The Schumacher Lectures

James Gustave (Gus) Speth served on the faculty of the Vermont Law School as Professor of Law from 2010 to 2015. He now serves as a Fellow at the Tellus Institute , The Democracy Collaborative , and the Vermont Law School . He is Co-Chair of the Next System Project at The Democracy Collaborative. He delivered this speech at the 30th Annual E.F. Schumacher Lectures on November 20th, 2010. If you wo...

Neva Goodwin is co-founder and co-director of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University , where her projects have included editing a six-volume series, Frontier Issues in Economic Thought (published by Island Press) and a Michigan Press series, Evolving Values for a Capitalist World . She has edited more than a dozen books, and is the lead author of three introductory te...

Stewart Wallis was the executive director of the New Economics Foundation , the UK’s leading think tank for social, economic, and environmental justice, from 2003 through 2015. Wallis is also a board member of the New Economy Coalition (USA), Vice-Chair for the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Values, and Trustee of the Forum’s Inclusive Growth Global Challenge. His expertise includ...

Juliet B. Schor studies trends in working time and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women’s issues, and economic justice. Since 2011 Schor has also been researching the sharing economy, including both non-profit community initiatives (makerspaces, timebanks) and for-profit platforms like Airbnb, TaskRabbit and Uber. She delivered this speech at the 31st Annual E.F. S...

Allan Savory is the co-founder of the Savory Institute in Boulder, Colorado, which establishes a global network of entrepreneurial innovators and leaders committed to serving their regions with the highest standards of Holistic Management training and implementation support. The Africa Centre became the first of the Savory Institute’s locally led and managed “hubs.” His book, Holistic Management:...

Matt Stinchcomb is Executive Director at the Good Work Institute , a nonprofit organization whose primary focus is on cultivating communities of local change makers living and working in and around the Hudson Valley. Their programs support these leaders as they develop and implement projects that aim to have net-positive benefit in the region and beyond. Before heading up the Good Work Institute,...

Ed Whitfield is co-founder and co-managing director of the Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC). A long time social justice activist, Whitfield had been involved in labor, community organizing and peace work since the late 60‘s when he was a student activist at Cornell University. He is deeply involved in conceptualizing and spreading the idea of democratic ownership and the reclamation of the c...

Winona LaDuke is a member of the Ojibwe Nation of the Anishinaabe peoples and is the executive director of Honor the Earth, a grassroots environmental organization focused on Indigenous issues and environmental justice, which she co-founded in 1993. She delivered her speech at the 37th Annual Schumacher Lectures on November 4th, 2017. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or others lik...

Leah Penniman is an educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. Penniman delivered her speech at the 38th annual E.F. Schumacher Lectures on October 27th, 2018. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or...

As a young man of color, Greg Watson faced rebuke by his peers for championing environmental issues, broadly seen as the purview of privilege. Watson understood that clean air, fresh water, healthy soil, and good food are a necessary right for all. He went on to work in both the public and private spheres to create community food systems, renewable energy initiatives, and citizen-designed developm...

Sallie Calhoun owns and manages Paicines Ranch, a 7600-acre ranch in central California. She is also an impact investor, activist, and philanthropic funder in regenerative agriculture. Her work focuses on improving the health of agricultural soils, sequestering carbon in the soil to mitigate climate change, and creating thriving communities of people committed to this work. She delivered this spee...

Majora Carter delivered "Sustainable South Bronx: A Model for Environmental Justice" in October 2007. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or others like it, visit centerforneweconomics.org/order-pamphlets to purchase pamphlets of published works and transcripts. The Schumacher Center’s applied work seeks to implement the principles described by these speakers within the context of th...

Gordon Thorne (April 1941 – June 2018) was a visual artist based in Northampton, MA. Thorne began pursuing a career in the arts after graduating from Yale University, initially finding a spot where he painted on Main Street in New Haven. He was the Director of Available Potential Enterprises ( A.P.E. ), which he founded in 1977 and was used to promote both Thorne’s own work and that of other artis...

John Abrams is the co-founder and CEO of South Mountain Company , an employee owned enterprise committed to triple bottom line business practice. In 1987, South Mountain re-structured as a worker cooperative, and today 21 of its 33 employees are full owners. In 2005 Business Ethics Magazine awarded South Mountain its National Award for Workplace Democracy. John Abrams delivered “The Company We Kee...

Kevin Lyons began his career at Rutgers University in 1988 as director of procurement working on numerous projects and proposals relating to green purchasing and improving contracts, transforming the way the university did its daily business, from lighting and energy management to waste recycling and contract packaging. Early in his career at Rutgers, he successfully took on a multi-year initiativ...

David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics as well as Special Assistant to the President of Oberlin College and executive director of the  Oberlin Project . He is perhaps best known for his pioneering work on environmental literacy in higher education and his leading role in the promising new field of ecological design. David Orr delivered “Environ...

John Todd has been a pioneer in the field of ecological design and engineering for nearly five decades. He is the founder and president of John Todd Ecological Design . Dr. Todd has degrees in agriculture, parasitology and tropical medicine from McGill University, Montreal, and a doctorate in fisheries and ethology from the University of Michigan. He is professor emeritus and distinguished lecture...

Sally Fallon Morell is founding president of The Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit nutrition education foundation with over 400 local chapters worldwide helping consumers find local grass-based animal products. She is also the founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, which has as its goal universal access to clean raw milk from pasture-fed animals. Sally Fallon Morell delivered “Very Small is Be...

Andrew Kimbrell is one of the country's leading environmental attorneys and an author of several articles and books on environment, technology, society, and food issues. He is executive director of the Center for Food Safety and the International Center for Technology Assessment. Andrew Kimbrell delivered “Cold Evil” in October 2000. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or others like...

Stephanie Mills has been a writer, editor, and speaker on matters ecological, bioregional, social, and political for the past fifty years. Famous for her commencement address at Mills College in 1969, “The Future is a Cruel Hoax,” she went on to serve as the assistant editor of  Co-Evolution Quarterly and editor-in-chief of  Not Man Apart , Cry California , and  Earth Times . Mills delivered “Maki...

Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author, a respected advocate for food justice and sustainability, and an advisor to funders investing in food system transformation. She delivered “Eat the Sky: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork” on October 25, 2008. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or others like it, visit centerforneweconomics.org/order-pamphlets to purchase pamphlet...

Vandana Shiva is a trained physicist and courageous social activist who was named one of the Seven Most Powerful Women on the Globe by Forbes Magazine. Vandana Shiva delivered "Biopiracy: The Colonization of the Seed" on March 19, 2000. If you would like a physical copy of this lecture or others like it, visit centerforneweconomics.org/order-pamphlets to purchase pamphlets of published works and t...

Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of  Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns , and the author of  The Third Plate ( 2014). He opened Blue Hill restaurant with family members David and Laureen Barber in May of 2000 and two years later he was named one of the country’s “Best New Chefs” by  Food and Wine magazine. Since then, he has been addressing local food issues through op-eds in  The New York...

Caroline Woolard is a New York-based artist and organizer born in Rhode Island. She speaks internationally about art, design, technology, and economic justice.  Woolard co-founded barter networks OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop , as well as cultural equity platform BFAMFAPhD.com , and The Study Center for Group Work to share collaborative methods created by artists. Recent projects have been com...

Jerry Mander is the founder, former director, and presently distinguished fellow of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) , a San Francisco “think tank” focused since 1994 on exposing the negative impacts of economic globalization, and the need for economic transitions toward sustainable local economies. He was also, until recently, program director of the Foundation for Deep Ecology.  IF...