Introduction

Shifting the global economy towards sustainability

Making Money Our Servant Rather Than Our Master

Right Livelihood

Social enterprise

Legal and Financial Issues

Turning the Global Economy Towards Sustainability

Identification of the core drivers of the global economy provides us with many clues as to how we can turn the system towards sustainability. The shift to sustainability could be described as fundamentally quite simple, in that there is growing agreement on what the key elements of such a shift would need to entail – though there remains disagreement about the scale of such changes that are necessary and the speed with which they should be introduced.

Here, we explore three macro-level models for achieving sustainability and a number of proposals for more incremental progress towards that goal.

These involve, in one form or another, removing the various distortions that, as we have seen, artificially lower the price paid by consumers for goods and services generated by large-scale industrial systems.  At the heart of most proposals, given the severity and urgency of the climate change crisis, lie mechanisms to put a price on carbon and to factor this into prices.

If fundamentally quite simple, the implementation of such changes could equally be described as difficult and complex, primarily because of the power of vested interests that potentially have much to lose in the process.

• Macro-level proposals
• Key proposed incremental reforms

“Fragile”
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