The business we want Archives | Rethinking Poverty

The business we want

The third pillar of a good society is ‘values-based markets’ or ‘the business we want’. Here we look at the potential of business, local, national and multinational, to help create a good society.

Climate action support for community business

By Power to Change

30 Mar 2022

Power to Change has been a major funder of community-led climate action over recent years, with as much as 25% of our funding supporting community business climate action, including our CORE and Next Generation energy programmes. Our mission...

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Transforming markets: why markets need a makeover

By Barry Knight

13 Jan 2022

If Martians landed on Earth tomorrow, they would be surprised by many things, but they would be shocked by an economic system that allows a few billionaires to play...

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Earth, wind and fire – the just transition

By Rebekah Diski

07 Jan 2022

This is an article from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. Last month, over 500 workers at the GKN car factory...

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Can community wealth building scale up?

By Caroline Hartnell

05 Aug 2021

Probably the key challenge for all those committed to progressive causes is how we scale up from the multitude of creative initiatives taking place locally. ‘At local level, we...

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Rethinking Poverty: what needs to change?

By Barry Knight

09 Jun 2021

We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without... Read More

The case for a four day week

By Anna Coote & Aidan Harper

28 Jan 2021

  Shorter working time should be at the heart of post-pandemic recovery. That’s the message of The Case for a Four Day Week, published by Polity this month, and written by... Read More

How workers can take on big finance and win

By Alice Martin and Annie Quick

19 Nov 2020

The impact of Covid-19 has been a powerful reminder of the leverage workers could collectively hold. Care workers, supermarket cashiers and couriers – usually dismissed as ​“unskilled” – have demonstrated... Read More

Light on the horizon: the story of the Eastbourne fishing quay

By Chris Williams

09 Sep 2020

Good things come to those who wait, or so that saying goes. Like so many small-scale fleets across the UK, fishers in Eastbourne have been squeezed to the point... Read More

Talking Points: April 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

06 May 2020

Life continues to be dominated by coronavirus. This month’s Talking Points focuses mainly on the all-important question of ‘what next?’ Has the market economy had its day? Will we... Read More

The business we want? Businesses respond to the COVID-19 crisis

By Gemma Lawrence

05 May 2020

We recently looked at the ‘explosion in citizen-led action in response to the coronavirus pandemic’. This week, we look at how some businesses have responded to the crisis. In... Read More

Talking Points: January 2020

By Rethinking Poverty

05 Feb 2020

On 23 January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the ‘Doomsday Clock’ has moved 20 seconds closer to midnight – the closest it has come to signalling a... Read More

Talking Points looks back on 2019

By Rethinking Poverty

08 Jan 2020

2019 has been a tumultuous year. While poverty and inequality continued their inexorable rise, the climate crisis finally erupted on to the national agenda. At the same time solutions... Read More

The society we want: next steps for Rethinking Poverty

By Caroline Hartnell and Barry Knight

07 Jan 2020

What is the society we want? There is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that capitalism is in crisis and we need a new way of doing things. ‘Read the... Read More

Talking Points: November 2019 

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Dec 2019

This month’s Talking Points focuses on the way our economy works: the role of business in society, Wales’s ground-breaking Foundational Economy model, and the primacy of the local, for... Read More

Talking Points: October 2019

By Rethinking Poverty

06 Nov 2019

This month’s Talking Points looks at a variety of ideas for improving people’s lives – from good architecture to kindness and a newly woven social fabric. We also look... Read More

Shifting the fundamentals

By Claire McCarthy

30 Oct 2019

The world of work is changing. The work of the Changing Work Centre and the Commission on Workers and Technology demonstrates that. For many that brings a sense of... Read More

How community businesses can help build an inclusive economy

22 Oct 2019

A new report from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Power to Change, Building an inclusive economy through community business, ‘explores how community businesses can support the... Read More

Our future depends on co-operation

By Ed Mayo

16 Oct 2019

It is a time of great distraction. Our plans to leave the European Union are burning, our government is fiddling with its leadership and, while it makes for news... Read More

Publicly owned energy for a Green New Deal

05 Sep 2019

Common Wealth have recently published the report Why We Need Publicly Owned Energy for a Green New Deal. Written by Cat Hobbs, founder and director of We Own It,... Read More

How CLES and Preston City Council ‘built community wealth in Preston’

24 Jul 2019

A new publication from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) ‘tells the story of community wealth building (CWB) in Preston’, reflecting on eight years of collaboration. CLES set... Read More

‘Time to Build an Inclusive Local Economy’ in Northern Ireland

12 Jun 2019

A new charter, Time to Build an Inclusive Local Economy ‘sets out key steps to harness the power of communities to create resilient local economies’. Developed by Development Trusts... Read More

Reimagining the Economy: The Social Justice Enterprise

By Aaron Tanaka

23 May 2019

Editors’ note: In this article, Aaron Tanaka, director of the Center for Economic Democracy and cofounder of the Boston Ujima Project, envisions a new approach for economic development that is... Read More

Community wealth building – what is it all about?

By Caroline Hartnell

30 Jan 2019

What is community wealth building? On the one hand, it seems like a new idea. The Labour Party established its Community wealth building Unit less than a year ago,... Read More

Creating a new narrative for a good society – lessons from Letchworth

By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL

26 Sep 2018

What would a good society look like and how can we achieve it? As described in yesterday’s blog, a small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City... Read More

What could planning contribute to a good society?

By Rethinking Poverty, Compass, TCPA, University of Hull, UCL

25 Sep 2018

A small group of people got together in Letchworth Garden City on 26 and 27 July. With UK politics in a worse state than perhaps ever before, the aim... Read More

What is the role of business in reducing poverty in the UK?

By Caroline Hartnell

13 May 2016

What is the role of business in reducing poverty? This was the question before a meeting hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty (APPG) and the Webb... Read More