This article is also available in audio as part of the Green Wave podcast.

Written by Francesco Ajena

Increasingly, ‘smart farming’ has been making its way into farms across Europe and onto the political agenda. The European Union appears willing to provide a suitable environment through policies and funds which strongly facilitate the development of smart farming and data-driven business models in agriculture. In the recent CAP legislative proposal, precision agriculture and digitalisation are praised by the agricultural Commissioner Phil Hogan as a great opportunity to develop rural communities and to increase the environmental and climate mitigation impact of farmers. A new focus on Farming Advisory Systems — structures providing the training of farmers — is intended to prepare farmers to this technological leap forward.

What is smart farming (or precision agriculture)?

Smart farming, or precision agriculture, is a modern farming management concept using digital techniques to monitor and optimise agricultural production processes. For example, rather than applying the same amount of fertilisers over an entire agricultural field or feeding a large animal population with equal amounts of feed, precision agriculture helps measure specific needs and adapt feeding, fertilising, pest control or harvesting strategies accordingly. The means of precision agriculture  consist mainly of a combination of new sensor technologies, satellite navigation, positioning technology and the use of mass amounts of data to influence decision-making on farms. The aim is to save costs, reduce environmental impact and produce more food.

Without a doubt, the promise of more efficient farming, higher yields, and environmental sustainability sounds very attractive. But some might wonder how such market-oriented technologies will impact the agricultural sector. While mega-machinery, chemical input and seed lobbies push to fund these innovations through CAP money, serious questions are raised about who has access to these technologies, who controls the data and what is the environmental performance of these innovations.

Is precision agriculture the way forward to sustainability?

Smart agriculture is described by many EU policy-makers as the answer to make agriculture sustainable. While it leaves no doubt that precision agriculture performs better than conventional agriculture from an environmental point of view, there seems to be confusion about what sustainability truly is. An increasing scientific consensus emerged over the years around the fact that sustainability should encompass ecological, economic, and social aspects. Under these aspects, a brief analysis shows the limits of the impacts precision agriculture shall have on sustainability.

First of all, this new paradigm ignores ecological processes, being simply based on models for optimising conventional production and creating unintended needs. For example, optimising chemical soil fertilisation and targeting the amount of pesticides to apply in a certain area are useful tools in a context of conventional production only. Precision farming may help to reduce fertilisers and pesticide use, but it fundamentally assumes a sterile soil and impoverished biodiversity. In contrast, in a balanced agroecosystem, a living soil works as a buffer for both pest and nutrient management, meaning there is no need to resort to pesticides and fertilisers.

Farmers would be locked in hierarchically based tools and ‘technocentric’ approaches, obviously fitting to serve private profit

Secondly, smart agriculture, as currently developed, is not economically sustainable for most of the farmers. For the last 50 years mainstream agricultural development has progressed along the trajectory of ‘more is better’, imposing top-down chemical and bio-technology and energy-intensive machines. The logic of increasing production at all costs has led farms to grow and pushed farmers into debt. European farms are disappearing, being swallowed by few big farms. From 2003 to 2013, more than one in four farms disappeared from the European landscape. Along the same paradigm, digitalisation risks putting farmers in more debt and dependency. Farmers would be led to buy machines and give up their data. The collected data will then be owned and sold on by the machinery companies to farmers. These new market-oriented technologies governed by the trend of pushing to commodify and privatise knowledge would increase dependency on costly tools, mostly unaffordable for smallholder farmers, accelerating their disappearance.

Finally, the precision agriculture approach is not socially sustainable. The knowledge transfer mode of precision agriculture mainly follows a top-down procedure where innovation comes from private companies that develop and provide technological solutions. Farmers would be locked in hierarchically based tools and ‘technocentric’ approaches, obviously fitting to serve private profit, fostering a path dependency, and ignoring the potential of practice, knowledge sharing and participatory research. Moreover, the promises of digital technology and the big data agenda are mainly addressed to conventional, industrial-scale agriculture, allowing them alone to thrive at the expense of smaller ones.

A smart and truly sustainable way of doing agriculture is already here

During the last decade, agroecology has known large success, sparking transition across all the EU. Agroecology is a way of redesigning food systems to achieve true ecological, economic, and social sustainability. Through transdisciplinary, participatory, and transition-oriented research, agroeocology links together science, practice, and movements focusing on social change. While far from being an ‘agriculture of the past’, as some opponents have labelled it, agroecology combines scientific research and community-based experimentation, emphasising technology and innovation that are knowledge-intensive, low cost,and easily adaptable by small and medium-scale producers. Agroecology implies methodologies to develop a responsible innovation system that allows the technologies to respond to real user needs. It develops a systemic paradigm towards a full harmonisation with ecological processes, low external inputs,use of biodiversity, and cultivation of agricultural knowledge.

The resulting technology is as ‘smart’, ‘precise’ and performing as the one promoted by big data companies. Drip irrigation (a type of micro-irrigation), nitrogen fertilisation using mycorrhizal fungi, adaptive multi-paddock grazing systems (a management system in which livestock are regularly moved from one plot to another to avoid overgrazing), and bokashi composting (fermented organic matter) are just a few examples of advanced agroecologial technologies that correspond to the needs of adaptability, performance, and accessibility. Low-tech methods can be equally or more effective, are more appropriate for smaller or remote upland farms, and engender less debt or input dependency. The major part of equipment most of the farmers need is affordable, adaptable and easy to fix.

Are agroecology and digitalisation poles apart?

Considering the current agenda of big data and big machineries companies, yes, they are.But this does not mean digital innovations are unfit for agroecology. The main barrier to consider to the use of digital innovations in agroecology is related to their accessibility and the lack of autonomy of farmers. Agroecology is based on inclusiveness, it emphasises the importance of the dialogue between producers, researchers, and communities through participatory learning processes. A bottom-up approach, a horizontal integration, and a complete freedom of information are needed to support agroecological innovations.

Thus, opposing agroecology and digital technology would be critically wrong. Serious potential can be unlocked by combining digital tools to achieve the objectives of sustainable agricultural production. Farmer-to-farmer methods based on open-source information ruled by a horizontal exchange can be used to democratise the use of data. Crowd-sourced soil data can help farmers to share information and benefiting from it. An example of this is the app mySoil, which seeks to promote the distribution of freely available data through digital technologies. This project has developed a citizen science role for data collection, enabling users to upload their own observations about soils in their area. Sensors can help measure plant or animal needs, information can be transferred and shared among a farming community quickly, and new apps can help farmers selling their products directly and developing a more efficient community-based agriculture. The cost of specialised machines that manage sustainable soil cover and weeds, or composting, can be made affordable by promoting cooperative models and community connections among bioregions.

Agroecology is a way of redesigning food systems to achieve true ecological, economic, and social sustainability.

Examples of collaborative projects for the creation of technology solutions and innovation by farmers, such as l’Atelier Paysan in France, can be found allover Europe. These local innovations require an enabling environment that Governments are failing to provide. Atelier Paysan is a network of farmers, scientists, and researchers that have developed a bottom-up approach to innovation in order to integrate farmers’ knowledge and the development of new technologies adapted to agroecological farming. The aim is to empower farmers to take back control on technical choices. The starting point is that farmers are in the best position to respond appropriately to the challenges of agricultural development. With the support of technical facilitators and building on transdisciplinary and collective intelligence, farmers develop appropriate and adapted innovations. The technology is developed and owned by farmers, and the investment and the benefits are collective. Adapting digital technology to similar processes can spark transition in a much more effective way than obsolete top-down and technocratic approaches. If we want real innovation, we need to start daring to innovate the innovation process itself.

Involving users in the design of agro-equipments, creating financial incentives for innovative equipment purchase, sharing costs among cooperatives and farming communities, and training end-users on the high potential of these new technologies are pivotal aspects of adapting digital tools to agroecological innovation. These processes need the support of public investment to scale up. This shall be the role of the new CAP, in order to make its huge money flow legitimate. CAP money should serve inclusive innovation, in order to develop accessible and adapted knowledge. During the upcoming CAP negotiations, the future of 38 per cent of the European budget will be decided. Public money must be spent for public goods. It is not a matter of what kind of technology we want to support for our agriculture; it is a matter of who will benefit from his technology, farmers or private companies.

This article has been reprinted from the Greeneuropeanjournal you can find the original post here!

The original post included an embedded podcast that was not reposted here.

