Pop Goes Sustainability: Riding the Waves of Change

THE LONG FINANCE AUTUMN CONFERENCE

This Long Finance conference will focus on the subject of market bubbles and their effects on efforts to ensure sustainability. During the course of the afternoon, two presentations and two panels will explore the dangers of exponential functions, the origins of bubbles, how bubbles impede sustainable investment, whether better information might help prevent bubbles and even whether 'green' thinking is itself a bubble. The overarching goals of Long Finance are to expand frontiers, change systems, deliver services and build communities.

Is sustainability investment missed by our focussing on market bubbles in current economical and financial discussions?

Sustainability calls for timescales far beyond the scope of market bubbles, working in tens or even hundreds of years, in contrast to the increasingly fast pace of market volatility. Does this mean that it is immune to market bubbles, or is it doomed to be hindered by many collapses of the market before any investments are able to come to fruition? Are there fundamental market factors that can drive sustainability investment (and return) regardless to the bubbles?

A Presentation by John Elkington.