Christopher Lindstrom is committed to his work to help transition the economy from a paradigm of extraction to one of regeneration. He has had an interest in and passion for the area of alternative monetary systems and local currencies since 2002. In 2003, he became a volunteer staff member at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics which led to his co-founding BerkShares in 2006, a local currency for use in the southern Berkshires of western Massachusetts, which continues to receive international media attention and has served as a model for other communities interested in creating their own locally circulating currency.
Chris has been active in the bioenergy sector as an investor and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Catalyst Bioenergy Group, has served on the Board of Directors of the Slow Money Institute, and currently serves as a director of the David Rockefeller Fund. He is also the co-founder of CyclEffect, a new model of cooperative investing and business incubation that enables companies in their early stages to own a stake in a growing ecosystem of mission-aligned businesses.
“As a kid, I was struck by the iconic scene from Back to the Future where Doc Brown shows up out of nowhere in his updated time machine and frantically stuffs garbage into its fuel intake. Perhaps this was some kind of subliminal message for our modern era. Perhaps, the future will require going back to our past for solutions to the present crisis. As it turns out, there have been two basic technologies from the 1800’s (if not earlier) that can sustainably generate energy from waste: anaerobic digestion and gasification. But up until now, they have been seriously marginalized. Whether it be intentional marginalization by fossil fuel interests or complexities in maintaining a consistent output from a complex process, anaerobic digestion and gasification are barely included in the lexicon of sustainability. However, they both generate renewable fuel while recycling waste resources. This gas can be used as fuel for transportation or for generating electricity. But more importantly, they also produce valuable soil by-products. And this is a key carbon mitigating aspect. While aerobic digestion produces a bio-fertilizer rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, gasification produces a char that is a very stable form of carbon, which, if placed in the ground, can store that carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years.”
Chris received an A.A. from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in 2001 and a B.A. in Integral Economics from Goddard College in 2009.