8 Billion Angels Executive Producer Terry Spahr was the keynote speaker at investment firm LBC Credit’s annual investor meeting in Philadelphia, PA. His presentation to more than 80 attendees outlined the problems associated with humanity’s increasing and seemingly insatiable consumption of the planet’s resources combined with the daily addition of 220,000 new people to our global population. Among the topics discussed were water scarcity, the collapse of fisheries, pressures on renewable and non-renewable resources and the wastes human activity generates as well as realistic solutions toward sustainability.
As a greater number of investors see the impact economic activity is placing on the earth, there is an increasing interest in investments that meet higher standards of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. While ESG awareness and focus will help in moving us towards sustainability, Spahr emphasized that without recognizing overpopulation as the main driver of our world’s ecological overshoot and environmental crises, we can not close the gap between resource supply and demand.