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P4NE’s Monthly Roundup no.4

We want to see the new economy ecosystem grow, deepen its relationships and make greater progress together. We think that illuminating work and ideas across different aspects of the ecosystem and bringing more coherence to the field as a whole is one way of doing this. This monthly roundup is one of our contributions.

Ten things on our radar…

Degrowth or Green Growth - which will deliver a thriving future? Dive into this crucial 90 minute debate between Jason Hickel and Sam Fankhauser, moderated ‘in the spirit of respectful disagreement’ by Kate Raworth.

A rich resource of recordings to watch from the Purpose conference about steward ownership hosted in Berlin.

Kohei Saito’s book, Capital in the Anthropocene, which has become an unlikely hit among young people in Japan and is about to be translated into English.

Global Witness’s report ‘Decade of Defiance’ with Foreward from Dr Vandana Shiva: ‘this report shows, nearly all of the murdered environmental and land defenders are from the Global South, and yet it is not the Global South that reaps the supposed economic ‘rewards’ of all this violence’.

Alexis Gumbs on what we can learn from marine mammals as we navigate these times - dorsal fins have a lot to teach us!

Faith in Nature’s legal appointment of Nature to their board of Directors, and McKinsey’s review of where the world’s largest companies stand on nature, beyond carbon reduction commitments.

A Broadcast from Discover Economics on 11th October as part of UK Black History Month, with guest speakers Tina Fahm, Chair of Hub Cymru Africa and Veronic Masubo, Research Manager at Gatsby Africa in Tanzania.

The Global Impact Investing Network Investor Forum, a gathering of more than 1000 impact investors on 12th-13th October in The Hague. Speakers include P4NE’s Jo Swinson discussing ‘what does a ‘next normal’ world look like?

We are a young species growing up - one of many thought provoking blog posts by Daniel Christian Wahl: ‘Humanity needs a ‘new story’ that is powerful and meaningful enough to galvanize global collaboration and guide a collective response to the converging crises we are facing’.

The EU parliament voting to ban products linked to deforestation and violation of indigenous peoples’ human rights, including a proposal that investments from banks and financial institutions should be covered by the new law.

The Post Humanist, a new bi-annual magazine featuring arts, design, technology and writing. Each issue presents a theme from a more-than-human perspective.

Other things we’ve been up to…

This month we hosted our P4NE Gathering in Cambridge for 90 people working across the new economy ecosystem. It aimed to:

  • Build and deepen relationships in order to strengthen the new economy field’s power for transformative change

  • Support everyone in the field to identify and develop areas for greater alignment, collaboration and action

  • ‘Widen the tent’ of who is perceived as being part of the field, highlight the importance of different roles in change, and the necessity for a plurality of theories of progress

As Florence Millar, from the Environmental Funders Network said in her blog sharing insights from the two days: ‘What I was most struck by was the brilliance of many of the individuals in the room - visionary people with not only an extraordinary grasp of what we’re up against and how it might be changed but with what are clearly excellent ‘doing’ skills, making change happen in clear and exciting ways at different levels of the economic system.’

The Gathering was also an opportunity to learn more about how P4NE could be useful in a convening and filed-building role. For us, the focus of field-building is on shifting systems and making progress together, beyond scaling up an organisation or intervention. It involves building out networks, relationships, spheres of influence and collective power and takes a long-term strategic view.

As an orchestration and curation practice, it recognises you need plurality; institutions as much as movements, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs as much as policy think tanks and new academic knowledge, people doing oppositional work as much as those making propositional work. It involves working with many moving parts, supporting those involved to find a shared compass, greater alignment and deepening interdependence.

We’ve got some digesting to do before sharing our own reflections and learning in a few weeks’ time!

Spotlight on Abstract Benna…

The P4NE Gathering’s first session was a collective enquiry into where we are now as a field and how far we have come. This involved looking back and asking: What’s happened so far? What pivotal moments have there been? And where has progress been made? As we did this, Abstract Benna listened intently, gathering words and sharing a poem he live-wrote with us before dinner, transcribed below.

Larger than We

I was a lil’ intimidated when I got the call

Usually my creative ideas are unstoppable

But do I know anything about economics, not at all

—

Other than the logical, it affects me, you, us, we

That’s why to me, partners for a new economy

Feels like history in the making

—

The diversity of thought in this room is needed in shaping

Ideas that can filter through to policy makers

and people in power

—

Each and every one of us know the issues

There’s problems galore

But what’s more interesting is how each of us can integrate

—

To help future generations arrive into great

Systems that were designed with them in mind

With the planet in mind

—

Us as humans are in the habit at times

Of thinking about nature as something over there

Forgetful of the fact we’re supposed to care

Getting lost in ego-systems

—

Forgetting we’re a part of this ecosystem

Forgetting if we disappeared tomorrow

the tardigrade would still be chilling

—

Never forget

Some of us see an eye; some of us see a tail, a trunk, a tusk

But never forget, there’s an elephant in the room

—

Although we’re growing in tune, in rooms of policy makers

Numbers are seen as an indication of progress

But statistics are soulless

—

The people behind them may not notice

the jargon but notice its effect

We should see us as the soil helping seeds blossom from the bottom up

—

Knowing the apple won’t fall too far from the tree

Change that doesn’t happen overnight seems harder to see

But knowing it’s larger than we

—

Knowing we’re ancestors of future generations

Who will generate speed from our power walking

Remaining solid in solidarity, connecting, talking

—

This think tank might be from Wednesday to the end of the week

But it’s the start of a strong momentum

With a collective mind, body and hearts that belong

On the path that we’re on

Jobs…

We are starting to share jobs that we come across through our grantees and others that are broadly in the ‘new economy’ field. If you’d like us to share a job here - to go out at the end of each month - please email Cassie.

What have we missed?

We plan to publish this in the last week of every month. We'd love to include things that you want to spotlight and share. Email us if you'd like to suggest an article, event or idea for us to include in a future edition.