Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good.
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Our dearly beloved co-founding member of the LIFT Team, Kevin Bayuk's has his roots in entrepreneurship, having spent nearly a decade starting and growing technology companies, and activating projects and organizations that regenerate healthy ecosystems and socially just and joyful environments. After immersing himself in all aspects of starting and growing companies, Kevin focused his attention on learning about and teaching eco-systemic design. Nowadays Kevin merges his experience in business with his experience in permaculture to help businesses care for people while enhancing the earth.
Kevin also serves as the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown developing the business case to address climate change through existing practices and technologies. He frequently teaches classes, workshops, does public speaking, facilitates meetings, plans events and provides one on one mentoring as a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute San Francisco. Kevin has helped design and start food security gardens and public learning experiences intent on reminding people that we, too, are nature.
Kevin has raised millions of dollars to capitalize business operations, led teams of more than 30 employees, and can speak well to the benefits and pitfalls of raising capital and the many paths of growing a business. He loves spreadsheets and loves to dig into operating models. One investor of Kevin’s last technology company said, “Kevin oozes strategy.”
Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Kevin include:
Kevin recounts his process of shifting away from a worldview overwhelmed by proliferation of problems/suffering to one where he recognized countless opportunities to solve problems and inspire a movement of solutions
How the genesis of Kevin’s interest in business & economy as powerful lever for social change grew from observations that much suffering is rooted in our system of economy that informs our cultural norms and identities
A leisurely stroll through LIFT’s long term vision, from LIFT 1.0 to LIFT 5.0 and how the LIFT Team balances cynicism and optimism on the path to realizing our vision
Some resources from which the LIFT Team derives inspiration
Resources:
Videos:
Books
Tom Sawyer & Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux
Ecotopia & Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest Callenbach
Terminology:
Progressive Utilization Theory (“PROUT”)
People:
Organizations
LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.
Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.