Bianca Jagger is a human rights campaigner for more than 25 years. Knowing that human rights and justice can not be seen apart from other urgent actual question she emphazises on the interdependance of these questions with the ones of sustainability and climate protection. Bianca Jagger’s commitment to justice and human rights issues was inevitable for she was born in Nicaragua, a country that endured almost 50 years of despotic dictatorship and has seen so much political upheaval. Nicaragua first taught her the meaning of social and economic injustice, inspiring her aspiration to be a social and human rights advocate. During the 1980s Bianca's work brought her to Central America to denounce human rights violations in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. In 1993, she traveled to the former Yugoslavia to document claims of mass rape of Bosnian women by Serbian forces as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. As part of her continuing environmental efforts, Ms. Jagger has for the last decade been involved in efforts to save the indigenous population and protect the rain forests of Nicaragua, Brazil and other parts of Latin America. In 2004 Bianca received the Right Livelihood Award.We met Bianca Jagger at the opening of the World Future Council in Hamburg.

Bianca Jagger speaks out quite clearly: Chancellor Merkel has to urge all G8 member states at the summit in Heiligendamm to let come true their promise to spend 0,7% of their GDP for the developing world. “I know there is a connection between this matter and the protection of the environment”, the activist said. Bianca Jagger engages in human rights issues for the last 25 years. “Holding a Nicaraguan and a British Citizenship, having studied in France I was long-drawn to human-rights issues”, she says.Bianca Jagger came to the official opening of the World Future Council, a international group of scientists, politicians and people known in their societies. The Group with headquarter in Hamburg will focus on questions regarding climate change. “Hamburg will be affected by global warming pretty much”, Jakob von Uexkull says. Uexkull, is the founder of the World Future Council. He is known for founding the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'.

Jakob von Uexkuell“To me it matters, that this new committee does not sit and talk but that it develops solutions that will set in practice by political leaders”, he says in the Interview with Club of Pioneers. This is why he emphasizes on three African countries that have already started to implement advises from the World Future Council in their political environmental agenda.Read the Call to Action of the World Future Council hereWe will show the interviews with Bianca Jagger and Jakob von Uexkuell soon in our Video Blog.

Paul Hawken, author of the seminal Ecology of Commerce postulated in the 90s that we couldn’t look to a more sustainable world without creating a new economic system of “Natural Capitalism”. Fast forward 10 years. Fueled by the desire of brands to stay relevant, meet consumer expectations and make a social and environmental impact trend researchers, academics and marketers are putting this new system to practice. We are now seeing the emergence of Karma Capitalism.

Hemal Vasavada-Gill founder of theeightfold.com
What is it? Could it be real? What would it look like? Trend Buero’s Trend Tag last Tuesday in Hamburg brought together leading Karma Capitalist thinkers to begin asking these questions. Despite speakers as diverse as founder of the Grameen Bank Muhammad Yunus; TU Berlin professor Dr Norbert Bolz; head of trends and strategy at Philips Design Josephine Green and Trendbuero founder Professor Peter Wipperman, common themes emerged to steal a glimpse into the future of Karma Capitalism. Defining Karma CapitalismKarma Capitalism happens at the intersection of a number of trends: growth of the communities and cultural creatives of Web 2.0, concern for the environmental sustainability and a shift to a more moral and ethics-based system for living. We are as a world searching for what Dr. Bolz called a “new soul”:

“We followed the protestant principles and so far it worked out reshaping our system. What happened was that with time the system lost the belief that activated it in the first place, leaving us with a heartless and empty body of what is our system behind. Today we live in a soulless container/body. We are searching for a new soul. “Four Major Shifts to Karma Capitalism Based on each of the speakers at the TrendTag, four major shifts emerge which help envision what the Karma Capitalist world will look like: What we will make: From global aspiratons to local meaning The products and services created in a Karma Capitalist system will not be based primarily on values or aspirations associated with global brands like they are today (think the Coke Side of Life or Adidas’ Impossible is Nothing). It will instead be based on brands that are physically and emotionally beneficial and relevant to all aspects of our everyday life. These “products of substance” will be what Josephine Green coined “deep customized” meaning they will look at our needs holistically (think Coke designing a full-day beverage drinking program based on our diet, exercise, stress level and spiritual needs).How we will make it: From individualism of shareholders to cooperation of stakeholders
All companies will ultimately need to perform and deliver returns in either a conventional or Karma Capitalist economy. The difference is to what end. In a traditional conventional capitalist economy, products and services are driven by ultimate profitability sometimes at the cost of total consumer value. We see this a lot in technology – Apple now dominate portable music because it has developed a product which purposefully breaks down every two years. HP revived itself by selling dirt cheap printers with ink cartridges that need replacing at a premium and often. Thanks to technology this equation should flip. In a Karma Capitalist system, what we make will not be about the product. It will be about consumer value. Consumers are in more intimate relationships with companies than ever before. As Trend Buero founder Professor Peter Wippermann proclaimed consumers are disclosing their private information and photos for data and services, they are demanding better feedback loops, which require honesty, credibility and a well-defined mission.

Technology and ethical consumption will also drive a desire or products to exist in harmony their environment. Cooperation not compromise will be increasingly important. Obsolescence makes money for individual shareholders, but it compromises everyone else’s natural resources. Stakeholders will demand products and services are both human and environment-centric. The resulting mutual progress between society, the environment and companies will drive gains for all.Who will make it: From resource productivity to human potential
Whether we are aware of it or not working 40-60 hours a week exclusively for profits appeals to only one part of human potential. Muhammad Yunus pointed out on Tuesday this was a failure of the traditional system:

The people who live on the German North Sea are used to high tides. In their calm North German fashion they don’t become upset when they hear statements that the sea level will rise due to melting of the polar ice caps. The people there trust in their dykes that for centuries have more or less protected them from flooding. The further development of dyke construction is therefore the focus of Germany’s North Sea inhabitants, not the horror scenarios; at least it seems to be so.

The dyke crown near the city of Neufeld is being built 90 centimeters higher for a length of 8.8 kilometers, and will thus be higher than eight meters.The present dyke runs along the coastline of over 400 km. Its construction began in the eleventh century. Without the dyke the coast of the North Sea would look much different than it does today. One fourth of Schleswig-Holstein’s area would be missing. It would have been under water since anyone could remember.In spite of technical sophistication, there is no absolute protection against floodwater. During the great storm tide of 1962 that flooded the Hanseatic City of Hamburg and its surrounding regions and cost 315 people their lives, the dyke was destroyed in many places.

After the Hamburg flood 1962In the last 100 years the sea level has risen 25 centimeters. The current higher extension of the dyke is 50 centimeters – that should hold out for the next 100 years.