The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a British

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 ...

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 Justi ...

". 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.

Work

The Foundation works in the areas of community development, democracy, and economics. The foundation's work on sustainability indicators, 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 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 The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objectiv ...

'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 Catholic Chur ...

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 expecta ...

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

Gross Domestic Product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary 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 subjective nature this measure is of ...

(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, w ...

(HDI). NEF was awarded the

International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies The International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS) is an international, academic organization which promotes research in and measurement of " quality of life." Objectives The organization's stated general objectives are to provide a wor ...

' 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, 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 Cou ...

was Chief Executive from 1992 until 2003. The current chief executive is Miatta Fahnbulleh who succeeded Marc Stears in November 2017. The organisation has launched a range of new organisations to promote its ideas, including the Ethical Trading Initiative,

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 ...

, Time Banking UK, London Rebuilding Society, 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 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 and has been given an A grade for funding transparency by Who Funds You?

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, 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.
"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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