Two BIRMINGHAM based social businesses, iSE and Localise West Midlands (LWM), are celebrating their success in winning national funding from LEAF.  This funding will resource 10 locally based social enterprises to engage in the energy saving agenda that will result in local householders . . . → Read More: iSE & LWM win LEAF funding to support social enterprises on household energy-saving agenda]]> Press Release – For immediate release: 15^th February 2012, Birmingham, UK

Two BIRMINGHAM based social businesses, iSE and Localise West Midlands (LWM), are celebrating their success in winning national funding from LEAF.  This funding will resource 10 locally based social enterprises to engage in the energy saving agenda that will result in local householders saving money through energy efficiency.

LEAF (Local Energy Assessment Fund), a national fund managed by the Energy Saving Trust, is intended to be used to support the understanding of energy efficiency issues at a local level.  The BIRMINGHAM programme is one of only 200 awarded across the country. iSE and LWM are delighted to have resources to address issues in BIRMINGHAM of fuel poverty and low energy efficiency in many of the city’s households.

This funding has been made available as the Government gears itself up for the delivery of the Green Deal, the first scheme of its kind in the world around radically overhauling the energy efficiency of millions of homes across the UK.  Sarah Crawley, CEO of iSE, said “our work will enable BIRMINGHAM residents to have a better understanding of Green Deal and what energy efficiency measures they can take advantage of.”

Phil Beardmore from Localise West Midlands said “with LEAF funding, social enterprises will have a better understanding of the energy efficiency issues affecting their area and they will be able to help local people to save money and energy.”

The author, now a Conservative MP, calls for decisions about the sort of economy we want to develop from . . . → Read More: How to create a stable society]]> On the dust cover of *The Constant Economy, Jonathon Porritt asserts that Business-as–Usual economics, which is denying billions any chance of a decent life, has become a security blanket that our politicians won’t let go. 

The author, now a Conservative MP, calls for decisions about the sort of economy we want to develop from the ashes of this recession: 

“There is an alternative: a constant economy. A constant economy is one in which resources are valued not wasted, where food is grown sustainably and goods are built to last. It is a system whose energy security is based on the use of renewable sources, and where strong communities are valued as a country’s most effective hedge against social, economic and environmental instability. The constant economy operates at the human scale and, above all, it recognises nature’s limits.” 

Ten steps [chapters] measure what matters: power to the people, the precautionary principle, food quality, food security, saving our seas, an energy revolution, getting around, building to last, a zero-waste economy and playing our part. 

Invest in the new green economy . . . 

In Green New Deal mode, he says that instead of struggling to return to the conditions that delivered the recession, we can stimulate the development of a cleaner, greener and less wasteful economy. 

With the right encouragements, whole sectors could flip. UK pension funds control about £860 billion. Imagine the impact if they chose to invest it in the new green economy? 

Government signals 

Critics of the environmental agenda claim that a green economy would cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of pounds – but they are confusing cost with investment. One hundred units invested in improving the energy efficiency of a local school, and saving twenty units each year thereafter, represents a hugely rewarding investment opportunity. And there is no need for net tax increases to pay for this – it simply requires bullish signals from government. 

If a proper cost is attached to pollution and waste, businesses will minimize both. And if the funds raised from taxing these activities are used as incentives, there will be a dramatic movement of money towards the kinds of investments and activities we need.

Today’s challenge 

In 1945 the disaster of war created new priorities and a pioneering welfare state was built; today the impending ecological disaster poses another challenge, but the country needs leadership from its politicians, who will not provide it unless we – the electorate – send them a clear message. 

Jonathon urges: “so try it guys!” 

The Green New Dealers and those working towards a coalition for a better economy intend to do just that!” 

* 

*The Constant Economy: how to create a stable society, Zac Goldsmith, Atlantic Books 2009 – see http://www.constanteconomy.com/

*** NEWS RELEASE ***

EMBARGO: 00.30am, Thursday 9 February 2012

INVENTOR OF QE AND GREEN MP CALL FOR UP TO £70BN GREEN QUANTITATIVE EASING TO STABILISE FLAGGING UK ECONOMY

Economist Professor Richard Werner, who proposed the term “quantitative easing” in Japan in the 1990s, . . . → Read More: Inventor of QE and Green MP call for up to £70bn Green Quantitative Easing to Stabilise Flagging UK Economy]]> Practical proposals emailed to us by our founder member Colin Hines:

*** NEWS RELEASE ***

EMBARGO: 00.30am, Thursday 9 February 2012

INVENTOR OF QE AND GREEN MP CALL FOR UP TO £70BN GREEN QUANTITATIVE EASING TO STABILISE FLAGGING UK ECONOMY

Economist Professor Richard Werner, who proposed the term “quantitative easing” in Japan in the 1990s, and Caroline Lucas MP, of the Green New Deal Group, are calling for a £70 billion programme of “Green Quantitative Easing” in order to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and set the country on course for a transition to a genuinely green economy.

