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  • From: Vint Lawrence <vlawrence@nets.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Green investments
  • Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:57:10 -0600

Sean and others on the list:
You are correct that the Permaculture Credit Union (PCU) is helping to form a Permaculture economy by supporting the financial needs of our members who, by definition (the field of membership), are committed to the ethics of Permaculture.

It is a self-regulating system in that we are only as "green" as our membership and their needs.

However, the PCU is open to members from all 50 states (we even have some International members) and we can make loans in virtually every state, so I don't believe it is accurate to characterize our operations as primarily benefiting the Southwestern US. The "community" we serve is really the national Permaculture community.

Our current membership is approaching 800 members with almost $3million in deposits and over $2 million out in loans. Probably because our membership is based upon Earth-care ethics, we have a phenomenally low default rate on our loans (less than a tenth of one percent in the past 5 years). What this means is that of the over $2.6 million we have loaned out to individuals in the past four years, only one person has failed to pay back their loan - and we are still working with them to make that happen.

More information can be found at the web site www.pcuonline.org.
Membership and loan application forms can be downloaded directly from the web site.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify the nature of the PCU

Vint Lawrence



Sean Maley wrote:

You may already be aware of some of this, but for the
benefit of those who don't:

In terms of Stocks, Bonds, and Mutual Funds, I only
know of one permaculture sympathetic investment
manager whom we are no doubt all aware: naturalinvesting.com.

There is also a movement to approach
economics/investments from a more organic angle. See
http://www.solari.com for a good description of how to
do it. The down side is that this site is politically
motivated. However, the concept itself is good.

By using the PCU, you in effect help form a small
permaculture ecomony. The PCU uses the money you
place in a savings (investment) account and turns
around to loan it for a permaculture use like PDC
classes or helping start an ecovillage. The PCU,
being more local to south western USA, may not be the
solution for everyone, as most benefit is local to
them. It would be a good idea for a grass roots
effort to form based upon PCU.

Other sites of note are:
http://www.henrygeorge.org
http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org
http://www.natcap.org
http://www.steadystate.org
http://www.newapproachtofreedom.info
http://www.openmoney.org
http://creditary-economics.org
http://open.coop
http://www.smalleconomy.com
http://tinyurl.com/9c825


-Sean.

--- "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net> wrote:

Can anyone describe what opportunities exist in the
realm of Green investments and what role the
Permaculture Credit Union is playing in that arena?




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