STWR - Share The World's Resources

Andrew Simms is policy director of the New Economics Foundation and a founder member of the recently formed Green New Deal Group. His articles are frequently republished on this site and can be accessed below, including a link to original source.

The Global Transition 2012 is an international network of organisations from the Global North and South that aims to catalyse a ‘Global Transition’ to the desirable and beneficial economy that we aspire to. As part of the first phase of their work, leading thinkers authored 11 Challenge Papers on key topic areas.

In June 2010, over 250 activists, experts and interested members of the public gathered to explore a positive alternative to the pursuit of endless economic growth – a steady state economy. The world-changing ideas generated by attendees are synthesised in the Report of the Steady State Economy Conference.

STWR joined a diverse group of academics, activists and business people at the first ever international conference on steady state economics held in Leeds. The event was an inspiring and important step forward for a burgeoning movement questioning limitless economic growth, writes Anna White.

There are many ideas about how to survive economic uncertainty whilst building more robust systems for the future. In a pamphlet prepared for the Hay Literary Festival, a range of creative thinkers discuss the potential for positive change in a time of crisis. By the New Economics Foundation.

Endless growth is pushing the planet’s biosphere beyond its safe limits. We urgently need to change our economy to promote well being, reduce resource consumption and live within its environmental budget, says a report by the New Economics Foundation.

For centuries, richer countries have imported resources from Africa to support expansive economic growth and increasing levels of consumption. But the African continent, rather than Europe, will suffer the impacts of the resulting ‘ecological debt’, says Andrew Simms.

As negotiations on a global climate change treaty continue, a key issue of contention is the difference in consumption levels between rich and poor countries. The resulting proposals could be crucial in defining not only the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but the future sustainability of the environment.

What if we woke up one day to find that human beings eventually made environmentally-sound decisions in their daily life? A sustainable life that is kind to the planet is entirely possible, and by pressing all the right buttons it creates its own energy to thrive, writes Andrew Simms and Joe Smith. 

The crisis-ridden financial system has long failed to do the basic job required – to underpin our fundamental operating systems. It is time to use finance to support the natural economy of family, community, society and the earth's biosphere, argues Stephen Spratt.

Time is fast running out to stop irreversible climate change, a group of global warming experts warn - and we have only 100 months to avoid disaster, explains Andrew Simms.

The world needs leaders with the vision to forge New Deal-type policies to tackle the potentially disastrous combination of climate change, high inflation and economic slowdown, say the New Economics Foundation in a new report.

Speech by Andrew Simms, policy director and head of the climate change programme at nef (the new economics foundation), to the UN ECOSOC special session on climate change and the MDGs in New York.

The NEF argue the case that global economic growth is an extremely inefficient way of achieving poverty reduction, and is becoming even less effective.  We need to move towards a system in which policies are designed explicitly and directlyto achieve our social and environmental objectives, treating growth as a by-product.