Real Value Group provides consulting, coaching, investment and speaking services. Our service engagements also connect clients in collaboration with a network of over a thousand value specialists and practitioners with complementary skills and expertise.
We help people to design powerful decisions, strategies, investments and action plans that amplify the power of your work with all the potential energy and abundance available to your businesses and the stakeholder communities.
Our approach is rooted in natural patterns and wisdom at the core of ecological and social integrity, as well as whole systems design of socio-technical systems, that are essential in the face of today’s challenges and oppornities.
Reciprocity • Resilience • Renewability • Regeneration
We know these are the core essence of financial and economic health for all enterprises and communities. These elements connect complex, adaptive enterprise systems in a global web of living community that we all engage with in creating our common future.
As change is happening faster each day, our world is transforming at scales local to global. Real Value Group specializes in navigating this flow of whole scale change transforming your work, activating your boldest goals, and enhancing returns on all ways that you invest in real value.
James Pittman
Principal Consultant & Coach
For my entire lifework career, I’ve been preparing for the current transformative times on Earth — what some call the Ecozoic Era — first and always rooted in teachings from Native and indigenous elders from around the Americas. In professional work, I’ve brought the wisdom of this focus on consulting finance, energy, carbon, technology, agriculture and other sectors, as well as stakeholder engagement in change management and leadership coaching.
Most of all, I enjoy specializing in decision science for adaptive design of enterprise systems and strategy to support regeneration of real value that lasts over time. I've refined methods for assessing full-spectrum value and impact, considering financial/economic within human/social within ecological/environmental system dynamics. This guides creation of better policies, projects, programs, buildings, enterprises, and communities, drawing inspiration from natural patterns.
Throughout a career with over 25 years in executive and management roles as an entrepreneur and intrapreneur, I’ve co-founded many enterprises including Earth Economics, and several successful business startups, most recently as Managing Partner of GreenHydrogen.capital. In my teaching work, I advanced the world's first sustainable business MBA program at Pinchot University, co-leading the curriculum core in systems design and ecological economics. Also, I’ve served as Chair or member of many Boards for corporations, non-profits, and land trusts.
As a consultant and advisor I’ve served many Fortune 500 and small/mid-sized companies, the U.S. President's Council on Sustainable Development, a wide range of governmental agencies, and leading standards and research organizations (GRI, SASB, Globescan, SustainAbility, ERM) and many rural and forest communities. For many years I've also been a member of the Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Highlights of my client and partner collaborations on powerful projects and initiatives include:
Launched an enterprise-wide operational sustainability transition for a $60M enterprise.
Designed public sector green infrastructure funding mechanisms for >$500M annually.
Created 80+ indicator frameworks for triple bottom line sustainability assessment.
Developed resource efficiency plans exceeding 80% in cost savings in the first year.
Negotiated multi-million dollar investment deals with over 4x IRR and exceeding 20x ROI.
Directly led impact investment equity, grant, and donor fundraising campaigns over $5M.
Planned and facilitated large-scale change events convening over 3,000 stakeholders.
My educational background is grounded in how we understand and design the human Earth relationship (BA, Ecopsychology and Sustainable Development) how we create trust and health in our organizations and community through collaborative change management (MA, Whole Systems Design), and also in how we redesign the patterns of our economics to cultivate value for the benefit for people and the planet in shared prosperity (MSc with distinction, Ecological Economics), as well as a wide range of related professional certifications.
Today, I continue to serve, mentor and coach a new generation of leaders, helping individuals, teams, and enterprises make better decisions for an accelerating time of change. My unique skills and collaborative approach ensure customized consultations and coaching programs that inspire and equip clients to translate new ideas into action.
For more info, connect on LinkedIn, view publications, or follow on Twitter.
Past work has included a breadth of client service in coaching, consulting, advisory or speaking capacities.
