Beyond Growth: Anastasia Linn on Sustainable Finance

Is the way finance is set up the root cause of our faith in growth? Banks that create money out of thin air. Interest that requires growth somewhere in the financial system. This was one of the topics in this conversation with Anastasia Linn. Her answer surprised me.This conversation got me thinking about blame and accountability, about sustainable finance: is it even possible, and energy from your work and at the same time protecting your own energy.

Today, we are learning from Anastasia Linn.

Anastasia works at the intersection of organizational behavior, finance, and the Just Transition. Before co-founding Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance, she worked at organizations like the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth, World Climate Foundation, and the House of Beautiful Business. She initiated the Exploring Postgrowth Finance project at Degrowth Switzerland and has worked across the areas of leadership, innovation, and sustainability since 2016.

Genuine sustainable finance is finance that can enable wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries.

Let's get started...

In this conversation with Anastasia Linn, I learned:

00:00 Intro -

02:15 What does Arketa stand for, and what does the business do?

05:25 Ecological economics vs. neoclassical economics.

10:45 The responsibility of finance and banks (money creation) for our obsession with growth and deciding what is made in the economy.

13:50 The incentives within the system to accumulate money and power to be safe and deeper cultural issues.

17:10 Conversations with financial professionals to get into the underlying cultural change.