Featured image: “Rt. 539 Hay Field” by James Loesch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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When I first read Heikki Patomäki’s essay, I felt like cheering. A call to action, instead of more words and analyses of our common predicament, about which those in this list-serv already know so much.

However, early on, Heikki pulled back: “For many reasons, a detailed blueprint for a WPP is neither advisable nor possible.”

Without a blueprint, what then is this WPP? We do get some “contours”: morality and ethics that can be validated independently of the authorities that promulgated them; positive collective learning, which requires improvements not only in knowledge dissemination about our global interconnections but also in pathways for effective transnational participation. Thank you very much for referencing the Big History Project, and thank you to David Christian for expanding on the utility of creating this type of comprehensive learning platform. Let us not forget one of the most important contours: “the fundamental shift from the currently dominant national mythos to a global imaginary.”

I believe that a significant shift to a global consciousness is consistently manifesting—through the many transnational civil society movements—whether human rights, environment, inequalities, etc. Many progressives have been opposed to the globalization of recent decades (global capital movements, global trade increases, and expanded global telecommunications), not for spurring the consciousness of our interdependence and interconnectedness but for the exploitative and inequality-engendering effects.

Like it or not, we are in the planetary twenty-first century. We are indeed constrained by fears that the nefarious effects and ugly consequences of greedy oligopolists, cyber criminals, or just the sheer ineptitude to evolve a new economic and social model will derail the efforts towards cohesion. But for things to cohere, we have to be able to tell a story based on a largely shared vision of inclusive prosperity for the CEO in Kenya, the janitor in Finland, the textile worker in India, the construction worker in China, and the unemployed factory worker in Kentucky, USA.

My conclusion is that the call for a WPP is perhaps misnamed. Conceivably, we need a World Political Platform, with a clear set of objectives. If we have such a platform, then local governments, advocacy groups, associations, and organizations can adhere to the platform and work to accomplish the goals articulated therein through the political structures extant where they find themselves. There could be some type of linkages transnationally highlighting who was accomplishing what within such a framework. Vivienne Ming, the neuroscientist and AI expert has said that you need to “solve the problem first,” and then you figure out how the machines can help you. I think that the Sustainable Development Goals work is moving in this direction even if it was an inter-nation effort; many civil society organizations and businesses are using this framework to tackle poverty and inequalities and move to a green energy future.

Particularly useful to localized action under the WPP banner would be more and better methodologies for actually legislating, advancing policy reforms, and advocacy that would push the goals of a WPP to the top of many organizational agendas.

Vicki Assevero is an international lawyer with a longstanding interest in sustainable development.  She is the founder of The Green Market in Santa Cruz, Trinidad, a practical experiment in community-based sustainable development.

Photo by SeppoU

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For the past seven decades, GDP growth has stood as the primary economic objective of European nations. But as our economies have grown, so has our negative impact on the environment. We are now exceeding the safe operating space for humanity on this planet, and there is no sign that economic activity is being decoupled from resource use or pollution at anything like the scale required. Today, solving social problems within European nations does not require more growth. It requires a fairer distribution of the income and wealth that we already have.

Growth is also becoming harder to achieve due to declining productivity gains, market saturation, and ecological degradation. If current trends continue, there may be no growth at all in Europe within a decade. Right now the response is to try to fuel growth by issuing more debt, shredding environmental regulations, extending working hours, and cutting social protections. This aggressive pursuit of growth at all costs divides society, creates economic instability, and undermines democracy.

Those in power have not been willing to engage with these issues, at least not until now. The European commission’s Beyond GDP project became GDP and Beyond. The official mantra remains growth — redressed as “sustainable”, “green”, or “inclusive” – but first and foremost, growth. Even the new UN sustainable development goals include the pursuit of economic growth as a policy goal for all countries, despite the fundamental contradiction between growth and sustainability.

The good news is that within civil society and academia, a post-growth movement has been emerging. It goes by different names in different places: décroissance, Postwachstum, steady-state or doughnut economics, prosperity without growth, to name a few. Since 2008, regular degrowth conferences have gathered thousands of participants. A new global initiative, the Wellbeing Economies Alliance (or WE-All), is making connections between these movements, while a European research network has been developing new “ecological macroeconomic models”. Such work suggests that it’s possible to improve quality of life, restore the living world, reduce inequality, and provide meaningful jobs – all without the need for economic growth, provided we enact policies to overcome our current growth dependence.

Some of the changes that have been proposed include limits on resource use, progressive taxation to stem the tide of rising inequality, and a gradual reduction in working time. Resource use could be curbed by introducing a carbon tax, and the revenue could be returned as a dividend for everyone or used to finance social programmes. Introducing both a basic and a maximum income would reduce inequality further, while helping to redistribute care work and reducing the power imbalances that undermine democracy. New technologies could be used to reduce working time and improve quality of life, instead of being used to lay off masses of workers and increase the profits of the privileged few.

Given the risks at stake, it would be irresponsible for politicians and policymakers not to explore possibilities for a post-growth future. The conference happening in Brussels is a promising start, but much stronger commitments are needed. As a group of concerned social and natural scientists representing all Europe, we call on the European Union, its institutions, and member states to:

1. Constitute a special commission on post-growth futures in the EU parliament. This commission should actively debate the future of growth, devise policy alternatives for post-growth futures, and reconsider the pursuit of growth as an overarching policy goal.

2. Incorporate alternative indicators into the macroeconomic framework of the EU and its member states. Economic policies should be evaluated in terms of their impact on human wellbeing, resource use, inequality, and the provision of decent work. These indicators should be given higher priority than GDP in decision-making.

3. Turn the stability and growth pact (SGP) into a stability and wellbeing pact. The SGP is a set of rules aimed at limiting government deficits and national debt. It should be revised to ensure member states meet the basic needs of their citizens, while reducing resource use and waste emissions to a sustainable level.

4. Establish a ministry for economic transition in each member state. A new economy that focuses directly on human and ecological wellbeing could offer a much better future than one that is structurally dependent on economic growth.

