- New Economics Foundation
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The New Economics Foundation 
Abbreviation NEF Motto Economics as if people and the planet mattered. Formation 1986 Type ecological economics public policy think tank Headquarters 3 Jonathan Street, London, United Kingdom Executive Director
Policy Director
Director of OperationsStewart Wallis
Andrew Simms
Elna KotzeWebsite www.neweconomics.org The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a British think-tank.[1]
NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability".[2]
The foundation has 50 staff in London and is active at a range of different levels. Its programmes include work on well-being, new kinds of measurement and evaluation, sustainable local regeneration, new forms of finance and new business models, sustainable public services, and the economics of climate change.
Contents
Work
NEF works in the areas of community, democracy, and economics. A number of the ideas advanced by NEF have become public policy. NEF has for example promoted the spread of time banks and NEF's work on sustainability indicators, which measures aspects of life and environment, has fueled a trend to map how economic growth and sustainability are connected.[vague][3]
From 1995 to 2000 NEF made social audits of companies to measure and evaluate a company's social and ethical performance according to its standards. This work was instrumental in the formation of the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability to promote professional standards around social accounting and auditing.[4]
Quality and impact measurement
As a result of work carried out between 2002 and 2006 as part of the EQUAL Community Initiative, NEF produced a guide to quality and impact measurement tools for the third sector, called Proving and Improving. It has been instrumental in developing one of the tools examined, Social Return on Investment (SROI), which is most often used to bring non-monetary impacts of social enterprises into a cost-benefit calculation.
Jubilee 2000 campaign
Main article: Jubilee 2000The Jubilee 2000 campaign, strategized for and run by NEF,[5] collected 24 million signatures for its worldwide petition on development and poverty.[6]
Local Money Flows
The Local Multiplier 3 tool was developed by NEF's Local money Flows measurement program and enables the mapping of money flows through the local economy.[7]
Happy Planet Index
Main article: Happy Planet IndexIn July 2006, NEF launched the Happy Planet Index, intended to challenge existing indices of a state's success, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index (HDI).
IC100
"IC100 will show that even the more disadvantaged inner cities are not the enterprise 'no-go' areas of the past, but the investment opportunities of the future."
- Gordon Brown MP (Labour), speaking of NEF's index of firms promoting inner city development.
21-hour working week
The New Economic Foundation recently called for gradual transition to a working week of 21 hours.[8]
History
James Robertson, a British economist, and Alison Pritchard, a Schumacher Society Council member, helped to set up The Other Economic Summit (TOES) and NEF.[9] Ed Mayo was Chief Executive from 1992 until 2003.[10] The current executive director is Stewart Wallis.
At the policy level, NEF has attracted Gordon Brown (when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer) to chair some of its events. The organization has launched a range of new organizations to promote its ideas, including the Ethical Trading Initiative, AccountAbility, Time Banking UK, London Rebuilding Society, the Community Development Finance Association, and others.
The organization's current projects include measuring local money flows LM3, developing new kinds of business enterprise coaching BizFizz, and introducing techniques of sustainable regeneration (Local Alchemy). NEF's BizFizz programs have created more than 900 new businesses in deprived areas. The organization has now taken this and Local Alchemy to six other countries through its international programme.
At a cultural level, NEF events at the Hay literary festival attract well-known speakers. Its Clone Town campaign in favour of local economic diversity was covered two years running by every major national newspaper and TV news station and it was taken up in the Save Our Small Shops Campaign in the Evening Standard.
The organization was voted Think-Tank of the Year in 2002/3. In 2010 NEF announced a long-term alliance with the New Economics Institute in the USA.
Funding
NEF is a registered charity and is funded by individual supporters, public finance businesses and international grant-giving bodies.[11]
Publications
Publications include:
- Growth isn't Possible: Why rich countries need a new economic direction by Andrew Simms, Dr Victoria Johnson, Peter Chowla (25 January 2010).
- 21 hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century by Anna Coote, Andrew Simms and Jane Franklin (13 February 2010).
- The Happy Planet Index: An index of human well-being and environmental impact by Nic Marks, Saamah Abdallah, Andrew Simms and Sam Thompson, (12 July 2006).
- Clone Town Britain: The survey results on the bland state of the nation Andrew Simms, Petra Kjell and Ruth Potts (6 June 2005).
See also
- List of UK think tanks
- E. F. Schumacher
- Schumacher Circle organisations
- Coproduction of public services by service users and communities
References
- ^ new economics foundation website, About Us.
- ^ The Other Economic Summit and the New Economics Foundation
- ^ The other economic summit and the New Economics Foundation
- ^ The other economic summit and the New Economics Foundation
- ^ Greenhill, Romilly (February 2002). The unbreakable link - debt relief and the millennium development goals. New Economics Foundation and Jubilee Debt Campaign.
- ^ Jubilee research. New Economics Foundation.
- ^ The other economic summit and the New Economics Foundation
- ^ 21 hours. Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century
- ^ Schumacher Society, Schumacher Briefing: Transforming Economic Life - A Millennial Change
- ^ The Guardian, 14 July 2009, Ed Mayo resigns from Consumer Focus
- ^ Schumacher Briefing
External links
- Official website
- "New Economics Foundation at The Philanthropy Atlas by The Institute for Philanthropy
- "New Index (Inner City 100) will Reward Inner City Innovations", University of Sheffield
- The Happy Planet Index
- This article uses content from the SourceWatch article on New Economics Foundation under the terms of the GFDL.
Categories:- Political and economic think tanks based in the United Kingdom
- Social economy
- Sustainability organisations
- Political and economic research foundations
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