Conscious Capitalism Ready For Spotlight

Conscious Capitalism ready for spotlight San Francisco Chronicle Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 12:00 pm, Saturday, January 26, 2013 Many of us closed our eyes for a minute or so, and when asked by the group's leader to describe our experience, responses included "magic," "fun" and "awesome." Welcome to a San Francisco salon hosted by Conscious Capitalism Inc., an organization that came to public attention last week with the publication of a book with the same title and the controversial comments made by its author, Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey. "The people who are just in it for the money will crash and burn," said a young software engineer with whom I was participating in one of the group exercises. The notion of "the triple bottom line" (profit, people and planet), coined by the founder of a British consultancy called SustainAbility, goes back to 1994. [...] Conscious Capitalism - registered trademark - has rounded up a number of corporate chieftains in addition to Mackey, including those running Patagonia, The Container Store, Southwest Airlines Motley Fool, Zappos, Herman Miller, Gibson Guitars and Nordstrom. Up to now, the 6-year-old nonprofit has been operating mostly under the radar, but with a $1 million annual budget -funded by individual and corporate contributions and revenue from conferences - Conscious Capitalism appears ready to spread its wings. [...] Obamacare is perhaps the freest model of national health insurance to have been adopted by society - including democratic, capitalist societies in Europe that know a bit or two about fascism.