• Dr Dan O’Neill, Associate Professor, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Federico Demaria, Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Giorgos Kallis, Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Kate Raworth, Author of ‘Doughnut Economics’, UK
• Dr Tim Jackson, Professor, University of Surrey, UK
• Dr Jason Hickel, Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
• Dr Lorenzo Fioramonti, Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa
• Dr Marta Conde, President of Research & Degrowth, Spain
• Dr Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK
• Dr Steve Keen, Professor, Kingston University, UK
• Dr Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, USA
• Dr Ann Pettifor, Director, Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), UK
• Dr Serge Latouche, Université Paris Sud, France
• Dr Kate Pickett, Professor, University of York, UK
• Dr Susan George, President of the Transnational Institute-TNI, Netherlands
• Dr Joan Martinez Alier, Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia
• Dr David Graeber, Professor, London School of Economics, UK
• Dr Juan Carlos Monedero Fernández, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
• Dr Dominique Méda, Professor, University Paris Dauphine, France
• Dr Lourdes Beneria, Professor Emerita, Cornell University, USA
• Dr Inge Røpke, Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Dr Niko Paech, Professor, University of Siegen, Germany
• Dr Jean Gadrey, Professor, University of Lille, France
• Dr Nadia Johanisova, Lecturer, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
• Dr Wolfgang Sachs, Research Director Emeritus, Wuppertal Institut, Germany
• Dr Stefania Barca, Senior Researcher, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Dr Gilbert Rist, Emeritus Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland
• Dr György Pataki, Professor, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
• Dr Simone D’Alessandro, Professor, University of Pisa, Italy
• Dr Ian Gough, Visiting Professor, London School of Economics, UK
• Dr Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Researcher, University of Valladolid, Spain
• Dr Amaia Pérez Orozco, Researcher, Colectiva XXK, Spain
• Dr Max Koch, Professor, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Fabrice Flipo, Professor, Institut Mines Télécom-BS et LCSP Paris 7 Diderot, France
• Dr Matthias Schmelzer, Researcher, University of Jena and Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Germany
• Dr Óscar Carpintero, Associate Professor, University of Valladolid, Spain
• Dr Hubert Buch-Hansen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Dr Christos Zografos, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
• Dr Tereza Stöckelová, Associate Professor, Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic
• Dr Alf Hornborg, Professor, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Eric Clark, Professor, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Miklós Antal, Researcher, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Jordi Roca Jusmet, Professor, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Philippe Defeyt, Chairman, Institute for Sustainable Development, Belgium
• Dr Erik Swyngedouw, Professor, University of Manchester, UK
• Dr Christian Kerschner, Assistant Professor, Modul University Vienna, Austria
• Dr Agata Hummel, Assistant Professor, University of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland
• Dr Frank Moulaert, Emeritus Professor, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
• Dr Frank Adler, Researcher, Brandenburg-Berlin Institute for Social Scientific Research, Germany
• Dr Janne I. Hukkinen, Professor, University of Helsinki, Finland
• Dr Jorge Riechmann, Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Samuel Martín-Sosa Rodríguez, Responsable de Internacional, Ecologistas en Acción, Spain
• Dr John Barry, Professor, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland
• Dr Linda Nierling, Senior Scientist, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
• Dr Ines Omann, Senior Researcher, Austrian Foundation for Development Research, Austria
• Dr Hug March, Associate Professor, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
• Dr Jakub Kronenberg, Associate Professor, University of Lodz, Poland
• Yayo Herrero, Miembro del Foro de Transiciones, Spain
• Dr Isabelle Anguelovski, Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr François Schneider, Researcher, Research & Degrowth, France
• Dr Vasilis Kostakis, Senior Researcher, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
• Dr Enric Tello, Professor, University of Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Andrew Sayer, Professor, Lancaster University, UK
• Dr Kate Soper, Emerita Professor, London Metropolitan University, UK
• Dr Klaus Hubacek, Professor, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
• Dr Brent Bleys, Assistant Professor, Ghent University, Belgium
• Dr Jill Jäger, Independent Scholar, Vienna, Austria
• Dr Mauro Gallegati, Professor, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy
• Dr Peadar Kirby, Professor Emeritus, University of Limerick, Ireland
• Dr Inés Marco, Researcher, University of Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Ivan Murray Mas, Assistant Lecturer, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain
• Dr Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Assistant Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Dr Aurore Lalucq, Co-Director, Veblen Institute, France
• Dr Gaël Plumecocq, Researcher, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), France
• Dr David Soto Fernández, Associate Professor, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
• Dr Christian Kimmich, Researcher, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
• Dr Giacomo D’Alisa, Researcher, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Dr Seth Schindler, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester, UK
• Dr Philippe Roman, Researcher, ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
• Dr Lorenzo Pellegrini, Associate Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Dr Erik Gómez-Baggethun, Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway
• Dr Tommaso Luzzati, Assistant Professor, University of Pisa, Italy
• Dr Christoph Gran, ZOE Institute for Future Fit Economies, Germany
• Dr Tor A. Benjaminsen, Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway
• Dr Barry McMullin, Professor, Dublin City University, Ireland
• Dr Edwin Zaccai, Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Dr Jens Friis Lund, Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Dr Pierre Ozer, Researcher, Université de Liège, Belgium
• Dr Louison Cahen-Fourot, Researcher, Institute for Ecological Economics, Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna, Austria
• Dr Tommaso Rondinella, Researcher, Italian National Institute of Statistics, Italy
• Dr Julia Steinberger, Associate Professor, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Andrew Fanning, Marie Curie Research Fellow, University of Leeds, UK
• Jose Luis Fdez Casadevante Kois, Miembro del Foro Transiciones, Spain
• Dr Seema Arora-Jonsson, Professor, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
• Dr Astrid Agenjo Calderón, Lecturer, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
• Dr Tom Bauler, Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Dr Gregers Andersen, Independent Researcher, Denmark
• Dr Peter Söderbaum, Professor Emeritus, Mälardalen University, Sweden
• Dr Lourenzo Fernandez Priero, Professor, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
• Dr John R Porter, Emeritus Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Dr François Thoreau, Senior Researcher, University of Liege, France
• Mariagiulia Costanzo Talarico, Researcher, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
• Dr Maria Nikolaidi, Senior Lecturer, University of Greenwich, UK
• Dr Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Lecturer, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, Assistant Professor, University of Roskilde, Denmark
• Dimitar Sabev, Researcher, University of National and World Economy, Bulgaria
• Dr Mladen Domazet, Research Director, Institute for Political Ecology, Croatia
• Dr Hans Diefenbacher, Professor, University of Heidelberg, Germany
• Dr Marco Armiero, Director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Dr Irene Ring, Professor, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
• Dr Christine Bauhardt, Professor, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
• Dr Dominique Bourg, Professor, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Dr Tomas Ryska, Lecturer, University of Economics, Czech Republic
• Dr Filka Sekulova, Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Andrej Lukšič, Associate Professor, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Dr Adrian Smith, Professor, University of Sussex, UK
  Dr Serenella Iovino, Professor, Università di Torino, Italy
• Dr Helga Kromp-Kolb, Professor, University of Renewable Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• Dr Roberto De Vogli, Associate Professor, University of Padova, Italy
• Dr Danijela Dolenec, Assistant Professor, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Dr Alexandra Köves, Senior Lecturer, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
• Dr Antoine Bailleux, Professor, Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles, Belgium
• Dr Christof Mauch, Director, Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society, Germany
• Ajda Pistotnik, Independent Researcher, EnaBanda, Slovenia
• Dr Branko Ančić, Researcher, Institute for Social Research for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia
• Dr Marija Brajdic Vukovic, Assistant Professor, University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Dr Manuel González de Molina, Professor, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
• Dr Kye Askins, Reader, University of Glasgow, UK
• Dr Carlos de Castro Carranza, Profesor Titular de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
• Dr Annika Pissin, Researcher, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Eva Fraňková, Assistant Professor, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
• Dr Helga Kromp-Kolb, Professor, University of Renewable Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
• Dr Lidija Živčič, Senior Expert, Focus, Association for Sustainable Development, Slovenia
• Dr Martin Pogačar, Research Fellow, ZRC SAZU, Slovenia
• Dr Peter Nielsen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark
• Yaryna Khmara, Researcher, University of Lodz, Poland
• Dr Ika Darnhofer, Associate Professor, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
• Dr Isabelle Cassiers, Professor, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
• Dr Mihnea Tanasescu, Researcher, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
• Dr Daniel Hausknost, Assistant Professor, Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
• Dr Christoph Görg, Professor, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria
• Dr Andreas Novy, Professor, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
• Dr Fikret Adaman, Professor, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
• Dr Bengi Akbulut, Assistant Professor, Concordia University, Canada
• Dr Kevin Maréchal, Professor, Université de Liège, Belgium
• Dr Anke Schaffartzik, Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Milena Buchs, Associate Professor, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Jean-Louis Aillon, Researcher, University of Genova, Italy
• Dr Melanie Pichler, Researcher, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
• Dr Helmut Haberl, Associate Professor, Institute of Social Ecology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
• Dr Julien-François Gerber, Assistant Professor, International Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands
• Dr John Holten-Andersen, Associate Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Theresa Klostermeyer, Officer for Sustainability and Social Change, German League for Nature, Animal and Environmental Protection, Germany
• Dr Lyla Mehta, Professor, Institute of Development Studies, UK
• Dr Geneviève Azam, Professor, Université Jean Jaurès, France
• Dr Hermann E. Ott, Professor, University of Sustainable Development Eberswalde, Germany
• Dr Angelika Zahrnt, Professor, Institute for Ecological Economic Research, Germany
• Dr Melissa Leach, Director, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, UK
• Dr Irmi Seidl, Assistant Professor, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Switzerland
• Dr Shilpi Srivastava, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, UK
• Dr Elgars Felcis, Researcher, University of Latvia, Chairman of Latvian Permaculture Association, Latvia
• Dr Tilman Santarius, Professor, Technische Universität Berlin and Einstein Center Digital Futures, Germany
• Nina Treu, Coordinator of Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Germany
• Dr Laura Horn, Associate Professor, Roskilde University, Denmark
• Jennifer Hinton, Researcher, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Dr Friedrich Hinterberger, President, Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Austria
• Dr Miriam Lang, Assistant Professor, Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar, Ecuador
• Dr Susse Georg, Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Dr Silvio Cristiano, Researcher, Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘Parthenope’ & Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy
• Dr Petr Jehlička, Senior Lecturer, Open University, UK
• Dr Maja Göpel, Professor, Leuphana University, Member Club of Rome, Germany
• Dr Geraldine Thiry, Associate Professor, ICHEC Brussels Management School, Belgium
• Dr Olivier Malay, Researcher, University of Louvain, Belgium
• Dr Richard Lane, Researcher, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands
• Dr Laura Centemeri, Researcher, National Centre for Scientific Research, France
• Dr Stephan Lessenich, Professor, Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany
• Timothée Parrique, Researcher, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Dr Ludivine Damay, Lecturer, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Dr Janis Brizga, Researcher, University of Latvia, Latvia
• Dr Claudio Cattaneo, Associate Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Miquel Ortega Cerdà, Advisor, Barcelona City Council
• Dr Olivier De Schutter, Professor, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
• Dr Annalisa Colombino, Assistant Professor, Institute of Geography and Regional Sciences, University of Graz, Austria
• Dr Philip von Brockdorff, Head of the Department of Economics, University of Malta, Malta
• Dr Sarah Cornell, Senior Researcher, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Dr Ruth Kinna, Professor, Loughborough University, UK
• Francesco Gonella, Professor, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy
• Orsolya Lazanyi, Researcher, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
• Dr Eva Friman, Director at Swedesd, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Dr Pernilla Hagbert, Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Vincent Liegey, Co-Author of ‘A Degrowth Project’, Hungary
• Dr Manlio Iofrida, Associate Professor, University of Bologna, Italy
• Dr Mauro Bonaiuti, Lecturer, University of Turin, Italy
• Dr Marco Deriu, Researcher, University of Parma, Italy
• Dr Eeva Houtbeckers, Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalto University, Finland
• Dr Guy Julier, Professor, Aalto University, Finland
• Dr Anna Kaijser, Lecturer, Linköping University, Sweden
• Dr Petter Næss, Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway
• Dr Irina Velicu, Researcher, Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Dr Ulrich Brand, Professor, University of Vienna, Austria
• Dr Christina Plank, Researcher, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria
• Dr Karolina Isaksson, Senior Research Leader, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, Sweden
• Dr Jin Xue, Associate Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway
• Dr Rasmus Steffansen, Researcher, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway
• Dr Irmak Ertör, Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
• Dr Maria Hadjimichael, Researcher, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• Dr Carlo Aall, Researcher, Western Norway Research Institute, Norway
• Dr Claudiu Craciun, Lecturer, National School of Political Studies and Administration (SNSPA), Romania
• Dr Tuuli Hirvilammi, Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• Dr Tuula Helne, Senior Researcher, The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Finland
• Davide Biolghini, Researcher, Rete italiana Economia Solidale (RES), Italy
• Dr Pasi Heikkurinen, Lecturer, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Anne Tittor, Researcher, University of Jena, Germany
• Dr Dennis Eversberg, Researcher, University of Jena, Germany
• Dr Herman Stål, Lecturer, Umea School of Business, Economics and Statistics, Sweden
• Dr Hervé Corvellec, Professor, Lund University, Sweden
• Dr Anna Heikkinen, Researcher, University of Tampere, Finland
• Dr Karl Bonnedahl, Researcher, Umea University, Sweden
• Dr Meri Koivusalo, Professor, University of Tampere, Finland
• Dr Martin Fritz, Researcher, Bielefeld University, Germany
• Dr Daniel Bergquist, Researcher, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
• Dr Yuri Kazepov, Professor, University of Vienna, Austria
• Dr Salvador Pueyo, Researcher, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia
• Dr Lars Rydén, Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Patrick ten Brink, Director of EU Policy, European Environmental Bureau, Belgium
• Dr Ebba Lisberg Jensen, Associate Professor, Malmö University, Sweden
• Dr Alevgul H. Sorman, Researcher, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Spain
• Dr Aram Ziai, Professor, University of Kassel, Germany
• Dr Panos Petridis, Researcher, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria
• Dr Gary Dymski, Professor, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Markus Wissen, Professor, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany
• Dr Wendy Harcourt, Professor, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University, The Netherlands
• Dr John Barrett, Professor, University of Leeds, UK
• Dr Silke van Dyk, Professor, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany
• Dr Vasna Ramasar, Senior Lecturer, Lund University, Sweden
• Danijela Tamše, Managing Editor of the Journal for the Critique of Science, Imagination, and New Anthropology, Slovenia
• Dr Camil Ungureanu, Associate Professor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
• Dr Mirela Holy, Lecturer, VERN’ University of Zagreb, Croatia

