Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, joins Casey Hogue, the host of Darts in the Dark Podcast, to discuss the history of As You Sow and its mission, conscious consumerism, the 4th industrial age, and more.

Andrew informs us that “A Board [of a company] has the job of setting strategy and incentivizing the employees to execute the strategy. But ultimately, they report to the shareholders. So, we have oversight of the board. And so, it’s a responsibility when you own shares of a company, that you take on. That means if you’re owning equities, if you own 100 shares of Apple, or whatever the company is. But people also own partial shares of companies through mutual funds. A mutual fund is a basket of stocks. So, it could be 500 stocks or 1,000 stocks are in this and you own shares of the aggregate. But you also have rights if you own shares in a mutual fund. And knowing what’s in your mutual fund is very, very important.

We’ve developed a whole platform called Invest Your Values (investyourvalues.org) and you can look inside what is actually in 3,000 mutual funds. Which fossil fuel companies, which coal-fired utilities, which companies that are burning down the Indonesian or Amazon rainforest, which companies that are profiting from private prisons, from mass incarceration or weapons. It’s important for people to actually make sure that their investments are aligned with their values because otherwise what happens (and for the most part, this is what is happening right now) [is] that people want to have a world - a livable planet to retire into. That means that it’s a world that’s based on justice and sustainability but most of the time, in these mutual funds and most company retirement plans and pension funds are just full of what we call the extractive economy.

So, you have this cognitive dissonance of profiting from your own destruction. And people wonder, “Why do I have this feeling?” Well, it’s because every time these private prisons are making money, you are getting some of that but your value set is around justice. You want to deal with climate change, but you’re profiting from companies that are burning down the Amazon rainforest. So, knowing about this is the first step which is why a lot of our work is to just shine a bright light. If you go to investyourvalues.org you’ll see what I mean. You can type in any mutual fund and you will see everything about it.

So, transparency is number one, and then getting people to understand that they have this incredible amount of power that they generally abdicate. They abdicate it before they even know that they have power. But you’ve got the power to first of all to shift your investments into funds and into companies that are aligned with your values, and then if you actually own the companies, vote your proxies. And there’s many, many layers in-between that but people have this massive power but they don’t know how to use it and that’s part of what As You Sow’s mission is, is to educate them.”

Other Topics Covered:

[:60] What spurred the beginning of As You Sow 30 years ago (Tom Van Dyck)
[2:34] Toxic compounds in chocolate
[4:30] Andy’s background and career path
[9:09] As You Sow's mission and research
[11:07] Shareholder power
[12:10] Make sure your investments align with your values
[12:37] The extractive economy
[12:15] investyourvalues.org
[14:08] Conscious consumerism
[17:50] Dispersion of goods and services
[18:47] The Business Roundtable: New purpose of a corporation
[19:07] 4th industrial age
[20:50] Shifting the narrative
[22:18] Action toolkit
[24:26] What’s it like being an Eco-Rockstar?
[25:30] Excitement for the future
[27:56] Best way to engage