ReelBob: ‘Seeding Change: The Power of Conscious Commerce’ ★★½

By Bob Bloom

“Seeding Change: The Power of Conscious Commerce” is not so much a documentary as a 51-minute promo movie touting biodiversity, alternate economic models, cooperation between like-minded industries and promoting fair trade and fair labor.

But as a cinematic warning about where mankind and our planet are heading if we don’t make some substantial changes in the way we buy and what we purchase, “Seeding Change” sounds a clarion call that we should all heed.

Director Richard Yellen’s movie focuses on the founders and officials of a few companies that are argue and have shown that environmentally and sustainability can have not only positive impacts, but profitable ones, on the people in the regions where it is practiced.

Companies such as Sambazon, which sells acai fruit from the rainforest of Brazil, Numi Organic Tea, Thrive Market and The Good Bean are examples of how socially conscious entrepreneurs are working at battling climate change, uplifting indigenous people who have been exploited by working with them and creating products that are healthy and nutritional for all people.

“Seeding Change” shows how these companies are working together, creating One Step Closer to an Organic Sustainable Community (OSC2) to provide ethical methods without compromising their visions for how they want to help repair the planet.

Their aim is to impact the marketplace so that larger corporations that use wasteful practices will eventually see the error of their ways.

They also believe that consumers — you and I — can have an impact. They believe consumer spending is impactful and that when people vote with their dollars and turn away from these corporate behemoths who see only the bottom line, things will change.

The people interviewed in “Seeding Change” are not idealists. They are pragmatists who have developed different sets of business models that allow them to make profits while being socially and commercially responsible.

The documentary is compelling and optimistic. It offers a hint of doom-and-gloom, but for the most part it is an upbeat examination of businesspeople who believe ethics and respect for our planet and its people are just as important as profits — if not more so.

SEEDING CHANGE: THE POWER OF CONSCIOUS COMMERCE
2 1/2 stars out of 4
Not rated