New Economics Foundation

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The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is an independent British think-tank, or, in their own description, a "think-and-do tank".

The group's goal is to promote their progressive view of welfare economics and environmentalism. Some of their recent reports have described "ghost town Britain" and "Clone town Britain", referring to a lack of shops and services or homogeneity in shops in town centers. Its areas of interest include social accounting and auditing, indicators for sustainability, social investment and alternative currencies. Their reports have been criticised by strategic advisers to retailers such as Fripp Sandeman and Partners.

NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit, an "alternative" to the G8 summit. It was led to prominence from 1992 until 2003 by Ed Mayo - Mayo and NEF influenced government policy during this time on NHS foundation trusts, public services, public participation, enterprise and regeneration. The Jubilee 2000 campaign, strategised for and run by NEF, collected 24 million signatures for its worldwide petition on development and poverty.

Their funding sources come from charitable trusts, public finance—National Lottery, businesses, international grant-making bodies and individual supporters with @£20 membership fees [1].

In July 2006, they earned much fanfare for their Happy Planet Index, intended to challenge existing indices of a state's success, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index (HDI).

Contents 1 Leadership 2 Quotations 3 See also 4 External links 4.1 Reports

[edit] Leadership

• Director: Stewart Wallis
• Director of operations: Elna Kotze
• Director of Policy: Andrew Simms
• Senior associates: David Boyle, Pat Conaty, Ann Pettifor

[edit] Quotations

"IC100 will show that even the more disadvantaged inner cities are not the enterprise 'no-go' areas of the past, but the investment opportunities of the future."

Gordon Brown MP (Labour), speaking of their index of firms promoting inner city development [2].

[edit] See also

• List of UK think tanks
• E. F. Schumacher
• Schumacher Circle organisations

[edit] External links

• Official website
• "New Economics Foundation at The Philanthropy Atlas by The Institute for Philanthropy
• "New Index (Inner City 100) will Reward Inner City Innovations", University of Sheffield
• "Client Study: New Economics Foundation", Total Coverage, the cooperative design consultancy
• The Happy Planet Index

[edit] Reports

• Nic Marks, Saamah Abdallah, Andrew Simms and Sam Thompson, "The Happy Planet Index: An index of human well-being and environmental impact", July 12, 2006.
• Molly Conisbee, Petra Kjell, Julian Oram, Jessica Bridges Palmer, Andrew Simms and John Taylor, "Clone Town Britain: The loss of local identity on the nation's high streets" - (PDF Download), August 28, 2004
  • Related Press Release
  • The survey the report was based upon
• Andrew Simms, Petra Kjell and Ruth Potts, "Clone Town Britain: The survey results on the bland state of the nation" - (PDF download), June 6, 2005
• Hetan Shah and Nic Marks, "A Well Being Manifesto for a Flourishing Society" - (PDF download), September 28, 2004
• Andrew Simms, John Magrath and Hannah Reid, "Up In Smoke: Threats from and responses to, the impact of global warming on human development" - (PDF download), October 20, 2004
• Corrina Cordon and Ruth Potts, Edited by Mary Murphy, New Economics Foundation: Annual Review 2004 - (PDF download), January 3, 2005
• New Economics Foundation at SourceWatch

This article uses content from the SourceWatch article on New Economics Foundation under the terms of the GFDL.