Cross-posted from The Guardian
Photo by wackybadger

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Since the 2008 global financial meltdown and bailouts, trust is disappearing: in banks, stock markets, corporations, governments, religious institutions, experts, academia, political parties’ rhetoric and even the Internet and social media. This mistrust has fueled global populists across the political spectrum, with ubiquitous signs at their rallies, “Where’s MY Bailout?”  We see the rise of cryptocurrencies becoming bubbles, as many seek alternative stores of value and mediums of exchange they hope will prove more trustworthy than central banks’ fiat currencies: dollars, yen, euros, pounds, pesos backed only by their governments’ promises.

Trust is a precious commodity which undergirds all humanity’s markets, trading and exchange. Trust does not scale easily, abiding in face-to-face, handshake interactions in humanly-scaled communities, based on common agreements, shared infrastructure, resources and culture. Trust does not reside in packages of software, apps, AI, big data or social media platforms, as we learned in 2016. So trust was sought in the blockchain platforms first developed by the mysterious computer expert, Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 for his bitcoin. Now, over 1000 blockchain-based start-up companies and blockchains underlie the over 1,500 cryptocurrencies traded on electronic exchanges including Coinbase. These computer-based distributed ledger blockchains are designed to engender trust by allowing person-to-person ability to verify each transaction or contract with a permanent record open to all.

Crypto promoters aspire to create global-level trust in the value of cryptocurrencies due to this transparency and their protocols limiting finite amounts to be issued, to create artificial scarcity. This vision is sullied by the many cases of criminality, hacking, stealing, frauds and other shenanigans. Nevertheless, faith and trust in these cryptos remains strong, since proponents say central banks also manipulate their fiats — which is true!  We see fiat money being printed on TV shows! Yet fake visuals of cryptos, such as the shiny golden colored coins are also shown with news about bitcoin. This is a “bit-con” since bitcoin is a digital algorithm, a string of computer code which is unlikely to become a ubiquitous medium of exchange or a store of value.

Still, the allure to libertarians, hackers and speculators is that cryptos exist with no middleman, for peer-to-peer global private use with no governments, no banks or financial intermediaries and few outside rules except those imposed by issuers. Millions of hackers worldwide soon began solving the ever more complex mathematical puzzles needed to claim their next block of newly minted bitcoin. These “miners” now use some 30 terawatts annually of fossil-generated electricity, equivalent to the consumption of a country the size of Ireland, plus gobs of computer power. They are now affecting the Earth’s climate as I described in “Hey COP23: Bitcoin Miners Exploding CO2 Emissions!”

The loss of trust in fiat dollars, pounds, yen, euros, pesos we always use to pay each other cannot be replaced by cryptos—in spite of the current hype, as traditional financial markets now trade bitcoin futures and ETFs concocted by eager Wall Street players.  Nations including Russia, North Korea and Venezuela under international sanctions for violating norms, are now issuing their own cryptos to escape financial controls set by governments for fiat currency transactions. How will this war between governments and libertarian hackers’ cryptos versus fiats work out?

Clearly, trust in all forms of money is fading. Today, people barter more goods and services on electronic platforms, swap and match, often directly without any use of currencies on platforms like Freecycle, and for everything from baby-sitting, sharing garden tools, spare rooms, vacation homes to finding their true love matches! The familiar fiat currencies we still spend our lives earning, investing and saving for our retirement are losing their dominance in our lives and with that their role as a promised store of value. For example, few fiat currencies remain stable, as we see on FOREX trading screens daily. Even our US dollar has lost about 80% of its value over the past 30 years— due to inflation, budget deficits, interest payments to bond-holders on our national debt, which recent tax cuts may increase by another $1.5 trillion.

Most US and European citizens register disbelief when they learn that all their national money in circulation is created out of thin air by private banks when they create loans and is therefore only backed by other peoples’ debts, not gold or any other commodity of value! Governments in Britain, the USA and most countries gave their sovereign power to coin their own national money away to their private banks and allowed them to charge interest on their loans as well, as Ellen Brown explains in “Web of Debt”, (2010). Our TV Special “The Money Fix” details on how this happened in the USA with founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the rise of local currencies, barter and credit circles.

