Maybe the highlight of the year was the 3rd international scientific conference of the ECG movement “ECGIC 2024”. It took place in the north of the Netherlands and was co-hosted by two universities of applied sciences – NHL Stenden and Hanzehoogeschool Groningen -, the research institute Wetsus and ECG. More than 230 participants from 15 countries showed up and contributed to workshops and poster sessions. Eight keynote speakers formed the main structure of the program, and the highlight was a roundtable with representatives of five future-fit economic models. We invited them to engage into discussion and cooperation, according to the conference title “Converging future-fit economic models”.

On the table we welcomed Lebohang Liepollo Pheko (feminist decolonial economist), Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics), Paul Schenderling (Postgrowth theory), Jason Nardi (Social and SolidaryEconomy) and myself (ECG). Another highlight was the closing session with keynotes from Lebohang Liepollo Pheko and Rutger Hoeckstra (author of “Replacing GDP by 2030”), the mayor of Leeuwarden and the announcement of the conference’s manifesto.

→ ECGIC 2024 (conference website)

→ ECGIC 2024 (ECG’s website)

→ Videorecording roundtable

→ article in Leeuwarder Courant

→ Call for hosting ECGIC 2026

Some years ago, I was commissioned by a large environmental NGO to write a study on the EU’s global trade strategy based on a vision of the future of world trade. Due to unforseeable hurdles, the finished study was not published. I made the best out of the situation and found four new editors: as a scientific editor, the Cologne Business School, which included two co-authors: Prof. Brigitta Herrmann from CBS and Juergen Knirsch, retired trade expert from Greenpeace Germany.
Additionally, the study was peer-reviewed by two full professors of diverse countries. Net to the CBS, three reknown CSOs joined as co-editors: the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) and the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). In the Working Paper, we propose a “UNETZ” (United Nations Ethical Trade Zone) to succeed the WTO (World TradeOrganization) as the regulatory body for global trade.

The scientific Working Paper comprises 95 pages of pure text, 28 pages of references, two annexes, as well as a much appreciated foreword by
Manfred Nowak, ex Special Rapporteur on torture of the United Nations.

→ CBS Working Papers (the 1st in the list)

→ Presentations and EEB Policy Brief (8 pages)

→ article in idw (26 November 2024)

On July 1st a special anniversary was celebrated: the 10th year of existance of the Cooperative for the Common Good in Vienna. Although the attempt to found a bank was rejected by Austria’s Financial Market Supervision Authority in 2018, the project continued and counts today with 3.500 cooperatives. In 2021 and 2022 it achieved a positive financial result, the last two years were more difficult. The main activities are its academy on value-based money and finance, on the one hand; and the financial services on the other, that include Austria’s first Common Good Account, launched in cooperation with Umweltcenter Gunskirchen. You can join the cooperative as a member and open a Common Good Current Account, Good Business Account or Savings Account. Furthermore, our own crowdfunding platform is making possible major sustainable projects. We have financed now several 6-digit projects, based on a “common good evaluation”, and more projects are to come: Although not being a bank, we finance sustainable projects and business practices successfully.

→ Crowdfunding projects

→ Common Good Account

→ Become a cooperative

For those interested in the current monetary system and potential alterantives, a new platform on future-fit monetary theories and models has been created (in German). Based on a "money matrix", it gatheres diverse approaches from Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and Positive Money (Sovereign Money) to Regional Money, Solidary Money and "Money as a public good" which is my own approach. Long-term goal is the orgainzation of a citizens' assembly on democratizing the monetary system - which I propose in my book "Money. The New Rules of the Game".

→ Platform Geld der Zukunft (German)
 
→ Book "Money. The New Rules of the Game"

During the pandemic, I developed two online courses on "Geld und Demokratie" (10 units) on the future of the monetary and financial system and "Markt und Demokratie" (8 units) on the future of the global trade order. In their live versions, the videos were accompanied by live calls and community meetings. Now, with a bit of distance, the Cooperative for the Common Good, whose academy produced the courses together with the Pioneers of Change, makes the "videos only" available.

→ Online-Selbstlernkurse (German)
 

Kadir Has University and Prosumer Economy Society hosted together the 1st International Prosumer Economy Conference (IPEC 2024) from May 29 to 31. This pioneer event in Turkey gathered future-fit economic models such as the Economy for the Common Good, Degrowth, Doughnut Economics, Social Economy, Solidarity Economy, Prosumer Economy, Local Currencies, Social Ventures, and Post-Growth. Main organizer was Uygar Özesmi from the Prosumer Economy Society, main effect was a get-to-know amongst initiatives and actors in the wide field of tansformation towards sustainability.

