kinds of activities and operations. At the nation’s largest banks that means savings, checking, money market and CD accounts support not only businesses that sustainability-minded depositors might like, but also dirty energy, environmentally unfriendly development, toxic industrial operations and other unsustainable business ventures. Money is a store of value—and values
Money represents our stake in the economic system. It represents who we are as economic beings. If you think about it like that, is your money something that’s divorced from the rest of your being, or is it one expression of who you are, along with being a citizen, having a family and other aspects of your identity? Can you split off one aspect of yourself to operate in valueless isolation? Our society often asks us to do just this with our money. The economic world follows a set of rules that are sterile and without values. But why would we have values at home or at our business and not have values when we go out to buy products or choose a bank or order a meal? We don’t have to acquiesce to this notion of valueless money; it’s a specific cultural perspective, not a law of nature. We can retake control of our money. We can look at the system and say “I want to use my money in a way that promotes a better place to live.”
How New Resource Bank invests for a better world
New Resource provided the capital that San Francisco–based streetlight retrofitter Tanko Streetlighting needed to expand to more than 200 cities in eight states. Instead of replacing aging streetlights with newer models, Tanko Streetlighting retrofits existing fixtures to provide energy-efficient lighting. Municipalities save money two ways: the retrofits cost much less than replacements, and ongoing utility bills are lower. Contributing to a sustainable food culture
New Resource Bank has substantial expertise in financing for organic food businesses, with clients that include Straus Family Creamery, 18 Rabbits, Cowgirl Creamery, and Veritable Vegetable. Also here are a few additional clients and how we’ve work with them: We provided financing for Oakland, California-based Blue Bottle Coffee’s expansion to New York, where four new venues will add up to 45 new jobs. Buying from organic farms is a priority for Blue Bottle: 85 percent of Blue Bottle’s coffee suppliers are certified organic; the rest are small farmers who can’t afford the certification process. Blue Bottle coffee beans are stored in bags lined with eco-friendly polylactic acid (PLA) instead of plastic. And the company makes good use of its space: six beehives thrive on the roof of its headquarters.
A line of credit and banking services from New Resource helped Andean Naturals capture 33 percent of the U.S. market for quinoa with a product that’s 100 percent organic and moving toward 100 percent fair trade. The company, with offices in Foster City, California, and La Paz, Bolivia, buys directly from local farm cooperatives and processors in South America, paying them an 8 percent premium for meeting its Royal Quinoa cultivation guidelines. Hog Island Oyster Co. started out with a sustainable farming operation on California’s Tomales Bay producing oysters, Manila clams and mussels. New Resource helped the company open oyster bars and broaden its sustainability approach by greening its 401(k) program and switching to a green credit card processor. Supporting local manufacturing and nonprofits
New Resource Bank is working with SFMade to help the nonprofit achieve its mission of building and supporting a vibrant manufacturing sector in San Francisco, CA. Most recently, New Resource committed to financing a new Heath Ceramics factory and retail showroom in the city’s northeast Mission District, which will create 34 jobs. SFMade is just one of many excellent nonprofits that bank at New Resource, and we believe that supporting them with discounted financial packages and tailored accounts is another step toward a more sustainable economy. Nonprofits don’t help grow the economy in the traditional sense, but they play an important role in advancing change. I believe that we, as a country, should be moving toward a more holistic view of the financial system. Instead of focusing just on capital, we should be balancing financial returns with social and environmental returns. Nonprofits facilitate those things in ways that businesses can’t. Moving your money matters
Are you proud of what’s being done with your money? Many people think it doesn’t matter where they bank, or they believe that they don’t have real choices. The truth is there are plenty of choices, but we don’t exercise our ability to choose—because we don’t think about it; we’re blind to the choice or the press tells us it doesn’t matter. Our system glorifies choice, but tries to narrow our options to ones that promote more of the same as opposed to new vision for change. Move your money to a financial institution whose mission is to support positive action in the world—it does make a difference, to the economy and to you personally.
For more information on New Resource Bank go to http://www.newresourcebank.com
Article by Vincent Siciliano, president and CEO, New Resource Bank
