Media

Finance with a Heart: Rethinking Capital for People and Planet

Ernest Gonzales, Founder of Belatz Endeavours

“Finance with a heart doesn’t just create wealth — it creates meaning.”

In the traditional image of Wall Street, finance is fast, sharp, and ruthless. Spreadsheets hum, trades flash, and fortunes rise and fall in fractions of a second. It is a world often caricatured as cold, guided purely by numbers, and blind to the human lives behind the balance sheets. Behind these transactions are lives, communities, and ecosystems that too often go unseen. What if finance could care as much about impact as it does about return? What if capital could flow with purpose, empathy, and vision? This is finance with a heart.….continued 

Natural Capital: Rethinking the Wealth of Nations

By Ernest Gonzales

On a misty morning in Costa Rica’s highlands, the sound of howler monkeys’ echoes through the trees as coffee farmers walk their terraced plots. To the untrained eye, the landscape looks like any other patchwork of farmland and forest. But to economists and ecologists, this region represents something far more valuable: a living bank account of natural capital. The forests filter water for downstream communities, the bees pollinate coffee blossoms, and the rich volcanic soil locks away carbon while nourishing crops.None of these services appear on a farmer’s balance sheet or in the nation’s GDP, yet without them, the coffee industry — and the livelihoods of thousands — would collapse ….continued 

Private Capital Today: From Mega-Deals to Measurable Impact

By Ernest Gonzales

“Private capital is no longer the alternative — it’s the mainstream,” said one global LP in McKinsey’s 2025 market report. That shift is visible in the numbers: global private markets assets under management have crossed $13 trillion, more than double the figure of just five years ago [McKinsey, 2025]. Even amid higher rates and sluggish fundraising, the industry’s gravitational pull is undeniable. The world’s largest institutions — pensions, sovereign wealth funds, insurers — are allocating ever more to private equity, credit, infrastructure and venture. Meanwhile, family offices, numbering over 7,000 globally and controlling trillions in assets, are reshaping the competitive landscape by investing directly [Reuters, 2025]. ….continued 

The Hague and the NATO Summit 2025…

By Eelco H. Dykstra.

After a few years of mission-critical assignments elsewhere, Eelco H. Dykstra resumes his acclaimed column “A Thought and a Smile…” in Diplomat Magazine

“All of us know more than one of us!” is  the slogan/tagline of one of the international programs I’m involved  in, called “20/20 Vision”. It was selected as slogan because the   program is not about listening to information from a single source –  never a good idea – , but about harvesting the collective wisdom of “the  crowd”. As such, the program seeks to combine the lessons learned from  ‘western’ science with those from more informal, ‘tribal’ experiences  and lessons learned, also known as “indigenous knowledge”….continued 

The 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society

“The Ignition Schools list honors the top academic institutions that play an enormous role in shaping the businesses that influence society. Innovation and entrepreneurship—the editorial lodestars for Fast Company and Inc., respectively—are also the focus of Ignition Schools. The 50 colleges and universities we’re honoring in our inaugural list don’t just produce elite students and groundbreaking research; they also are economic engines that generate the ideas, businesses, and opportunities that move cities, regions, and countries toward a better future”…continued 

Central Coast Sustainability Summit

History

The event brings together representatives from local governments and organizations to discuss common sustainability issues, share best practices, and seek partners in collaboratively addressing complex environmental and economic issues in our region.

Conference Goals

  1. Promote Best Practices seeking partnerships or collaborations with other local agencies

  2. Encourage dialogue between sustainability focus areas…continued