Governments’ policies became ever more erratic, swinging between obsolete textbook policy prescriptions: either “stimulation “(quantitative easing QE, i.e. money-printing, tax cuts, lowering interest rates, buying dud mortgage-backed securities) or “austerity “(cutting safety nets, education, healthcare, public services, selling off public assets) while continuing to bail out too-big-to-fail firms without prosecuting their reckless executives. Ethical Markets dissects such obsolete economic policies and offers more realistic alternatives (www.ethicalmarkets.com).

Today, failing policy levers are being bypassed by the rise of cryptos, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, electronic barter, information-based direct trading I describe in “FINTECH: Good and Bad News for Sustainable Finance”.  They reveal the stunning truth: Money Is Not Wealth and worse, it is no longer a reliable store of value!  All those dollars we pinched to save for our retirement are losing their value until we use them to buy something useful, and shift our investing from obsolete, polluting, unsustainable corporations into trustworthy, sustainable, well-managed and transparent enterprises so we can monitor their performance and social impacts ourselves.

As the shock of this reality sets in, it reveals how most financial market players try to make money out of money, trading stocks with each other which are tradeable contracts issued by big companies as explained by law professor Lynn Stout in “The Shareholder Value Myth”, (2012). The latest Wall Street bubbles are index-based stocks and ETFs, reaching additional levels of abstraction. I first unraveled these truths in “Creating Alternative Futures” (1978,1996) and “The Politics of the Solar Age” (1981,1986). I described the essential unpaid tasks underpinning the cash-based sectors measured in GDP and incomes of mostly male “breadwinners”. Textbooks designated their wives to perform all the work of maintaining households, raising the next generation, caring for elders, volunteering in community service —all unpaid, as in this diagram (Cake). Economic textbooks described all this vital productive work I called the Love Economy as “non-economic”!

Feminists emerged worldwide to insist this work be recorded and paid, as in Marilyn Waring’s “If Women Counted” (1990); lawyer Riane Eisler’s Caring Economy campaign and Kate Raworth’s “Doughnut Economics” (2017). I documented how thousands of communities around the world starved by their central governments of fiat currencies by austerity programs, simply created their own local currencies, like the famous “Berkshares” issued by the Schumacher Society and circulated, even by local banks in Great Barrington, MA. These townsfolk realized that using their own local currencies and credit could clear their local markets and employ their people meeting local needs. Photographs of thousands of such local currencies issued all over North America and Mexico are catalogued in, “Depression Scrip of the United States 1930” (1961). They taught a key lesson: money cannot be a store of value –it must circulate in the community in order to meet needs and create jobs and prosperity. To assure these currencies were not saved, but spent, they all carried expiration dates and require stamps to re-validate them regularly affixed until they finally expired.

So this myth of money as a store of value is now threadbare. Electronic platforms open up new possibilities for direct barter, with all the fintech exchanges now disrupting traditional finance and banking. These innovations offer hope that both cryptos and fiats may eventually be properly managed and regulated in the service of decentralized prosperity and focus on the new model; the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now ratified by 195 governments. Accountants are renovating their models for information-based economies  where services account for some 80% of production: from unpaid voluntary work to intellectual property, R &D, design, brands, networks, “infostructure” (broadband, internet) and institutions, described in “Capitalism Without Capital” (2018). The International Integrated Reporting System (IIRC) models six forms of capital: finance, built facilities, intellectual, social, human and natural capitals, which then measure the extent to which companies and governments enhance or degrade all six forms. This accounting revolution also from the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB); the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants www.cimaglobal.com, (ICAEW) finally discloses and internalizes all those “externalities” into companies’ balance sheets and provides full spectrum accounting— beyond money as the single metric. Honest money: currencies fully backed 100% for example, by kilowatt hours of renewable electricity, productive assets and services can continue to be useful as mediums of exchange. Expert Shann Turnbull in “Is A Stable Financial System Possible”, shows why currencies cannot be a predictable store of value, i.e. money is not wealth.

Cross-posted with permission from Ethical Markets.

Photo by reynermedia

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By recognising and rewarding these six capitals, a more ethically grounded concept of wealth guides our human endeavours to create, distribute and reinvest forms of capital to meet a wide variety of needs.

The FairShares Model V3.0 is implemented through:

• five values and principles (01);
• six key questions (02);
• five learning and development methods (03);
• four legal identities (04)
• seven ICT support platforms (05).

They were initiated through a research programme on democratising charities, co-operatives and social enterprises involving academics at Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, and developed as part of an EU Erasmus+ project to create FairShares Labs. The model promotes cooperative social entrepreneurship that recognises and enfranchises the providers of different types of capital contribution.

Memberships (and shares in companies and cooperatives) can be offered to investors of every type of capital by redesigning companies, cooperatives, associations and partnership to fully recognise and reward enterprise founders, workforce members, users/customers and the creators/providers of financial capital.

First, we devised a set of values and principles based on a definition of social enterprise created in January 2012 by Social Enterprise International Ltd.  We link these values and principles to key questions for enterprise incubation and development.

Second, we identify who is best able to answer each question to develop a design philosophy and governance model.  Social auditing and diagnostic tools can help develop the architecture for ongoing development of ownership, governance and management systems.

Lastly, to encourage the social systems to endure, we apply the design principles to model constitutions for companies, co-operatives, associations and partnerships.  The model constitutions provide a kind of social DNA for the replication of the five principles by implementing them through new approaches to ownership, governance and management. We believe these systems will make it easier to achieve UN 2030 sustainable development goals.

From 2019, you will be able to obtain support for developing your FairShares ideas by joining a local or virtual FairShares Lab. Each lab will provide workshops and support tools to help you consider the questions in a FairShares Canvass.

Through workshops, learning processes and with coaching and support, you will be able to design your multi-stakeholder co-operative enterprise by answering the questions in your FairShares Canvass.

Photo by Gog Llundain

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Building a ‘human economy’

Co-ops have a key part to play if the world is to move to a “human economy” says Oxfam after it revealed that eight people are now as wealthy as the poorest half of the world’s population. The charity’s report on global inequality said eight men share $426bn (£350bn) between them.

Tax evasion and widening pay differentials are to blame. Oxfam called for a “human economy” which works “for the 99%”. This would include environmental sustainability, gender equality and more worker-owned businesses.

Enrich Sahan, head of the charity’s private sector team, said: “Co-operatives fit in with our work with social enterprise and Fairtrade”. “It’s part of our DNA, for instance when we helped set up Cafédirect, to be supporting enterprises around the world that are co-owned.”

He added: “We have been supporting enterprises in Nepal, Ethiopia and Rwanda, for example,” said Mr Sahan.

“It’s a big part of our approach to inequality… Profits aren’t going to line the pockets of billionaires, they go to the workers.”

How can co-operative women be bold for change?

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day was “Be Bold For Change” – but how did the co-op movement taking up the baton? We spoke to leading woman co-operators to learn how co-ops can be bold.

Ruth FitzJohn, president of the Midcounties Co-operative, said “Bang on about it: Let’s be bold and persistent in getting the repeated message out there. We do not have gender equality. This is not fair. This is not efficient. This is wrong. It is our job to do something about.”

Dr Chiyoge B Sifa of the International Co-operative Alliance

 

Dr. Chiyoge B. Sifa the regional director of the International Co-operative Alliance Africa, said “Be clear about what need to change in our lives and surroundings. Be clear about the change we want to see and what our share in it. Act confidently as agents and advocates of the change we what to see in the World. Be courageous in confronting challenges on the road to change. Change may be resisted and roadblocks put to hamper our quest for a better world. Determination is key to any successful ending. Winners are not quitters and quitters are not winners.”

Claire McCarthy, general secretary of the Co-operative Party, said “The history of the co-operative movement shows that women with a passion for change, can’t sit on the sidelines. Mary Barbour, Margaret Bondfield and Joyce Butler were just the kind of strong women, restless for change, that Donald Trump would disapprove of. If you don’t like the increasingly reactionary, intolerant, and frankly unco-operative nature of our political discourse in Britain, then get involved and be a part of changing it.”

Platform co-ops

“Inequality is one of the most important problems facing our society,” said Trebor Scholz, a scholar-activist who first coined the phrase ‘platform co-operative’ – a digital organisation owned and managed by an online member community. He added: “With the decline of the power of unions and the growth of unbridled capitalism and ecological degradation, we have seen extreme intensification and acceleration of inequality.”

