Money, Exchange, and Sustainability: An Online Course
It will be impossible to solve environmental or social sustainability issues without addressing the monetary system.
Money, Exchange, and Sustainability is an online course for people working to solve environmental or social sustainability issues—and other interested individuals—who (correctly) suspect that the money system is the key factor in hindering, or even completely preventing, us in making the changes we wish to see happen in the world.
In this course, we’ll learn to understand the underlying details of exactly why this is the case, which then allows us to explore other ways we can collectively, and successfully, build different systems of exchange.
Specifically, we will cover:
the sustainability-related challenges with a positive interest rate / debt-based currency system, starting at the systemic level and working down to our own individual personal experiences with money,
alternative currency systems—often called complementary currencies—and the importance of creating diverse forms of exchange instead of the largely homogeneous global currency system we have today, and
what it might look like to de-monetize parts of our collective exchanges through the gift economy.
The Money, Exchange, and Sustainability course consists of six, 1-hour online class sessions.
Recordings of the sessions (or a re-recording of the presentation of the material, in case of any technical difficulties) will be made available for six months after the class.
Class Topics
Class 1
Why did humans create money? The six functions of our dominant global currencies
Class 2
Our monetary system’s incompatibility with sustainability (part 1):
Focusing on the near term instead of providing for future generations
Devaluing collaborative and other behaviors that create cohesiveness in societies
Class 3
Our monetary system’s incompatibility with sustainability (part 2):
Exacerbating the booms and busts of financial cycles
Forcing ongoing exponential growth of the economy
Class 4
Our monetary system’s incompatibility with sustainability (part 3):
Creating inequality through increasing concentration of wealth
Class 5
Alternative / complementary currencies options + diverse exchange: what’s likely to help, and what may hurt
Class 6
The gift economy: exploring the potential role for incorporating more one-way exchange (i.e. giving without the expectation of return) into our economy and our personal lives
There will be only optional—not required—reading and viewing for the class, so if you wish you are welcome to attend or watch the class each week without additional obligations.
Some key works by others that have influenced the course content:
Money and Sustainability. The Missing Link book by Bernard Lietaer, Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner and Stefan Brunnhuber
Sacred Economics, Revised: Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition (Revised edition) book by Charles Eisenstein
Living in the Gift course by Charles Eisenstein
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World book by Lewis Hyde
About your instructor, Carrie
I spent many years working in technology, leveraging my training in theoretical mathematics and initially living my life with almost a sole focus on the intellect. In parallel I began to heal my body and psyche, and open my heart, through deep breathing in yoga.
As I began to work in sustainability in the corporate realm, and later in academia teaching a Circular Economy course at Harvard, I saw how the mind and the heart are separated, and I became disillusioned with “sustainability” as it is currently practiced.
More recently, I discovered bookbinding as not only an outlet for my creativity, but also a metaphor for what thriving life could be for all of us. Now, I am offering the wisdom I’ve gained from all of my experiences, training, creations, and being, here at More than Sustainability.