The Shift Project

www.theshiftproject.org

Window of opportunity

The financial crisis that has gripped the economies of Europe for the past 3 years has opened up a breathing space in which to consider step change scenarios. Governments have shown themselves capable of injecting several thousands of billions of dollars (between 15% and 25% of global GDP, according to sources) to save the struggling global banking and financial infrastructure, which they believed crucial to their economies.

Since our planet –the source of all the resources that ‘make the machine work’– is even more crucial to the economy, it is now becoming acceptable to envisage step change scenarios of a size at least equivalent to that implemented to save global finance. Repeated crises have created the widespread feeling that the old recipes are working less and less effectively, which in turn is creating a major opportunity to suggest different ways forward.

 

The positioning of The Shift Project

The Shift Project wishes to promote a sustainable economy that is neither anti-capitalist in principle nor out of step with scientific fact. Although we share certain characteristics, we do not define ourselves as a scientific body or as a ‘traditional’ environmental NGO. Neither do we represent a particular strand of business.

Analysis document/working paper/article