Co-ops aren’t the sole solution, but he believes they are one of them, alongside peer-to-peer networking, new roles for unions and technologists and a commitment to commons open source. These are types of collaboration that see people working together to “respond to the failure seen over the last
40 years”.

Using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Alyson Slater, chief network engagement officer at Global Reporting Initiative, said “The SDGs provide us with a globally agreed set of goals and targets for creating a better world. They are generally being embraced by the business community, and governments have made it clear that we cannot reach most of these goals without business engagement.

“Co-ops are in a unique position when it comes to the SDGs – they have  designed their business models to try to have a positive impact on some of the toughest goals – things like inequality, zero hunger, and life on land. If co-ops can demonstrate their contributions to these goals they may very well inspire other businesses to scale up their action too.”

Filmmaker Ken Loach at the Co-op Ways Forward conference:

“Co-ops embody values of common ownership, equal access, equality, that’s what we have to stress.”

Amelia Cargo, volunteer chair of the Group’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender network, LGBT+ Respect:

“The Co-op Group has a really good reputation of being LGBT-friendly. We have been in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index since 2005 and are the only retailer to have given evidence for equal marriage at Parliament. I was drawn to the Co-op’s commitment to local communities and its reputation as one of the most LGBT-friendly employers.”

• More from 2017 at 2017 In Review

Photo by CasparGirl

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Kate Raworth recognises that a dramatic new mindset is needed if we’re going to address the economic challenges of the 21st century. Her iconic book, Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist, argues that our economic activity should operate in a space that’s above a social foundation, and below an ecological ceiling. What this means in practice is that essential human rights and quality of life are delivered to everyone, but within the means and resources we have available on the planet. The doughnut of Kate’s analogy is a playful metaphor for a serious and urgent challenge being faced by the world’s population. Triodos Bank caught up with Kate to ask more about her perspective on modern economics, and how we can create a system that works within the limits of her theory.

Sharing instead of redistributing

Your economic model is now six years old. Have we made any progress?

We have. I consider the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) to be an essential step. They are much more ambitious than their predecessors, the Millennium Goals. They compromise the systems that sustain life on earth and are designed for all countries, not just the South. The SDG’s are a positive development, but I think we should be able to break through the ceiling of our imagination. The question is: can we design a system to improve things? That, in my opinion, should be our ambition: to develop activities that are distributive and generative from the start.

What exactly do you mean by ‘distributive by design’?

We usually talk about redistributing the wealth that is initially in the hands of a small group of people. That is the core of the 20th century model: redistribution of income afterwards, through e.g. progressive taxes and other means. This means that certain groups can keep questioning this redistribution over and over again. The distributive concept of the 21st century is about choosing to design our activities in such a way that they share the value from the start, instead of redistributing it afterwards.

Distributive by design starts with the question: who owns the wealth? The 21st century is not about redistribution but about sharing the sources of wealth from the start. And it is not just about the money, but also about land, companies, the ability to create money. What about the ownership of technology, who will own our robots? How do we treat our knowledge? Does it not make sense that innovative ideas originating from publicly funded research should be accessible to everyone?

The core of the challenge, then, is in reinventing the way we create value in our economy and share it from the start. You can do this with alternative forms of ownership of companies, like employee-owned companies or co-operations. Or you could anchor it as a target in the company’s Articles. Another way of integrating the sharing of value in the design is not to freeze them in patents but instead let them circulate freely among the commons. That way they travel through society, research communities can use them and develop them further. Another way still is to work with local currencies that connect and empower new initiatives.

Money with patience

The economy should not just share value. It should also be generative?

Yes. We seem to find it normal that a company focuses on realizing but one kind of value – financial profit – and in addition, keeps it for itself and its shareholder. It is very much the mentality of the 20th century: how much money is in it for me? You could describe it as an extractive economy, as over-exploitation taking away valuable resources from the community.

The 21st century, generative model has a different baseline. The question now is: how many kinds of value can I integrate in my company’s design to make sure that I can give value back to society and the environment? I keep meeting entrepreneurs, designers, urban developers, etc. who adhere to this new mentality with such vigor! As social entrepreneurs they want to create value that flows back to the community, forms of value that are easier to share. As a company, why would you strive to only reducing your negative impact on the environment when you can just as easily generate a positive impact? So instead of reducing emission of greenhouse gases, you start generating renewable energy and you share it with your surroundings. The same goes for the social domain, whereby companies actively contribute to the wellbeing of their neighbourhood or community.

What role do you see for the financial world?

That is the million-dollar question. First, we should investigate how to collect money in a 21st century way. That leads us to ethical banks, money with patience, and at first even philanthropy, to get things going. All of those are important sources for money because their values are in line with those of the companies they are supporting. Within the existing 20th century money industry we could do this through our pension funds. Could we restructure them so that they become value-driven? Can we enable people to change to such ethical pension funds? Besides that, we obviously need clear legislation. But I focus mostly on finding new forms of financing that are suited for 21st century businesses.

And that is where Triodos Bank comes in. The bank pays attention to these new kinds of entrepreneurship that are essential for the future. Triodos consciously uses money to create positive social, ecological and cultural change. It is an excellent example of a company with a lively target, aimed at distributive and generative companies whose values go way beyond the financial profit that stays within the company.

Between the markets and the commons

How would you rate the potential of our digital networks?

We underestimate their power. They enable citizens to get organized on different levels and at minimal costs. Take Wikipedia, the citizens’ encyclopedia. Or Linux, an open source operating system used by organizations all over the globe. These are tools which allow citizens to build their own networks.

At the moment, a few companies hold monopolies, like Facebook and Amazon, but it does not necessarily have to stay that way. People can be active in different networks. We can be on Facebook, but at the same time join local networks and exchange information and knowledge about our city. I foresee a big increase in open-source networks for specific cities and communities. We underestimate what these networks could mean for citizens who want to collaborate and connect.

The new possibilities to work digitally and open source are leading to a whole new generation of innovative entrepreneurs who have begun to operate on the border between the markets and the commons. Your company may be small, but if you share your ideas with the commons, you will have access to a global research team. New business models will see the light. And they are successful precisely because they are open source. We are looking at an immense quest for alternatives, which might explain why my book was so well received. More and more people are looking for an alternative concept of what our economy should look like and which purpose it should serve.

Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on exploring the economic mindset needed to address the 21st century’s social and ecological challenges, and is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries. She is a Senior Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches on the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Original source: Triodos Bank

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How relocating energy in the commons helps scaling-up renewables & saving energy

Is energy a mere commodity, or is it a common good? Why is this relevant in the first place? Here we look at why energy is part of our commons, from the sources to the product itself. In a second time, we will see that relocating energy in the commons has very important implications: it helps solve the energy efficiency dilemma (i.e., we need to reduce our energy consumption but who’s going to pay for that?) and scale-up renewables.

What is a commons?

Once upon a time… there was an alpine pasture, where cattle from the village came to graze. The air was fresh and brisk, there was enough grass for the animals. But it was also a delicate, sensitive environment: put too much pressure on it (too much cattle) and it would be ruined in no-time… In other words, the pasture was a finite resource, which could support a finite number of cattle.

A (finite) natural resource, that is necessary to all: that’s a natural commons.

There are three way of dealing with natural commons:

1. The commons (e.g., the pasture) is claimed by someone, who controls its access and monetize it: it becomes a commodity and the usage profits mainly to a few.
2. There is no communication in the community and no rules are set to use the commons. Individuals tend to exploit the commons as much as possible in order to maximise their own profit and compete for accessing to it. Eventually, the commons is destroyed. This is how Garrett Hardin described modern humans’ behaviour in the “Tragedy of the Commons” in 1968, which led him to argue that only privatization (as in 1.) or state regulation are successful mode of governance for the commons.
3. People actually talk to each other and are conscious of the problem of over-using their commons. Therefore, communities organise themselves and set some rules, compensation mechanisms and sanctions against free-riders. Benefits are shared and sustained. This is what Elinor Ostrom (and her colleagues) reported upon throughout her career: communities are able to (and do) manage their common goods by themselves.

Next to the finite or physical resources defining the classical commons framework, we can think of other non-finite and more abstract resources that can be treated as commons and referred to as social commons: digital commons, knowledge commons, health commons, urban commons… Shifting the paradigm from commodity to commons helps to reduce the (artificial) scarcity of these resources (created and sustained by privatisation and monetisation) by having a common-ownership or no-ownership. This is best illustrated by the creative common licences, which allow (for some of them) companies to sell a product but not to claim its ownership (which means that other companies can sell the same product, modify it, etc…).

