Blurry lights from passing traffic  By agtwo

Finance and Business

We need a financial system that channels resources into socially useful and productive activities that respect environmental limits. Businesses are powerful agents for innovation and must be part of the solution.

At nef we believe that the economic system should be reformed so as to deliver high levels of human well-being and an equitable distribution of income and wealth within natural environmental limits.

Reform of the financial and business sectors is fundamental to achieving these goals. The global financial crisis demonstrated the fragility of our financial system and exposed fundamental flaws. The UK banking system had long been failing to effectively serve society and the productive economy. Our work on financial reform seeks to identify what a finance sector that serves the real economy and society looks like, and how it can be regulated.

Our work on sustainable business looks to establish ways of aligning the interests of society with those of business, for example through pricing that approaches ‘real value’. We ask what the implications are for business of resource constraints, meeting carbon targets, and also of the Great Transition that we argue is both possible and necessary over the coming decades.

Key facts

  1. 1
    The UK Government pledged 80% of GDP to bail-out out the banks
  2. 2
    1.75 million people in the UK do not have a bank current account, and 9 million lack access to affordable credit
  3. 3
    There are around 80 community development finance institutions in the UK, who have financed 15,000 businesses and sustained or created 33,000 jobs

Projects

  • A green shoot, coming out of the soil

    A new economic model

    The pursuit of growth has failed on its own terms, and for people and the planet. We are working on a new way to structure the economy.

  • Windows on Canada Tower, Canary Wharf

    Financial reform

    The financial sector has been given unprecedented support by policymakers, at the expense of the real economy. We're researching and advocating reforms that will make finance work for society.

  • A cyclist crosses a suspension bridge by a lake.

    Sustainable Business

    Businesses are sources of innovation and wealth, but they can also have negative impacts on the environment and people. We are working on ways to align the interests of business with society.

  • A chimney | by Simon Bisson

    Housing

    A new economics of housing will put social justice, productive investment and ecological sustainability at its heart.

  • Brixton Pounds | by Ruth Potts

    Monetary reform

    "The essence of the contemporary money system is creation of money, out of nothing, by banks often foolish lending." Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 9th November 2010

  • Post Box | by rbrwr

    Campaign for a Post Bank

    A campaign to reinvigorate the role of Post Offices within local economies and, at the same time, address financial exclusion.

  • A local CD stall

    Community Finance

    Barriers to banking and financial services stifle enterprise and perpetuate poverty. Community finance can help those who have been excluded by mainstream banks.

  • A house in a field, with a storm cloud gathering overhead

    The Green New Deal

    In order to tackle the 'triple crunch' of climate change, economic crisis and oil depletion, we need a Green New Deal.

  • A cocoa farmer in Ghana stands in from of her plantation

    EU finance and sustainable development

    Towards a global finance system at the service of sustainable development

  • The High Line in New York City

    The Great Transition

    Finding ways to survive and thrive through financial crises, climate change and the peak and decline of global oil production.

Publications