Finance

Money in the economy should flow to sustainable activities, not unsustainable ones

The credit crunch and banking crisis exposed the weakness of our finance system. Its focus on short-term gains means too much money funds unsustainable activities, power is concentrated in a few institutions making the system vulnerable to shocks, and there is little focus on new financial models which will support the transition to a sustainable economy.

 

We want to transform the financial world. We want to incentivise long-term thinking, rewarding businesses and investors for looking beyond short-term profits. We want to innovate financial models that drive investment towards sustainable activities. And we want to inject fresh thinking, bringing in new ideas and players from outside the financial sector.

A framework for a sustainable economy
“Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50%...
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Discover Community Energy
"Dramatically increase community energy", say UK groups with 12 million...
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UK Carbon Reporting Framework
For over 20 years now leading organisations across the globe have been actively...
PROJECT PAGE »

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Find out more

More than 80% of Chief Financial Officers said that they had sacrificed opportunities for long-term value creation in favour of short-term actions to bolster their share price.

Click here to find out more about our work on finance

Blog Posts

Unpicking the financial system: The financial structuring specialist
Alice Chapple explores the motivations and behaviours of structuring specialists within the financial system as part of a blog series •...
The Co-operative Opportunity - a twitter story #coopfuture
[View the story "The Co-operative Opportunity" on Storify]
Unpicking the financial system: The fund manager
Alice Chapple explores the motivations and behaviours of fund managers within the financial system as part of a blog series I enjoy my job....

greenfutures

Co-operation is a big part of the fix, says Jonathon Porritt
The Founder Director of Forum for the Future believes co-operatives could transform today’s “capitalist wastelands”. What...
Clever finance for retrofit
Start-ups are spotting opportunities in schemes to incentivise home and commercial retrofit projects. We pick out some winning offers. Serious...
Funding boost for small-scale renewables
Reforms in carbon counting mean more investments in pro-poor projects. Simple, small-scale green technologies, such as clean cookstoves for poor...