And finally, there’s the act of commoning: doing together, sharing, benefiting from each other. As we saw in the previous episode, this is one of the recurrent arguments given by members of energy cooperatives as a ground and as a co-benefit from their project.

Renewable energy is a common good

SCAD Museum of Arts, Work by Nari Ward (“We the people”) Photo by JR P CC-BY-NC2.0

Here we will focus on renewable energy (RE) but this discussion also applies to fossil fuels. According to the definitions above, RE is a commons and we demonstrate this using three different viewpoints:

• the source (wind, sun…),
• the product (energy and more specifically electricity), and
• the energy transition process (i.e., the switch towards clean renewables).

The source. The renewable sources of energy (especially wind, sun, water and in a lesser extend biomass) are clearly part of our natural commons: no-one can claim their ownership and they belong to all. Furthermore, and this is particularly important, they are finite resources. It is therefore crucial to make sure that the access to these resources is equally shared throughout the society.

The product. Electricity and energy in a broader sense are part of the social commons. Indeed, accessing to energy being necessary in modern societies, it becomes a common good. And due to finite sources, the amount of energy available is also finite.
It is crucial to avoid the appropriation of this common good by individuals or single actors (i.e., free-riders) in order to prevent the creation of an artificial scarcity and efficiently fight energy poverty. If this does not sound too serious in the western word, it is a huge issue in poorer countries and has been placed in the United Nation agenda for 2030 as the sustainable development goal number 7.

Energy transition. By looking at the process of switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources, we enter into the field of “climate change mitigation”. Decarbonising the energy sector falls into the global commons: every gramme of CO2 released in the atmosphere will have an effect on all of us. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the threat posed by free-riders to our mitigation efforts (summary for policy makers, AR5): “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently.”
As one can read on the website of the Mercator research Institute on Global Commons (MCC), energy is also part of the social commons: “These are public goods providing access to health services, education, clean water, sanitation, energy, or transport and communication infrastructure. They are essential for human well-being as the level of provision of these goods has significant effects on both growth and inequality.” The MCC describes the dilemma of the energy transition as an overuse of the global commons and an under-provision of the social commons.

The energy transition is a huge task for our generation and it creates both challenges and opportunities. On the winners’ side, a new market is being created, which is already profitable enough to attract institutional investors. Large investment in renewables from private sources is potentially a good news, as it speeds up the energy transition. However, there are serious drawbacks in the commodification of energy. First, the returns on investment will remain in private hands, which is a loss of revenue for society and increases the concentration of capital into the hands of a few. Second, as these investments are profit-driven, the primary goal is to install the technology providing the highest income, regardless of people’s needs and desires (so not necessarily the appropriate technology).
To summarize, here is how the EU Horizon 2020 research project REScoop presents the social relevance of framing RE sources in the commons (policy recommendation):
“Wind, solar, hydro, biomass and geothermal energy are natural resources. They in fact belong to no one and are in principle available to all. They are common goods. From the perspective of social justice, more attention therefore must be paid to the way in which decentralised renewable energy sources are managed. In a world where energy is scarce, these sources of energy will mean income for the operators. Citizens and users therefore have every interest in keeping this local energy production in their own hands as much as possible. Governments too have every interest in anchoring decentralised renewable energy with the users as much as possible so that the added value of the production also benefits society. This is especially true for wind energy, an energy source that extends over a larger area, but ultimately is exploited on a small site. The benefit of this exploitation should extend to the widest possible group of people. Thus, the exploitation of wind energy should not simply be privatised, but also allocated on the basis of socio-economic criteria.”

Reducing energy consumption

The people’s windmill – outside European Parliament, Brussels More than a 150 people formed the shape of a giant wind turbine in front of the European Parliament in Brussels to call for more support for community renewable energy projects. Photo by Friends of the Earth CC-BY-NC 2.0

One aspect of commodifying energy that is often overlooked, is that in order to increase the profits, utilities have an inherent incentive to produce and sell as much energy as possible. This is totally counteracting all efforts made to increase energy efficiency and conservation.
As recognized by several experts, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions (by increasing our efficient use of energy) is a key pillar of the energy transition. However, efficiency measures are often presented as a burden, which is costly and does not generate enough profits.
As stated by John Byrne and his team at University of Delaware, effectively “relocating energy in the commons” (I stole this expression from this remarkable and very accessible paper) has the double advantage to stimulate the installation of renewable power plants and save energy simultaneously, whereas energy as a commodity leads to a state of “energy obesity”. This “commonification” of energy is presented through the Sustainable Energy Utilities (SEU), which are community-based institutions aiming at designing and financing local energy projects. The idea is to consider the energy consumption of a community globally, with the primary aim being to save it: when energy is needed, SEU should implement an appropriate renewable technology, and incorporate heat and transport systems in the design.

Originally posted on energycommonsblog

Lead image: Energy cooperative from the US, Touchstone Energy.  Photo by David Ingram CC-BY-NC2.0

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All these and much much more make up the Sustainable Development Goals – the globally agreed wish list for saving the world and building a better future. If you haven’t heard of them, you’re not alone. Their public outreach leaves a bit to be desired. In any case, they make up the UN’s development agenda up until 2030.

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to what the SDGs are, what’s good about them, and my one problem with the SDGs that actually drives me crazy every time I think about it.

What are the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (aka SDGs or Global Goals) follow on from where the Millennium Development Goals left off, in 2015. They will guide the development priorities for the UN and its agencies, the aid budgets of most wealthy nations and major development charities up until 2030, when it’ll be all change all over again. Here’s the full list:

• Goal 1  End poverty in all its forms everywhere
• Goal 2  End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
• Goal 3  Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Goal 4  Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
• Goal 5  Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• Goal 6  Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
• Goal 7  Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
• Goal 8  Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Goal 9  Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
• Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries
• Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
• Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
• Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
• Goal 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
• Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
• Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

As you can see, they’re… Let’s call them ‘stretch targets’.

The SDGs. Image credit: Reedz Malik

Others more cynical than I have called them a utopian wishlist more suited to a letter to your fairy godmother than a serious policy statement, or words to that effect. But you know what they say about ambitious goals: even when you don’t hit them you still end up doing pretty well. And to be honest, aren’t these exactly the things we should be aspiring to?

What is amazing about the SDGs

Before I get on to my one glaring problem with the SDGs, I want to take a moment to consider what’s so good about them, particularly in comparison to the old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

They apply to the whole world

.No country has locked down 100% of this stuff. The UK certainly hasn’t. These goals are for every country to work towards, and kisses goodbye to the patronising old development model of ‘developed’ countries that have apparently got it all worked out (yeah, right) and ‘developing’ ones who need help.

They’re holistic

.They cover a lot of ground because they understand that poverty and wellbeing are complex, multi-faceted and relate to a lot of different things at once. I like the way the goals are not split up into environmental, social, economic, but instead many of the goals cover all three aspects of sustainability. Goodbye silos.

They’re inclusive and collaborative

When the goals were being drafted, diplomats from each country got to contribute and they also engaged with charities, scientists and academics for their contributions. You may not have been consulted or even told about them until now, but compared to other high-level global policy, this was very inclusive.

My one problem with the SDGs

So the SDGs sound wonderful, right? They do. Really, they do, and overall I think they are a fantastic thing that will do a lot of good in the world. But there’s one problem that I think people should be aware of (and I want to get it off my chest).

One of the goals is liable to contradict the others. Yes there will always be trade-offs and that’s understandable, but in my opinion, one of these goals sticks out like a sore thumb because it just doesn’t fit.

Goal 8 calls for ‘decent work and economic growth’ and I take issue with it for several reasons.

What’s wrong with Goal 8?

Problem 1: it’s a means not an end

This may just be me, but I can’t stand it when you have a list of things and one doesn’t fit with the others. Like if you had a whole list of your favourite books and one of the list items is ‘Waterstones book token’. What the hell is this?! A book token isn’t a book, it’s just a way to get more books! Goal 8 is kind of like the book token here. It isn’t a goal in itself, it’s at best a means to reach other goals. As this article on postgrowth.org puts it: “Growth that is at best a means to reach certain welfare goals is redundant as a development goal in itself.”