In a report launched today, Professor Werner, Director of the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Southampton, makes the case that Green QE can reach parts of the economy that traditional QE has failed to do, making a real difference in terms of jobs and the environment.

Prof. Werner said:

“The Bank of England is expected to announce today a further round of Quantitative Easing to follow the £200 billion of QE1 announced in 2009 and the £75B of QE2 announced last year.

“This staggering £275 billion largely ended up with the banks in the futile hope that it would result in a substantial increase in UK lending to business. Instead it was used to rebuild their balance sheets and invest in commodity speculation.

“To ensure that this does not happen again, we need a different kind of QE, to help the wider economy directly and to implement some badly needed green projects that would enhance the sustainability of the economy and improve the environment—as well as creating thousands of new jobs.”

Green MP Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion), who has welcomed the report, said:

“It is understandably difficult for people to get their head around the idea that the Bank of England could magic out of nothing up to £70 Billion of Green Quantitative Easing. Yet it has already e-printed £27 billion (around £4,000 for every man woman and child in the UK) in an effort to get increased borrowing to British business via giving the money to the banks. But this money has completely failed to reach small businesses in the real economy which urgently need support.

“The bankers have had their £275 billion chance.  Now it’s time for the Bank of England to help create jobs, stabilize the economy, and support the environment through a package of Green Quantitative Easing. I will be calling upon MPs of all parties to support these proposals, and urging my Parliamentary colleagues on the Treasury Select Committee to raise the issue of Green QE when they next question Sir Mervyn King.”

The Green New Deal group has called for Green QE to initially spend up to £20 billion on fitting free solar PV for the occupants of the roughly 3 million south facing roofs, best suited to capture the maximum amount of energy. Based on last year’s figures when around 20,000 installation jobs were created putting PV on 150,000 dwellings, a million home a year programme would eventually create 140,000 jobs. If that were to be extended to all the potential 9 million homes that could benefit from PV installation at a cost of up to £55 billion, then the employment growth would be much larger still. The households involved would save up to £250 per annum in reduced electricity bills.

A further £16 billion of Green QE could be spent kick-starting the Government’s Green Deal energy efficiency programme for homes. The Government expects this to support at least 65,000 jobs in insulation and construction by 2015. Local authorities, many of whom are already involved in planning to make tens of thousands more local homes energy efficient, could access a QE Green Deal fund to initially finance such work.

Professor Richard Werner said:

“These are exceptional times and they call for exceptional action from the Bank of England. Mervyn King has expressed a desire to see QE help tackle “the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s if not ever.” Another serious crisis is climate change and Green QE could not only help address that, but through the huge number of jobs and business opportunities involved, it could also help tackle our financial crisis.”

Press contacts:

Professor Richard Werner

University of Southampton

Mob: 07717 855478

Email: R.Werner@soton.ac.uk

Colin Hines

Convener Green New Deal Group

Tel: 0208 892 5051

Mob: 07738164304

E: hinescolin@gmail.com

Melissa Freeman

Senior Parliamentary Press Officer

Office of Caroline Lucas MP

House of Commons

Tel: 020 7219 0221

Mob: 07590 050565

Email: melissa.freeman@parliament.uk

Website: www.carolinelucas.com

Agreed, but not the way he means it. Large bonus culture is one illustration of how . . . → Read More: Osborne’s anti-business culture]]> Osborne said “There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain – and we have to stop them. At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many.”

Agreed, but not the way he means it. Large bonus culture is one illustration of how our over- centralised economic structure has to be propped up by the less wealthy majority.

It is anti-business to tailor your economic development funds – such as regional growth fund – your tax regime and your planning system towards inward investment and transnational corporations at the expense of locally owned and smaller scale enterprise.

The multitude of tiny bonuses in the local economy gives true trickle-down. Eye-wateringly large bonuses in the transnational economy only give us trickle-up. Let’s fight the Treasury’s anti-business culture with a coalition for a better economy.

Karen Leach

Yunus was asked by Time Magazine’s Assistant Managing Editor Rana Foroohar, to focus on the emerging generation of millennials, . . . → Read More: Would the Coalition for a Better Economy include social enterprise?]]> The first event Emi Kolawole covered for the Washington Post at the World Economic Forum at Davos was an open chat with Mohammad Yunus, one of the leading voices on social entrepreneurship and social business.

Yunus was asked by Time Magazine’s Assistant Managing Editor Rana Foroohar, to focus on the emerging generation of millennials, for whom, he repeatedly mentioned, the unemployment level was too high.

The question

“It’s a shameful thing to happen,” said Yunus of the unemployment rate among the world’s youth; he asked if we — the participants, many of whom are in a position to determine economic policy — were really that “stupid” as to let young people go unemployed. “[It’s] a totally unacceptable proposition for a young person to remain un-utilized,” he said. “Literally, we have to create a new civilization,” said Yunus, “There’s nothing impossible today.” 

Read Emi’s blog here.

