Laurie Lane-Zucker’s pioneering path to the regenerative economy

One of the things that I am happiest about is that my grandchild, if I am lucky enough to have one, or anyone, will know what I did with my work. —Laurie Lane-Zucker

Longtime Northwest Corner resident Laurie Lane-Zucker sees hope everywhere for positive economic and social change. For the past 15 years, he has been building Impact Entrepreneur, a global online media and community platform from his base in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Today, Impact Entrepreneur reaches more than 70,000 changemakers across the globe. The platform publishes Impact Entrepreneur Magazine, produces a live webinar series and convenes field-building conferences focused on the impact economy.

His new book, “The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough: A Field Manual for the Regenerative Economy,” was just published by Berrett-Koehler on Sept. 1 and is distributed by Penguin Random House. The book serves as a manual for shifting to a system in which business, capital and culture create lasting value for people, communities and the planet. It maps the full architecture for the transformation to a regenerative economy and is the culmination of Lane-Zucker’s 35-year commitment to sustainable and responsible development and his love for the Berkshire-Taconic region.

“I love being here. Some years ago, I realized that I spent most of my life along Route 7. I grew up in Fairfield County, not far from Route 7. I went to Salisbury School. I went to Middlebury College, also right on Route 7. It’s this region’s geography — the whole Taconic range — that just has a hold on me, and I love it.”

Early in his career, Lane-Zucker worked in Manhattan with Orion Magazine. When the magazine outgrew its office space, he advocated for its relocation to Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He then served as the founding director of The Orion Society, the nonprofit that now publishes the magazine. While there, he co-developed and coined the term “place-based education,” an approach that prioritizes local community and landscape as primary resources for learning.

He has never left the area, despite several professional opportunities.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave this place. I had too many roots here. My kids all went to Great Barrington public schools at different points. My older son Liam went to the Salisbury School and still lives in the area and my daughter Anna went to the Waldorf School. I just love this place so much.”

Determined to forge his career here, Lane-Zucker set out on his own entrepreneurial path. He started the Triad Institute, an international think tank focused on sustainability. One of his projects was a digital media initiative called Hotfrog, which became a founding Certified B Corporation, with verified standards for social and environmental accountability.

These professional experiences and his passion for the region all come together in his work. In 2011, he coined the term “impact entrepreneur,” giving a name to the hopes and actions of a growing community of social innovators and practitioners — a new archetype of changemaker, who understands the need to reinvent the way we engage with the world through business and finance.

“Impact Entrepreneur is more than a brand or description,” Lane-Zucker said. “It is an identity that people increasingly embrace. It is who they are. The term is now widely used in the media and in conversation at every conference I go to. It is one of the great successes of this project.”

Lane-Zucker’s book celebrates the movement toward a regenerative economy and makes the case for security that rests on investments in ecological stability, public health, equity and community cohesion. He shines a light on business models and practices that marry profit with purpose and are inspired by the region’s special sense of place — this “landscape of deep memory where the earth itself seems to speak in whispers.”

He also includes 36 beautiful original watercolor images in which colors flow and form one continuous gesture. They offer a visual interpretation of the book’s call for a unified economic system in which human intention guidescomplex systems rather than dominating them.

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Lane-Zucker also sees the book, in part, as his own memoir.

“One of the things that I am happiest about is that my grandchild, if I am lucky enough to have one, or anyone, will know what I did with my work.”

Lane-Zucker is doing something new and needed — giving voice and leadership to transformative change and providing a roadmap for others to join in and take action.

As he said, “There are a lot of models and tools that exist now. This is not a pipe dream or niche thing. This is the next step; the next stage of the economy; a rightful human evolution that’s happening.”

For more information and to order a copy of the book, visit impactentrepreneur.com