New solutions are emerging to fix our current damaging and dysfunctional money system, reads the article by Michael Townsend in the latest RSA quarterly journal.
Here’s the extract:
[The] fundamental question is whether we can really change the money system. Thankfully, there are already a number of active campaigns making an impact in the world of finance.
Money matters
Positive Money is a not-for-profit research and campaign group in the UK that campaigns to make the money-creation process more democratic. Its ultimate goal is to remove the power that banks have to create money. The International Movement for Monetary Reform helps promote similar groups in 17 other countries. Banking can be ethical. The Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a group of the world’s leading sustainable banks, works to promote alternative financial systems around the world and is committed to a “triple bottom line of people, planet and profit”.
Change is also occurring at institutional level, increasingly driven by stakeholder pressure. Pension funds and other institutional investors are beginning to divest their holdings in major oil and gas companies as they wake up to the threats posed by climate change and the desire to move away from stranded assets. BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund manager, recently teamed up with FTSE Group to help investors avoid coal, oil and gas companies without putting their money at risk. The global campaign against fossil fuels is entering the financial mainstream.
We can also act as individuals. The Move Your Money campaign urges us to do just that – move our money to a more ethical bank – so that we can help build a better banking system through our collective buying power. We have more choices than we realise.
There now needs to be widespread and active participation in order to make the most of what could be a tipping point in the transition towards a sustainable economy.
You can read the whole article here.
The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has been for over 260 years committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges.
They are committed to making new ideas available as inspiration, opportunity and resource to all. Their public events programme provides a platform to some of the world’s most innovative thinkers and has reached an online audience nearing 100 million. The RSA Action and Research Centre combines rigorous research with practical experimentation to tackle the challenges of the 21st Century. Working with a global network of 27,000 Fellows, they are a force for civic innovation and positive social change.
Positive Money has been recently invited to become a Fellow of the RSA.