Problem 2: Growth doesn’t necessarily benefit the poor

Problem 1 on its own would just be a grammatical pet peeve. What makes it problematic is that it isn’t even a very effective means to achieve the other goals. In fact sometimes it can do the opposite. The most important goal of all the SDGs is to eradicate extreme poverty. The thinking is obviously that economic growth helps with this – but that isn’t actually necessarily true. Of all the wealth produced by growth since 1990, the poorer 60% of the world population only received a pitiful 5% of it. And that’s not even the poorest, that’s over half of all humanity. The very poorest people who need it most got such a tiny sliver it’s almost nothing. Growth is a very inefficient way of helping the poor out of poverty because the vast majority of the wealth goes to the rich, a slice goes to the middle class and the poor just get some crumbs. So, Goal 8 could easily conflict with goals 10 (reduced inequality) and Goal 1 (no poverty).

Problem 3: Growth probably isn’t compatible with a safe climate

There’s no hard evidence that economic growth is compatible with the kind of emissions cuts we need to keep climate change to below 2 degrees. The only time global emissions went down is when we had the 2008 global crash and recession. People get all excited about decoupling when they see that the UK’s economy grew while our direct emissions went down, but that figure for direct emissions doesn’t include ‘embedded emissions’ in consumer goods, and it doesn’t include aeroplane flights or international shipping. We have seen that emissions can hold steady while growth rises, but we need emissions to go down, and fast, and we just don’t know that that can happen with growth. If not, then we need to prioritise climate action (Goal 13) rather than growth (Goal 8).

Problem 4: it shouldn’t be 2 in 1, it’s already an important goal

Unlike the others, goal 8 is a double whammy: decent work and economic growth. They obviously thought those were a natural pair, but they could easily be in conflict, as a company that abuses its workers could make more profit and so contribute more to economic growth. Well-paid workers contribute more to growth than poor ones, because they have more spending power, but healthy workers could contribute less to growth than sick and stressed ones because they won’t be paying for medicines and therapies. All this is because of what a strange and unhelpful metric GDP growth is. Decent work – good jobs that are useful and fulfilling with fair wages and rights – is already a very important goal. Why stick something else in there as well? The way it stands, Goal 8 could even come into conflict with… Goal 8.

Problem 5: it gives companies/governments a loophole to keep doing the same

As well as being unnecessary and counterproductive, the growth part of goal 8 also gives regressive companies and countries a loophole where they can say ‘we’re working on the SDGs!’ when they’re doing anything that will boost growth, even if it goes against the other goals. A study by Ethical Corp found that Goal 8 was in the top 3 of the SDGs that corporates are most keen to engage with. I recently saw a major brand boasting on their website that they were making progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 8. Like… Every other company out there.

The SDGs also sidestep deep systemic issues (but that’s understandable)

The Sustainable Development Goals were never going to be perfect. They have flaws because they are trying to make progress from within the capitalist system we have. They sidestep fundamental causes of poverty like structural readjustments, unfair debts, unfair trade deals, and of course the history of colonialism. They seek to bring the poor and ordinary up, but don’t dare to mention the elephant in the room: that the elite have too much. None of this is surprising and I don’t think the drafters of the SDGs or the UN can be blamed for that. They weren’t going for a radical political statement that would be divisive. They wanted to get everyone on board. Like sustainable development itself, it’s very hard for anyone to disagree with the SDGs as a whole. That means that as well as the UN, charities and governments, they have also had excellent buy-in from corporates, with the likes of Unilever, Coca Cola and H&M using them to inform their ‘corporate responsibility’ and sustainability work. 46% of corporate reps said their business would engage with the SDGs, according to a survey by Ethical Corp. Their engagement is worth a little watering down, given their immense scale.

Conclusion

The SDGs represent real progress. They give everyone across sectors a common language for sustainable development and gets everyone on the same page. They represent a clear roadmap on where we collectively want to go from here. The progress they aspire to can be best realised if we ignore growth and work on the things that matter – which are summed up perfectly with all the other goals.

Photo by Davezilla was taken

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The current landscape — shifting from ‘what’ to ‘how’ post SDGs

Clarity on where we go with the SDGs is also lacking. As SDG advisor Alex Evans says, now that the Open Working Group (OWG) on the post-2015 SDG agenda has reported, “minds are shifting to the ‘how’ as opposed to the ‘what’ — and what a new Global Partnership on development might look like. There is a risk that the soaring ambition of the OWG’s Goals will not be matched by adequate action on the delivery side.”

Many of the answers on how to solve the challenges we face now on climate and the SDGs will need to come from society at large, from social movements, communities and citizens. This calls for a p2p revolution, the end of top-down and the beginning of people-power. The institutions of today can, and indeed must be involved in this revolution. But power needs to disperse and so does the conversation.

So delivering on the SDGs will require a host of tough issues to be resolved and delivered on including those same climate finance, loan and developing world support details so missing from Paris.

Other key issues which need to be included in delivering on the SDGs include; strong action on tax avoidance and subsidies, stretching private sector ambition and support for SD, recognition of natural resources like land, water, and the atmosphere as a special category of property right, with dividends from their use accruing to society at large, a radical overhaul of the financial system, consideration of a universal basic income and some fundamental questioning of issues such as the growth paradigm, limits of decoupling and the need to shift from consumerism to a world of intrinsic values and wellbeing.

This starting list of key SDG delivery issues represent radical changes to the status quo.

This changes everything — why we need to think ‘system reboot not plug and play’

As the post COP party hangovers start to wear off people are recognising the momentous, perhaps paradigm shifting, scale of the challenge facing us as we attempt to deliver on the highest ambitions from Paris. As Richard Heinberg has said post COP, the required transition is “not plug and play, its civilisation reboot”.

And as Professor John Foran puts it, “Despite their beautiful words, our leaders remained trapped in a broken system and a crashing worldview.”

Coming out of Paris IPCC scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has concluded that we have to make: “Fundamental changes to the political and economic framing of contemporary society…let Paris be the catalyst for a new paradigm.”

The social justice narrative of ‘system change not climate change’ has now gone mainstream with voices such as UNFCCC Chief Christiana Figueres now calling for ‘a new system’ at COP21.

Delivering on these radical changes will require a sea-change in the process of change. Policy-wonkery and lobbying may play a role but above all what is needed is a new society-wide Big Conversation on paradigm shift and systems change.

The emerging new economy vision

Many of these issues are the staple diet of those involved in the wider ‘new/next economy’ world which is the focus of the Real Economy Lab I convene.

This new economy space is a vibrant hot-bed of innovation. As Professors Gus Speth and Professor Gar Alperovitz of the Next System Project put it, “just below the surface of media attention literally thousands of grass roots institution changing, wealth-democratizing efforts have been quietly developing.”

Hundreds of movements, alliances and organizations around the world are experimenting with a new-economy – new ways of living, of making, of commerce and of ownership — open-coops, social solidarity, Transition Towns, Commoning, Sharing, initiatives from groups like the Club of Rome, Nef’s Great Transition, the Next System Project, the New Economy Coalition, Neon, the Just Transition movement of labour, Movement Generation and Edge Funders and many others.

But between the current policy landscape and this vision of the future lies an unmapped territory on which we need to start to plot a roadmap to system change.

Where do we go from here?

Very different actors inhabit the worlds of the current policy landscape and this emerging vision of a new system. Some bridge both worlds — but too few. What is needed is a common vision and narrative and an inclusive conversation we are all part of.

I see this as a journey. For a journey to be worth taking you need a roadmap. Right now we have only the slimmest of clarity and agreement on even the shape of the landscape we need to cross let alone where we want to get to. Many of us are too busy looking at our feet, fearful of stumbling, few ever get even a glimpse of a possible horizon let alone the peaks we need to aim for.

Those working in the foothills need to be helped to see a vision of where we need to head. Those with their heads poking through the fog need support to keep their feet in reality and real-politic.

Above all what will be needed is to take everyone with us on this journey. What that will require a new form of conversation built on deliberative, participative dialogue, open-enquiry and inclusiveness and powered by digital democracy.

This dialogue will need to bridge the here and now with a desirable and achievable future which is truly fair and sustainable for people and planet.

Whats crucial is that the dialogue of the deaf between so many of us needs to end and we need to find a way to develop one big conversation about system change and transformation.

Perhaps our attitude to this journey needs to take a hint from another of Marvin Gaye’s songs What Going On.

Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
C’mon talk to me
So you can see
What’s going on

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