→ IPEC 2024

Amazingly, I was invited five times to Switzerland this year: To the first congress on cooperatives organized by idée copérative, to the Federation of Swiss Youth Hostels, to a local chapter event in Basel, to the EcoSummerCamp organized by Jesuits in Edlibach and to the III World Ethic Forum in Pontresina. At the latter, I started a project “TAPAS gallery” that will aim at assembling future-fit economic models in an easily understandable overview (similar to Exploring Economics for heterodox economic theories). Hopefully, the world will learn more from this initiative.

→ article in Engadiner Post (3 September 2024)

On the joint invitation of Bayerisches Bildungswerk (DE) and Instituto DEL (BR) I travelled for two weeks to diverse cities in Brazil in order to disseminate the ECG model and its practical instruments. The activities included two workshops, a public lecture (‘palestra magna’), a lecture to the management committee of the nationwide business association SEBRAE as well as networking meetings in Florianópolis, Biguaçu and Brasília, including with Fernando Zamban from the Department on Solidary Economy in the Ministry of Labour. During my stay, president Lula travelled to Montevideo to conclude the EU - Mercosur Free Trade Agreement (against heavy resistance in the EU); and the Congress in Brasília adopted the country’s first Law on Solidary Economy on November 26th. Together with Instituto DEL, green destinations and SEBRAE, we developed a pilot project for companies issuing a Common Good Balance Sheets and start-ups using the ECOnGOOD Business Canvas, including the training of ECG consultants and auditors. Let’s see if these ambitious goals can be achieved.

→ anouncement from Instituto DEL

ECG is coming up in Japan. The national association became a member of the International ECG Federation early this year. In July, I gave a first online talk at Osaka University. For February 2025, a longer visit in person is scheduled (Japan II). For the end of 2024, a second invitation arrived from Nagasaki University, concretely the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA). I delivered a keynote at a conference of the Research Center for Global Risk on the Economy for the Comomon Good - as a solution to the current polycrisis. Linked to this event, I met representatives of the peace movement that received the Nobel Prize for Peace this year. We organized a structured discussion on Kant’s vision of “perpetual peace” and an economy that supports a shift from structural competition (actually “counter-petition”) to structural cooperation. Furthermore, I met students from Globis University who already study the ECG in depth, I gave a double interview with Kazuko Hikawa, vice director of RECNA, to Kyodo News, and finally I was part of a monthly assembly of the members of the Japanese ECG association. An obligatory side event was a visit in the Atomic Bomb Museum and the “hypocenter” which is the location where the fatal bomb exploded 500 meters above the ground.

→ Event of Research Center for Global Risk (Nagasaki University)

After a disc slip that kept me away from dancing for six months, thanks to deacceleration, osteopathic treatment and physiotherapeutic exercises I recovered completely, feeling now even better than before. I carefully picked up all my dance activities, and this is a first fruit from Sepember this year:

→ Spontaneous performance with Lorena Castro (5 min., German)

→ More info on the festival (German)

Studio discussion

→ Puls24 Beide Seiten Live with “Investment Punk” Gerald Hörhan (11 December 2024)

Opinion pieces

→ Der Standard: “Wieviel Geld ist genug? Wir müssen über Obergrenzen reden” (11 July 2024)
→ Kurier: "Gebeutelte Staatsfinanzen: Mut zum Tabubruch!" (28 December 2024)

Interviews

→ Deutschlandfunk: “Worum geht es in der Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie” (12 January 2024)
→ IPU Berlin: "Eröffnung des Zentrums für Humanistische Ethik" (8 February 2024)
→ Business for Humanity "Interview by Otti Vogt and Antoinette Weibel" (19 April 2024)
→ Globetrotter "Episode 19. GWÖ mit Christian Felber und Antje von Dewitz" (April 2024)
→ NZZ "Double Interview with historian Hilmar Gernet" (20 October 2024)

Articles

→Egg News: “Egger Wirtschaftsgespräche 2024” (21 May 2024)
→Oberpfalz-Echo: “30 Jahre OTH Amberg-Weiden" (10 November 2024)

After a 5 years leave from writing new books, my number 17 (13 as a single author,
1 co-authored, 3 as an editor) is upcoming. As a lesson learnt from the C19 pandemic,
I make a case for the strengthening fundamental rights = human rights in future crisis.
After a thorough and holistic analysis of the unexpectedly authoritarian crisis management, I make a series of concrete proposals how a society can avoid division and hold together in the progressing polycrisis. The suggestions range from more democracy to a new ethics of discourse and from limiting inequality to a new approach to science. The book will be published in German only, for the time being.

→ Lob der Grundrechte (German)