Wednesday 24 August 2016

The IFLAS Open Lecture Autumn series kicks off this September



Cornis van der Lugt: Getting to scale: Integrated
thinking, numbers, finance and time in a globalising world
Percival Lecture Theatre, University of Cumbria,
Ambleside LA22 9BB
Tuesday 13 September 2016, 5:30 to 7:00pm




Based on his career experience of working in government, the United Nations, academia and the private sector, Cornis will reflect on some old assumptions about the role of regulation, the commercial logic of business, and the nature of accounting. He will highlight new ways of exploring Integrated Thinking, including its implications for how we measure, account and report on our use of Natural Capital.

Dr. Cornelis van der Lugt is Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Corporate Governance at Stellenbosch University Business School, Cape Town, South Africa, and Senior Associate at BSD Consulting, Zurich, Switzerland. As former UN representative he was deeply involved in developing industry initiatives and guidance standards such as the UN Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 26000. More recently he co-founded the online platform
www.materialitytracker.net seeking to build bridges between the financial and sustainability accounting communities. He consults from Switzerland in the area of strategy and sustainable finance, and provides executive education on among others integrated reporting. He holds a PhD from Stellenbosch University and Masters in Business Administration from the Haute Ecole de Commerce (HEC, Paris).

Julie Hutchison: Not-for-profit organisations at the intersection of  governance, ethics and investment
Percival Lecture Theatre, University of Cumbria,
Ambleside, LA22 9BB  
Tuesday 4 October 2016, 5:30 to 7:00pm




Charities in the United Kingdom hold investments worth more than £79 billion.  Exactly what sits behind these investments is increasingly under scrutiny by various stakeholders.
Charities must expect to be challenged on the alignment of their investments with their charity’s purposes.  Confronting this issue requires charities to re-focus on good governance, ethics and the law.
The talk will examine recent case studies where charities have found themselves unexpectedly thrown into the spotlight in relation to their investments.  It will explore the implications of these examples and what proactive steps charities can take in relation to their investment policy.  While armaments, tobacco and high-interest rate lending have been regarded as some of the so-called ‘sin stocks’ of the past, the talk will also consider the more recent example of fossil fuel investments and beneficiary and donor activism in this area, looking at why and how universities and faith organisations in particular have responded.

Julie Hutchison is a lawyer, charity trustee and the Charities Specialist at Standard Life Wealth.  She is also a current post-graduate student on the Sustainable Leadership programme at the University of Cumbria.  Julie sits on the Ethical Funds Advisory Group at Standard Life   

  
To register for any of these free Open Lectures, please email iflas@cumbria.ac.uk
Find out more about the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability, and our leadership programmes at www.iflas.info

        


Tuesday 2 August 2016

What are people saying about a free course on currency innovation?


100% of Money and Society MOOC alumni report being "better able to interpret current events or initiatives" on issues of monetary reform and currency innovation.

100% say they "now want to learn more about the subject."

92% are interested in progressing their study with IFLAS, including the Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Exchange, which involves a week in our London Docklands campus.

"The course was blxxdy brilliant"

"It opened my mind to how important current initiatives are to the future of humanity"

The online course of 4 lessons, one each week, has been completed by nearly 300 people from around the world, ages 17 to 70, from education, enterpreneurship, banking, government and NGO sectors. More than a dozen have progressed to the certificated University course at Masters level. The MOOC is an entry requirement for that course.

The MOOC is offered only twice a year. The next starts on August 21st. It requires a minimum of a few hours study each week.

In December, dozens of participants from Asia and Australasia are gathering in Indonesia for a free and self-organised Money and Society Summit to discuss relevant initiatives. To attend you must have studied the MOOC first.

Enrol on the course now or read more about it here.

The course is tutored by Professor Jem Bendell (co-author of Healing Capitalism and a UN paper on currency innovation) and Leander Bindewald of IFLAS and Matthew Slater of Community Forge.