The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

think-tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental org ...

that promotes "social, economic and

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

". NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of

The Other Economic Summit The Other Economic Summit (TOES) was a counter-summit to the annual G7 summits, first held in 1984 in London. It included diverse groups of economists, greens and community activists. TOES eventually became an umbrella term and similar meetings ...

(TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth creation, based on equality, diversity and economic stability". The foundation has 50 staff in London and is active at a range of different levels. Its programmes include work on well-being, its own kinds of measurement and evaluation, sustainable local regeneration, its own forms of finance and business models, sustainable public services, and the

economics of climate change The economics of climate change concerns the economic aspects of climate change; this can inform policies that governments might consider in response. A number of factors make this and the politics of climate change a difficult problem: it is a l ...

Work

The Foundation works in the areas of community development, democracy, and economics. The foundation's work on

sustainability indicators Sustainability measurement are tools and methods that attempt to measure the degree of sustainability of processes, products, services, businesses and so forth. Sustainability is difficult to quantify, perhaps even immeasurable. The metrics used to ...

, which measures aspects of life and environment, indicated the connection between economic growth and sustainability. From 1995 to 2000, the Foundation made

social audits Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

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 Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the pub ...

to promote professional standards around

social accounting Social accounting (also known as ''social accounting and auditing'', ''social accountability'', ''social and environmental accounting'', ''corporate social reporting'', ''corporate social responsibility reporting'', ''non-financial reporting'' or '' ...

and auditing. NEF supported the National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning with research and reporting on "how best the Third Sector could evidence its wider impact on public services and their delivery", which underpinned the Office of the Third Sector's work programme on third sector commissioning from 2009.

Jubilee 2000 campaign

The

Jubilee 2000 Jubilee 2000 was an international coalition movement in over 40 countries that called for cancellation of third world debt by the year 2000. This movement coincided with the Great Jubilee, the celebration of the year 2000 in the Roman Catholic C ...

campaign, strategised for and run by NEF, collected 24 million signatures for its worldwide petition on development and poverty.

Local Money Flows

NEF has also developed a Local Money Flows measurement programme, which enables communities to monitor and map how money flows through the local economy.

Happy Planet Index

In July 2006, the Foundation launched the

Happy Planet Index The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006. Each country's HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectanc ...

, intended to challenge existing indices of a state's success, such as

Gross Domestic Product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...

(GDP) and

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...

(HDI). NEF was awarded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies' Award for the Betterment of the Human Condition in 2007, in recognition of its work on the Happy Planet Index.

21-hour working week

In February 2010 the New Economics Foundation called for gradual transition to a working week of 21 hours.

History

James Robertson, a British economist, and

Alison Pritchard Alison may refer to: People * Alison (given name), including a list of people with the name * Alison (surname) Music * ''Alison'' (album), aka ''Excuse Me'', a 1975 album by Australian singer Alison MacCallum * "Alison" (song), song by El ...

, a Schumacher Society Council member, helped to set up

(TOES) and NEF.

Ed Mayo Ed Mayo (born 14 April 1964), is the CEO of the London-based charity Pilotlight. He is the former Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, the UK trade association for co-operatives and former Chief executive of the British National Consumer Counc ...

was Chief Executive from 1992 until 2003. The current chief executive is Miatta Fahnbulleh who succeeded

Marc Stears Marc Stears (born 1971) is a British political theorist. He is Director of the UCL Policy Lab, based at University College London, having previously led thSydney Policy Labat The University of Sydney. Before arriving in Sydney in 2018, Marc had be ...

in November 2017. The organisation has launched a range of new organisations to promote its ideas, including the

Ethical Trading Initiative The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is a UK-based independent body founded on 9 June 1998, which brings together companies, trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to ensure compliance with international labour standards in the globa ...

AccountAbility Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the publ ...

Time Banking UK Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

London Rebuilding Society London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

, the Community Development Finance Association, and others. The organisation's current projects include work on community-based housing, worker organising in the digital economy, restoring local banking and challenging xenophobia and racism in the Brexit debate. It is also active in community economic regeneration. The Foundation's BizFizz programme, an entrepreneurship development programme, has created more than 900 new businesses in deprived areas. The organisation has now taken this and Local Alchemy to six other countries through its international programme. The Foundation's public events attract well-known speakers. Its

clone town Clone town is a term for a town where the High Street or other major shopping areas are significantly dominated by chain stores, thus making that town indistinct from other town centres. The term was coined by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a ...

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 ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

''.

Funding

NEF is a registered charity and is funded by individual supporters, public finance businesses and international grant-giving bodies. The New Economics Foundation has been rated as 'broadly transparent' in its funding by

Transparify Transparify is an initiative that provides a global rating of the financial transparency of major think tanks. It rates the extent to which think tanks publicly disclose their sources of funding, the amount of funding they have received, and the s ...

and has been given an A grade for funding transparency by

Who Funds You? Who Funds You? is a project that rates and promotes transparency of funding sources of think tanks. The project scored think tanks according to four criteria, namely whether the organisation discloses its income, whether it publishes financial de ...

Publications

''Public services and (in)equality in an age of austerity''
Joe Penny (July 2013).
''Where does money come from?''
Andrew Jackson, Richard Werner, Tony Greenham and Josh Ryan-Collins (12 December 2012)
''Growth isn't Possible: Why rich countries need a new economic direction''

Andrew Simms Andrew Simms is an author, analyst and co-director of the New Weather Institute. He is a research associate with the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex and Fellow at the New Economics Foundation. Andrew Simms advoca ...

, 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''

Anna Coote Anna may refer to: People Surname and given name * Anna (name) Mononym * Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke * Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773) * Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th century) * Anna (Anisia) (fl. 1218 to 1221) ...

, Andrew Simms and Jane Franklin (13 February 2010).
''The Great Transition''
Josh Ryan-Collins (18 October 2009).
''The Consumption Explosion''
Andrew Simms, Victoria Johnson, Joe Smith and Susanna Mitchell (24 September 2009).
''The Happy Planet Index: An index of human well-being and environmental impact''
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).

References

External links

*
"New Economics Foundation"
''The Philanthropy Atlas''. The

Institute for Philanthropy The Institute for Philanthropy is a not-for-profit organisation which provides information and educational programmes to philanthropists and to charitable organizations. Originally established in 2000 by Hilary Browne-Wilkinson, a former solicitor ...

.
"New Index (Inner City 100) will Reward Inner City Innovations"

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

.
The Happy Planet Index

One hundred months

Citizens Advice Appointment
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