by NINA WINHAM
The day we moved into our house on the Eastside of Vancouver, our next-door neighbour brought us a whole roasted chicken and a loaf of fresh bread. A widow who has lived in her home for nearly 50 years, she has routinely dropped off baked goods, cherries from her tree, and birthday presents for my daughter, and we routinely trade friendly banter over the back fence.
She is a lovely neighbour and a generous person. And, whether she knows it or not, she’s also protecting her own interests by building herself into our lives and those of others on our street.
It’s called “social capital.” In the abstract world of sustainability theory, it’s one of several types of capital we need to build and preserve. Social capital refers to the relational fabric of our society: families, communities, unions, businesses, schools, and volunteer organizations. There’s also natural capital, the life-giving abundance of the ecosystem around us; human capital, which is health, skills, and knowledge; and, of course, the ones that hog the headlines: financial and manufactured capital. (For more, dive in at forum
forthefuture.org; search for “five capitals.”)
Somehow, we’ve learned to spend most of our time fretting about financial and manufactured capital. From housing starts to home-reno shows, from chasing a pay increase to chasing a sale on the other end of town, we invest a lot of our time into the idea that our wealth resides in bank accounts and possessions. It’s true that money can buy a lot of comfort and opportunity, and not having enough for necessities is crushing. But that housewarming roast chicken can buy you a lot of security, too.
Heat Wave, a fascinating book by Eric Klinenberg about the 1995 Chicago heat wave, shows the power of social capital. For one week, temperatures soared. Train tracks warped. Road surfaces buckled. And people died—more than 700 that week than usual, by some estimates. It’s interesting to note who died. Elderly women—more sensitive to heat but generally better at maintaining social relationships—died at half the rate of elderly men. Latinos, living in vibrant neighbourhoods with strong community relationships, were almost unrepresented in the death count, despite making up one quarter of the city’s population. In contrast, African-Americans isolated in neighbourhoods abandoned by business and residents alike were much more likely to die alone in their apartments. In the face of disaster, people with higher social capital were more likely to survive.
The trick with these different forms of capital is keeping them in balance (such as not eliminating all our natural capital—forests, fish stocks, and healthy watersheds—for quick financial gains). But since we haven’t been trained to think about wealth in any terms other than “money” or “things,” seeing the real value in building social capital is subtle.
As an investor, you can harness your financial capital for the task. Choose funds that invest in international community development projects, or credit union term deposits that support local community-building initiatives.
You can also shift the way you think about wealth and investing. Work a little less. Spend more time talking over the back fence. Look after your neighbours. Volunteer. Those, too, are investments that pay off. I have no idea what my neighbour’s bank account looks like, but I know she is wealthy in the ways that count. And, unlike money in the bank, the more she builds that wealth, the more we all gain.
Nina Winham is principal of New Climate Strategies (newclimate.ca), a consultancy helping clients build value through sustainability practices and creating positive change. She aspires to a 50-year track record as a good neighbour.
