User:Molendijk

Klaas-Jan Molendijk (Leiden University, MSc ICT in Business)

OBJECTS OF THE FUTURE

Object 1: Banking for Sustainable Business Management

The market of businesses that want to operate in a socially responsible manner is emerging. At the same time, the number of people that request socially responsible bahaviour of organisations is growing as well. One example of an organisation that came up because of these (very good!) developments, is Triodios Bank. Triodos Bank finances organisations and projects with an added value related to social (e.g. health, safety and education), environmental (e.g. energy, water and waste) and - for example - cultural aspects. Triodos is able to do so because of the growing amounts of savers and investors which – for society’s sake – are willing to invest in sustainable businesses and renewing entrepreneurship. The bank lasts for 15 years now. Last years, Triodos Bank established banks in Gent, Namen and Bristol. And the board of directors now aims at further cooperation with “Triodos-look-a-likes” in other countries of (in the first place) Europe. This is necessary in order to be able to finance larger projects too, which will have a larger added value for society as well. Triodos Bank chooses for an approach in which people and earth will not directly be balanced against financial returns, but will be viewed from a long-term perspective. This “Triple P” approach (People, Planet, Profit) can be found back in the name of Triodos. “Tri hodos” is Greek for “triple way”.

REFERENCES

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_business
• http://www.ode.nl/article.php?aID=141
• http://www.triodos.nl