Sustainability and the financial crisis

“No country, not even one as geographically isolated as New Zealand, is insulated from the damages of a global financial system that lacks both the moral fiber and institutional capacity to drive the sustainability agenda that the world urgently needs…”

Landcare Research has posted an essay from Allen L. White, Senior Fellow at the Tellus Institute in Boston.

“What began in the US as a crisis of plummeting values in mortgage-based securities has quickly spread to all corners of the world in the form of a global credit crisis, economic contraction at levels not seen in decades and spiraling unemployment, all accelerated by a breakdown in the most critical ingredient to a sustainable global economy:  trust and transparency in financial markets.  The result is a worldwide economic meltdown, from recession in New Zealand, to near collapse of the US auto industry, to the closure of thousands of export-oriented factories in China and the resulting threat of large scale social unrest.”

Find the full article here.