* 

Not mentioned there, but relevant to ‘Coalition for a Better Economy’, is Yunus’ definition of social enterprise as “a new type of business that pursues goals other than making personal profit – a business that is totally dedicated to solving social and environmental problems . . . a non-loss, non-dividend business”. (From ‘CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY’(.

This would provide a way for civil society to make a collective demand of the UK Government and others to recognise . . . → Read More: A coalition for a better economy?]]> At Localise WM we have been wondering if the time is right for a long-term, slow-burn, low-resource coalition for a better economy which would steadily and insistently demand change in our economic model.

This would provide a way for civil society to make a collective demand of the UK Government and others to recognise and address the failures of the current economic approach, even in the good times let alone now, to deliver widespread wellbeing within environmental limits.

There is plenty of knowledge and evidence already of the sorts of steps needed to make the economy work better, including proposals around:

-          Economic development that values and protects small scale and indigenous business, including in international development

-          Measures to create affordable housing

-          Decreasing corporate oligopoly and investigating corporate welfare

-          Investigating ways to progress more equal societies for the benefit of all

-          supporting and prioritising economic activity that reduces fossil fuel and other resource use.

This will be most effective if we can focus pragmatically on solving problems, not on anyone’s alternative ideology or big idea. For example it should not pretend to a position on whether growth is a good or a bad thing, but should talk about positive economic activity; about the economy ‘working better’ in terms of delivering social justice, wellbeing and environmental benefit.

The timing feels right, building from the Euro crisis, the strength of feeling around the Occupy movement, uprisings in Arab countries, the income equality movement and pronouncements from an ever-growing list of respected economic thinkers and political factions that we need to think differently about the economy; and invisible only to mainstream media and politicians.

When we mooted this idea to contacts, senior staff at the Equality Trust and Friends of the Earth were interested in the idea, but lacked capacity to work on it.

Happily, it seems the new economics foundation were thinking along the same lines a year or two ago and this work is building into pretty much the coalition we had envisaged. Their work on this is called the Great Transition and hopes to become a ten year programme for systemic change. It encompasses:

• a broad, collaborative, public campaign for the transition to a new economy that actively engages and mobilises key groups to build support for a rapid transition, helping to change the terms of the debate and create the political and public climate for the Great Transition’s policy prescriptions to gain traction.
• the development of a new economic model that, unlike conventional models, builds in environmental limits and the role of the banking sector and measures output in terms of wellbeing rather than GDP and provides a robust alternative to the existing economic order;
• the creation of a new economics commission to secure political support for the Great Transition and the use of the new economic model.

An early stage coalition website will go live around the end of March.

Speaking personally, my only misgiving is nef’s name for this initiative: for many people, “transition” relates to the Transition movement, which (however brilliant) is perceived by as ‘alternative’ and ‘not for them’ even by people who recognise much of the problems and solutions that it espouses. Of course that’s part of the problem – and I can’t pretend that a ‘coalition for a better economy’ is too enticing a name either. nef have the expertise and the reputation to get something like this going, and it’s an exciting prospect.

Whatever the name, there is much mileage in coming together to slowly and steadily insist on economic change. LWM will be taking part in this – watch this space for coalition-building activity locally and nationally over the coming months.

Karen Leach

 David Dewhurst, Peter Dombi and Naomi Colvin, members of the economics working group at Occupy London write in the Financial Times:  

As an economist by training the financial, food and oil crashes of 2008 have reinforced Professor Yunus’ awareness that we need a new form of capitalism. He added that . . . → Read More: The theoreticians that created this form of capitalism misinterpreted human beings]]> Shafi Chowdhury, a childhood friend of Mohammed Yunus, has drawn our attention to Mehdi Hasan’s interview with him in the New Statesman.

As an economist by training the financial, food and oil crashes of 2008 have reinforced Professor Yunus’ awareness that we need a new form of capitalism. He added that in 2008 two governments fell and there were demonstrations on the streets of several countries: “Many crises are coming now – you have the debt crisis, you have employment crises”.

His advice: “ Go to the fundamentals. The economy that we created, the theoreticians that created it, misinterpreted human beings. They assumed that the purpose of all human beings was to make money. The invisible hand reigns, and all this stuff . . . It’s a conceptual failure, the misinterpretation of human beings.”

Professor Yunus describes microfinance as credit given to the poorest people, without collateral, to create some income-generating activity. Mehdi Hasan queried the validity of microfinance making a profit, but Yunus insisted that his organisation, the Grameen Bank is a for-profit organisation: it should be a business, it should cover its costs and have some surplus in hand and be self-sustainable.

Professor Yunus heartily supports the Occupy movement:

“It is an anger [that is] everywhere. I feel frustrated. What kind of a system is this? This is the failure of the human civilisation that we have built. Civilisation has given us enormous successes: going to the moon, technology. But this civilisation took us to debt, environmental crisis, every single crisis. 

“We need a civilisation where we say goodbye to these things. We have to create a society where the word “unemployed” will not be known.”